the acclude's face lift 98-00 coupe front swap and paint

[98acclude]

I've never actually done one of these before so Im not sure how to go about this. lol alright well I'll tell you guys what Im doing and then I'll start posting progress shots as I go! im currently in auto body school and I work full time at a local auto body shop and we now get to work on our own cars in class!

Alright what Im trying to accomplish by the end of school is Im swapping my front end for the 98-00 coupe front with a type r style grill and OE style lip, ek9/bb6 sidemarkers, 01-02 rocker moldings, roof spoiler and a lip spoiler. Im ditching my gold rear emblem for another chrome one and I want to integrate the vtec emblem in the grill. Im also tryin my hand at some custom work and Im gonna attempt to go for a boser hood! I've only seen us do it once and once or twice on photoshop... after that's all said and done it will have all the dents n things repaired and full paint!... so it's going to be interesting... stay tuned! anyway if you have any questions about anything feel free to ask and I can take better pictures of whatever you want me to, like I said I've never done a build thread or anything before so I dunno what Im doing! haha

now some progress pics of what's going on:

Clean up before heading to the shop

Made it to the shop

Now for the ugly and what needs fixed... poor car... you used to be kinda pretty... lol

(alright real quick question... has anyone else with a sedan had a hell of a time with this damn inner tail light filling with water? I've replaced this housing twice... Im about to again this time but does this just happen due to ****ty design with the whole key hole in the tail light?)

with love from the ex gf

alright enough bad... lets move on to progress:

This is the new door getting taped up to be jammed

inside painted

testfitting the coupe bumper... I dont have pics or good pics but I also deleted the license plate bracket tabs.. you may notice them in these

anyway... that's all I have for now! I'll try to update as often as I can! and Im no photographer so if you need better reference pictures of anything just let me know and I'll snap pics when Im in class! thanx for checkin out the build and progress! hopefully it turns out well but we'll find out!

 

[Enne]

Lookin' good!

 

[capsidx]

Yeeaaaaa, Im going to need info on those wheels and tires. Now. IMMEDIATELY, NOW!!! lol

 

[KONG]

(alright real quick question... has anyone else with a sedan had a hell of a time with this damn inner tail light filling with water? I've replaced this housing twice... Im about to again this time but does this just happen due to ****ty design with the whole key hole in the tail light?)

I have the same aftermarket tail lights, I don't have a problem with water getting in them.

Looking forward to seeing your car finished.

 

[Eric]

Looking good off to a good start

 

[DarkSideAccord]

i had issues with those tails before, but it doesn't rain much in socal.. i still have the inner pieces if u want them haha... just pay for shipping

looking forward to how your project comes out

 

[98acclude]

Yeeaaaaa, Im going to need info on those wheels and tires. Now. IMMEDIATELY, NOW!!! lol

they arent anything super special... they are xxr 531 17x8.5 +20 4x114.3 platinum finish! the tires are ****ty but they are getting replaced... they are 215 40 17... Im gonna go with some nittos when it gets done here.

i had issues with those tails before, but it doesn't rain much in socal.. i still have the inner pieces if u want them haha... just pay for shipping

looking forward to how your project comes out

I would've taken you up on that if I hadnt already bought another inner set!

but thank you guys for the support! I got some new progress pics to add! I hope you guys enjoy..

alright before I get started Im gonna give a little info on this hood... I got the idea when I saw a couple pics floating around on here a while back. One picture of it acutally done on a white 01-02 coupe (poor bumper fitment but I'll get into that in a bit) and one picture that was photshopped of a silver coupe with the headlight areas and the middle filled in. So I have 2 reference pictures and an idea... this is all experimental with help from my teacher who has been and still does autobody today for the past 30 years but I think it's going to turn out pretty nice. Im try to make everything look as factory done as possilbe, if that makes since... Im not only paying attention the the top where you can see but Im addressing the underside of the hood. If you are going threw this much trouble then why not try to build it to last? Im new to welding but I've learned everything else I know about vehicles on this car over the years I've owned it.

Anyway back to the poor bumper fitment, because mine I feel like sags a bit in the front middle. Some one made a comment about that on that thread with the white 01-02 coupe boser style hood about how the bumper fit poorly.. that leads me to believe that it may be a front end swap on a sedan rather than a coupe. While doing this swap I learned that not only do the bumper and hood need to match but you also need the upper grill bumper bracket thing from the coupe as well because the coupe bumper will not mount up with the sedan upper bumper grill backet thing, they are different. and I mean you can put the bumper on fine without that bracket but it causes the front middle to sag because there is nothing for the top of the bumper and the grill the mount to, only the tabs under the headlights and the bolts in the fenders hold the bumper on without that piece. so I suggest anyone that does the coupe front end swap also invest in the upper bumper grill bracket also to have proper fitment... sorry I had to throw that in there..

anyway lets get to some pictures shall we?

the pieces Im using are pieces I cut out of 2 other hoods... the center section is the side of a hyundai hood and the sides are out of another hyundai hood that we had laying around.

We started with the center section (this was actually the easiest of the pieces to get fitted well and welded up!

after getting the center welded in and grinded down, we test fitted it back on the car and Im decided how I wanted the spot to run over the headlights to look.

here's pics of that side tacked on and test fitted to make sure it doesnt smash the headlight everytime it closes.. it needs to sit just ever so slightly above so you dont tear up the headlights opening and closing the hood.

Here we started addressing the underside of the hood.. we are fabbing the underside of the panels around the headlights, because hoods are normally comprised of 2 panels and the upper panel is rolled over top of the bottom one and then is usually welded and a seam sealer is added for rust prevention n such... so this is basically a few pics of that going down. just the fabbing of the piece and then sealing it all up. I would've taken more pictures but I get sucked into what Im doing and forget to take pictures of everything. lol

the tape is used to boarder where I want the sealer, that way after you apply it, you can smooth it out and let it tack up a bit then pull the tape and you'll have a nice uniform sealed spot rather than a bunch of crap all over the place.

Now Im letting the sealer dry over night so when I go in tomorrow I can finish welding up the top and then get to body work... unfortunately the damn hood I got for this project is full of hail dents which I couldnt see when I picked it up cause it was dirty and the paint is faded but I will address those when I get the rest of this custom stuff out of the way! if there is anything you want to know that I didnt mention or dont have pictures of just ask and I'll try my best to explain and get a reference picture if you need! thanx for looking there is more to come!

 

[Mikey]

Lookin good! Check your PMs, we’ll have to kick it some time and I can give you a hand with some of this. I’ve not done it either but an extra set of hands doesn’t hurt and plus you’re doing side markers and I need to see/experience that so I can mine, lol.

 

[98acclude]

Lookin good! Check your PMs, we’ll have to kick it some time and I can give you a hand with some of this. I’ve not done it either but an extra set of hands doesn’t hurt and plus you’re doing side markers and I need to see/experience that so I can mine, lol. ��

back at you my dude! and I appreciate it!

 

[Rusty Accord]

Now that is looking good.
I thought I read in 1 of the forums on here about the coupe nose having a spacer/filler block on the topside of the bumper to lift it up. Maybe it was a bracket. I'm not sure, but it was something like that.
I do like the shaved square block of what would be the license plate (I still haven't figured out what it's for since the plate attaches to a bracket). That little mod really cleans up the nose of the car.