Spaz's Type-S: Car Bro Bonding and Memory Building in the Midwest

A Man and His Masterpiece

Hello readers and welcome back to Lexi.Laron where I give you some of the best modified car content on the web.

In this addition I'm going to talk about my last weekend here in Wisconsin and what I did on one splendid Saturday with my friend, Zack.

For those of you who don't know, Zack or "Spaz," he is a huge contributor to the modified Honda community.  

He etched a name for himself after becoming recognized by Honda Tuning for his large amount of DIY's on ClubRSX and to this day he continues to make waves.  For example, he has already secured multiple sponsorship deals from such reputable companies as Hybrid Racing and has recently gotten Top1 Motors' support.

Type-Spaz's Satin Silver Metallic RSX Type-S on the Cover of Honda Tuning Magazine

It all started after a long night of playing Gran Turismo 6.  I woke up at 12:00 PM, tired as hell, picked up my phone, read through some Facebook, checked out some Instagram, and got the message from Zack to come over for one last time before I go home.  What better way to spend my last weekend here than in a garage, am I right?  (Car people will understand)

I packed up a box of free engine parts that I needed to get rid of before moving back to PA:

Got in my whip:

And I rolled up in the crib to see some ceramic coated hot-side turbo piping and a slew of other tools:

This is Zack's engine bay:

When your engine bay looks this good, it's not too hard to understand why Spaz is such a well-known name in the RSX and Honda community.  And with the K24A2 Acura TSX engine adorned in Hybrid Racing goodies with slews of custom-fabbed parts all placed beautifully into a meticulously well-kept shaved and tucked engine bay, it's hard to imagine how this setup can get any better, right?

Well, not exactly.  Throw in a Precision 6262 journal bearing turbo, Full Race sidewinder turbo kit, ceramic coated hot side piping and a hot-side turbo housing, and a custom-painted cold-side turbo housing, and you've got yourself a serious beauty on your hands.  Zack mocked it up to show me the new look he was going for.  Can't wait until she's running again Spaz!!!

After gawking at his setup for like two minutes like I always do when I see Zack's car, it was time to get down to business.  And so we put a list together of stuff that needed to be finished on the car and got to work.

First up on the list was a pesky oil leak.  Exhibit A:

This Christmas Tree of janky fittings is Zack's way of sending pressure signals from the AEM sensor and the OEM sensor and for feeding the turbo via the turbo feed line.

If you take a look at the next picture, you'll see where the leak was found:

Since the engineer is always the gerbil, wriggling away to quickly and efficiently work on extremely detailed tasks which carry questionable significance, I decided it would be a good idea to volunteer to fix this thing.

And for all fairness, I helped make this monstrosity in the first place, so I figured I'd try to fix it and make amends with my ghetto ways.  So first I laid out all of the brass fittings:

And while I did that, Zack got to work trimming his new throttle cable to further tuck his bay:

I then grabbed me some thread sealant and clamped the first tee down into a vice:

I wanted to recreate the old setup, just this time I didn't want it to leak.  So what that meant in my head was that I could put a tight layer of thread sealant on the threads of each fitting, tighten the fittings as much as reasonably possible, since they're cheap, and then tighten the sensors to a reasonable extent since they're more expensive than fittings.

After assembling the little piece shown above I placed the elbow on top of the tee and double checked all of my threads before I wrapped them with tape.  And then I tightened the elbow down as much as possible using the vice:

Then I put a NIPPLE on the ELBOW using the vice....NIPPLE

Then I put this crap together:

And found out that the AEM sensor wouldn't fit, so I would have to grind down the back side of the tee:

Here's the AEM unit screwing in:

And here's my little Christmas Tree:

Zack went and bought a sandwich plate shortly after.  HAHAH.  I can't blame him.  

Here he is being a stud:

Yet the wild Spaz can be found often in his natural habitat looking apparently idle, yet his looks are deceiving.  At all moments, he is pondering, thinking of the next thing to modify on his car.  Like a wild beast when he finds a problem or when he gets an itch on his face, he RUNS to action, fixing whatever needs to be fixed, building whatever needs to be built, modifying it all!  MODIFY ALL THE THINGS!

And since we now know the wild Spaz's true nature, we shouldn't be surprised that the wild Spaz was not just sitting idle, but was fixing a leak for his catch can!  And in the process he even managed to make his car look better by tucking the line under his Hybrid Racing Edition Innovate Motor Mounts!  STUDLY if you ask me ;)

When I first met Zack he took me for a ride in his RSX...a very torque-steery, smile-producing, skin-tingling, muscle-car-whooping ride.  It was at that moment that Zack first explained to me that his downpipe would not fit past his swaybar...and so he had to remove it.  So we had to fix that, now didn't we?

And after getting the dump tube mocked up, Zack and I clamped it onto the exhaust:

Then we tried to fit in the O2 sensors.

However, we had to cut off a pesky exhaust hanger to make the primary sensor fit.  So, we broke out the cutoff wheel:

Cool picture of cut off exhaust hanger:

Now, let's shift focus to my car, shall we?  When I bought my Type-S it came with a trailer hitch on the back of it..You may be able to see it here:

It was so ugly and useless that Zack let me pull my car in his garage to cut that thing off!

With the two RSX's in the garage I got to work-- propping Arcie up in the air.

Then I strapped on some goggles, gave the double Spaz-Approved and hopped under the car!

Voila!!!  It's off!

________________________________________________________________________

This experience has meant so much to me.  Not just working on our cars in the garage this one time, but being in Wisconsin with great people like Zack.

And not just Zack, but all of the amazing people whom I first met up with when I came out here.  People like Mike of Secret Society and people like Zack are extremely important in the car community.  However people like this aren't just important as car enthusiasts, they're important as friends.  And guys, don't think I'll ever forget how hospitable and graceful you all were.

Until then, hopefully I can be back out to the Midwest to chill with my Midwest friends.  I plan on coming back out for some of the great tracks out here and maybe even for Import Atlanta.  Whatever I come back out here for, I'm sure that there will always be good friends to meet me.  And that's all that matters.

Wisconsin Update: Motor Swaps, Friends, New Parts, and Controversy

So I've had a hell of a weekend.  On Friday I came home to an RBB cylinder head from a TSX and was planning to go to Rockford, Illinois to help Mike of Secret Society with pulling the B18C, Type-R Motor from his Civic seen below:

However, with the terrible Wisconsin weather, I had to abort the mission because even walking in my gym parking lot was treacherous.  I could only imagine what driving with summer tires would be like.  Sorry Mike!

Yet with all of the difficulties I still have been keeping in touch with Mike and he has kept me in the loop for this project.  The plan was initially to rebuild his B18C.  Yet, after finding a fully built motor, Mike decided to trade the B18C with cash on top and make a clean getaway.

Pulling the motor out, everything went smoothly and within a short period of time the motor was out of the chassis and on a stand, leaving Mike with an empty engine bay.

What kind of power will be residing between the wheels of the FWD beast next?

Although most of this process went smooth, the inspection of the engine mounts proved that nothing is perfect.  

Racing puts a large amount of stress on a car and this is why when you buy aftermarket parts you should always buy quality ones.  Especially when something is holding your engine.

The sad thing is that Mike did buy quality parts.  Innovative Motor Mounts are some of the best known motor mounts in the game!  Yet, with only a couple of races on this Civic, the mounts looked destroyed.  Check this out:

Supposedly Mike will be picking up his new engine on Monday and with any luck I'll have an update to post on here for you guys...

With me at home and Mike on the move with his motor swap I had to find something to do for myself on Friday.  I was so bored and there was no way that I was going to drive anywhere far for anything given the weather.  So, I hit up my buddy Zack and his girlfriend Cailyn.

These guys have been great to me.  They've always come through when I've been lonely around here and have never failed to show me a good time.  Good friends close by are a must when you're far away from home and feeling sad.  I recommend this treatment for anyone.  Thanks guys!

We saw The Lone Survivor with Mark Wahlberg, grabbed some wings, and headed back to Zack's crib for some Call of Duty and Gran Turismo 5.  And after I got done shredding some virtual rubber with my bro and his girl, I decided to head home in my Type-S.  However, things got pretty bad after I had an accident.

The event was incredibly stressful and I am glad that everyone is safe now.  The happenings at least made for good stories with my co-workers from my job when we hit up the Wisconsin Badger's Hockey Game.  The Badgers came out on top, and my buddy, Bobby and I went back to our home in Janesville for a relaxing time watching TV.

Before I went to sleep I posted some pictures of my RBB Cylinder Head to my Facebook page where I keep an album of my engine build for Project DC5.  I will also be including this in the "Engine Building for Dummies" Series that I host on this blog-- so be patient-- you can see the details too ;).

I gotta say, this build has been taking an extremely long time and I'm still not sure I'll even get it done given the cost of everything and the impatience of the average young adult.  I mean, I see my friends getting new wheels, sweet body kits, slicks, superchargers, and I'm taking my time with this slow build that really won't even make a lot of power all for the sake of learning.  It's frustrating.

It's just that when I see the progress I've made and the things I've learned, it makes me think it's all worth it again.  When I blog and I get a bunch of views because of my stories it really inspires me.  When people reach out to me for information and I can teach them, I feel extremely fulfilled.  And when I can learn, it feels like I am really immersing myself in my true passion-- cars.

Given all of those things, please expect more from me in the future.  I know that this blog can sometimes fall behind, but it's all of you faithful readers that really make me all the more motivated in a time of dire prospects.

Lexi.Laron signing out, and wishing you all a great day or night wherever you are.  Peace!