Lilith the Legend - twotone's Progress Thread!

[twotone_ra64]

Time to finally get a dedicated thread going for all that I've done to my Legend GS thusfar!

This was not long after I brought her home, put some new tires on the stock GS wheels and gave her the first wash she's had in probably years. If only the paint actually looked that good...



Among the first few orders of business was getting the VERY corroded brakes replaced. I took this opportunity to get the RL caliper bracket and rotor upgrade in there, as well as some Technafit steel braided brake lines all-around.







It's a tight fit under stock GS wheels!



I figured it was also a good time to give the car a once-over in terms of all the exterior bulbs, and did a fun yellow high-beam mod while replacing all the headlamp bulbs!



At this point, the car was feeling pretty solid, and it was a nice comfy cruiser for my 80-mile round trip commute.



But of course, any good daily needs a bangin' stereo, so I upgraded to an Alpine iLX-W650 head unit, Alpine S-S65C component 6-1/2" front speakers with 1" tweeters, Alpine S-S69 coaxial 6x9" rear speakers, bypassed the factory Bose amp and put Kilmat noise damper where applicable.











Thankfully, the OEM Bose speaker cups are the perfect size for the 6-1/2" speakers. A few pounds worth of Kilmat on only the bottom half of the front doors made ALL the difference for reducing road noise and increasing audio clarity!





For the tweeters, I took a hole saw to the door upper trim (which hurt, but was well worth it for perfect tweeter placement). IMHO they don't look too out of place. The component speakers came with their own crossovers, too.



The rear deck also received Kilmat, and I spray-dyed the speaker and tweeter covers with Duplicolor Vinyl & Fabric matte black, as they were pretty sun faded.







For a quality-of-life upgrade, I got a new key fob system from a Facebook group member and swiftly installed it, including the trunk popper feature! Paired up nicely with a new OEM Acura key, too.





But, to really make the trunk popper do its thing, GreekPower gave me a note on his trunk gas spring mod, so instead of one 190lbs strut, I got two smaller 80lbs gas springs from LiftSupportDepot, part # SE925P80S10-W, and mounted those to the trunk with the 10mm ball studs from aforementioned supplier. Although not pictured below, I did put the trunk springs back in.





Parked up at work. Old vs. New! They just don't make 'em like they used to...



After a few short weeks, I really fell in love with my new daily, so I felt she deserved some new shoes. Found someone local who was selling a set of 17x7" +45 Enkei PF05 wrapped in 225/45R17 Conti ExtremeContact DWS06 tires.





Mounted up with proper tuner-style lug nuts and hub centering rings, they look stunning!





That's it for now folks, it's pretty late for me at the time of this writing, so I'll make another post soon with all the progress you haven't seen yet!

[twotone_ra64]

OK, here's next round of recent updates!

Having been so confident with the car's performance, I decided to get myself out to Mexico and see what the 'ole girl could do. I got upwards of 130mph, which I was thrilled about, but my LH front wheel liner was much less thrilled about this level of speed, which tore out of its mounting tab in the undertray and ground itself against the wheel.

I promptly sourced a replacement for that.



While I was in there, I got a box of OEM parts to replace the windshield washer pump and its related seals, and changed out the diff oil with some Valvoline 80w90. That plastic-wrapped doohickey is important, I'll get to it later.







A brand new washer reservoir cap really was the cherry on top.





While replacing the washer lines under the hood, the check valve completely disintegrated in my fingers. A common Toyota washer check valve was put in its place. Don't worry, putting a Toyota part in a Honda has not caused it to spontaneously combust.



Much better!



I was also keen on getting a nice exhaust note from the C32A1, so I sourced a used Str?mung muffler & B-pipe from a KA9 owner. In terms of size and weight, the difference from the stock piece was amazing to see! I was also amazed to see the stock muffler utilize a Helmholtz resonance chamber!





Looks and sounds good too! No drone while cruising, and just a tiny bit more noise to help me hear what's going on.



Now for that doohickey... a spoiler! Measured up five times, and cut (drilled) once through the trunk to get it spot-on. I used blue tape to make sure that I marked the drill points precisely where I wanted them, or make any changes if I got something wrong or off-center.



Looks damn good!





I also received the antenna relay with the spoiler, which was an easy install. Sadly, with the gas struts to help the trunk pop all the way up, the trunk still smacks the antenna because it rises so quickly.



Well, at this point I was really piling on the miles. I'd put nearly 8,000 miles on her in just a few short months from my long commute, trips to LA, and trips to visit my girlfriend in Santa Rosa. With what was possibly the original radiator still in the car, I experienced the car overheating while heading south to LA. Now, I knew the SHG issue wasn't possible here as the PO had replaced the head gaskets to fix a blown head gasket just before I bought the car, so I was a bit worried as to how I was going to get myself home. A parts store thermostat and refill with distilled water was the band-aid fix while parked up at a truck stop. I figured the distilled water would be better to use in the meanwhile as it has a higher specific heat capacity than ethylene glycol-based coolant. And that did the trick!



Once back home, I got a new Denso radiator and got it swapped out in 4 hours, with a new radiator cap to boot.









While I was in there, I noticed the lower alternator bolt was loose!! I was wondering why I would occasionally get belt squeak. I also replaced all the accessory belts too.



Finally, swapped out the fuel filter because maintenance things.



While bleeding the coolant with the new radiator, I couldn't get the idle to stop pulsing as the car warmed up. Many FB group members suggested tightening down the valve internally on the Fast Idle Valve, and that's exactly what I did! I didn't bottom it out on the adjustment, only tightening it enough to get the pulsing to stop while allowing me to have a higher idle during warmup.



Without spending much money, I wanted to improve the handling of the Legend without compromising comfort. I found that Addco rear sway bars were still available for our cars, so I ordered it and found that I needed longer bolts to mount the bar to the endlinks. The hardware that Addco provides is... subpar, at best.



After contacting a few local machine shops who were unwilling to produce such a small quantity of parts, I decided to get bolts and sleeves from McMaster that matched the sizing of the stock bolts, while providing the length needed to mount the thicker Addco bar. The sleeves' ID matched the OD of the unthreaded shank of the bolts, so the sleeves are epoxied in place.



And voila!





Definitely the best bang-for-buck upgrade, it improved turn-in and reduced overall body roll!



Now, the car was pretty well sorted out, but everyday I was embraced by the warm glow of the check engine light... which came back to be a code 53 for the RH knock sensor. I wasn't happy about that since the intake manifold has to come off to do the job, but I sucked it up and got to work, with two new OE NTK knock sensors and new intake manifold gaskets in hand.



OK, manifold off, that was easy!



But... some critters left a home in the Vee of the motor!! Yuck.



The left knock sensor didn't put up a fight...



...but the right one did. And that's probably why the CEL was on.







It was quite the task getting the broken stub of knock sensor out of the block, since the intake ports sit directly above the knock sensor's threaded boss, making it VERY difficult to get a drill bit, extractor and thread tap in there. But, I got it done and even had to make a custom short-throw thread tap to make sure it would fit in the space under the intake port. :heh:









Lesson learned, do NOT buy and install the cheapest knock sensors from eBay before selling your car!!



With the threads cleaned and repaired, I put the new knock sensors in with anti-seize paste to make sure that they would not put up fights with me in the near future.



Much better.



That solved my CEL and certainly made the car feel like it ran smoother.

Stay tuned for the next update because there is still more!

[Legend320]

It's been a minute since I've been on here and I enjoyed reading your post.
While you were replacing the knock sensor you should of cleaned out the EGR tube and valve.
Looking forward to more updates.

[94LegendaryAcuraGS]

Nice work on the GS there sir! I don't know how you were able to find that rear Addco bar as I did a LOT of checking last December for one. However I was able to score a BNIB front and rear bar set from a member who happened to find them when doing some inventory. I look forward to putting them on my "in progress" coupe build.

[lgnd4u2nv]

nice work!

[twotone_ra64]

It's been a minute since I've been on here and I enjoyed reading your post.
While you were replacing the knock sensor you should of cleaned out the EGR tube and valve.
Looking forward to more updates.

Thanks!! Glad you enjoyed the read. The PO cleaned out the EGR ports during the HG replacement, and it still looked clear when I inspected the intake after pulling. Will give it another look-see at 200k miles (60k from the HG job).

Nice work on the GS there sir! I don't know how you were able to find that rear Addco bar as I did a LOT of checking last December for one. However I was able to score a BNIB front and rear bar set from a member who happened to find them when doing some inventory. I look forward to putting them on my "in progress" coupe build.

I just emailed them directly after discovering what the part number for the bar was, and they were willing to bend one up for me and sent it out for a mere $200. Awesome you were able to find some BNIB units!

nice work!

Thank you!

[GHOST ACKNUP]

pleasantly a great read indeed. keep posting

[twotone_ra64]

Continuing on! This is the last round to bring us up to present time.

Months of daily driving the car without a proper detail led me to getting the remaining good clear coat looking as shiny as possible, and treating the interior leathers.



The front seats are kinda funky-looking as the owner previous to the PO had treated and covered them to keep the upholstery front drying out. However, years of the car sitting led to the plastic film disintegrating and sticking to the leather. I tried using a fabric steamer to get as much of it off as I could, but there was still a lot to remove. I took it to my local upholstery shop and he used cosmoline remover and a microfiber towel to safely remove the remaining bits without damaging the leather! So I'll have to buy some more of my own to finish that.







In August, I was out of town for a couple weeks and came back home to a crunched fender... one of our housemates was leaving in a rush and a steel GMC Yukon bumper kissed thin Nippon steel. Nippon steel lost the battle.



I was able to pull the panel off and the apron was thankfully completely umdamaged.





I've been driving the car in this condition since then, and I haven't been able to locate a pristine black fender. Someone local to me is parting out their black GS sedan soon, so I called dibs on some parts and a few extras as well.

With a black-on-black car, the remaining hot August/September summer heat was making the interior quite the oven (thank goodness for cold, working A/C though!), so I made the call to get the windows tinted. I don't care for a crazy dark black-out tint, as that would also affect my night visibility too, so I went for a quality ceramic tint; XPEL Prime XR 70% on the front side windows, and XPEL Prime XR 20% on all the rear glass.





Looks snazzy!



So now we're all caught up! Just need to change the oil this weekend, and I found that I have a slight valve cover gasket leak. VC gasket kit is ordered and on its way. I'll make another post when the fender is procured and installed, because I have some special parts to go in when the front bumper comes off for fender install. Stay tuned!

[GreekPower]

Oh hey I know this car lol

[twotone_ra64]

Originally Posted by GreekPower

Oh hey I know this car lol

I would hope you did!! Hahah, good to see you on the forums.