[Stephen83]

Hi fellow DA.net members! The time has come for me to consolidate the mods I'm doing on my car than to have it spread out in different threads. It will make it much easier for people searching for things they want to do on their car but want to see it on someone else's.

The theme I'm going for is the JDM Inspire look for the exterior. There will be aftermarket mods but will be at a minimum and as low profile as possible. They would be in my opinion give the car a clean look. I am not going to RICE out my car. I think this classy looking car would look hideous if subjected to rice.

 

[Stephen83]

Due to the recent turn of events, my car was involved in an accident where I was sandwitched between 2 cars, front and rear as I was exiting the freeway. I was not hurt thankfully and the highway patrol wrote a report of the hit and run of the guy behind me. My insurrance took care of it and even waived the deductable of $1,000. I'm so thankful for that.

Due to this situation, this seemingly bad experience halped me advance the JDM conversion. I had the shop change both my bumepers to V6 with fog lights and put on the Inspire lower trunk and lights. The bumper change was free since there was not much price difference anyways so they told me not to worry abuot it. The only thing that I woul have to pay for is the fog light and switch they ordered and the labor for both putting on the fogs and Inspire trunk and wiring them. The Inspire trunk had no bulbs nor was cut out so they did that too.

I had held off my LS430 retro so I had extra stock headlights and brought them in as they said they'll credit me for $240 for each headlight. Turned out at the end the fogs, labor for the fogs and Inspire trunk canceled out. So I walked away without paying a cent. Praise God for that! He turned a bad situation into a good one, a free upgrade from a horrible accident. The bill to the insurrance company from the shop was $9,8xx!! I realized almost half my car's worth was in fixing it.

Bistagne Brother's in Glendate did a marvelous job. They are honnest and do excellent work. I recommend them. They were willing to give me updates and allow me to see the progress when I show up every few days. It took abuot 3 weeks but they took their time and did things right. All OEM parts. They're a family owned business for 3 generations that started in 1946. They restore classic cars and most of their work are on high end luxury cars so their clientele are meticulous to detail. They do first rate work. Bob Bistane took care of me all the way. He actually called back on Friday at 7:17pm (they close at 5pm) after I picked up the car and told me he was crunching numbers for me and I don't owe him anything for all the extra work that they did cuz I brought in the headlights. That kind of honesty and dedication just blew me away coming from a body shop.

 

[Stephen83]

Now I only need the Asian headlights with clear corners and the signal mirrors to finish the exterior JDM look. Don't worry about the right hand drive from the headlights. I'm planning on either sending them to Caesar at Lightwerkz to retrofit the LS430's or find a quality local retrofiter in SoCal(not able to find any yet). As for the signal mirrors I'll swap out the actual mirror from the housing so the view would be correct for left had drive.

Once I get my Inspire spoiler from Asian back after the factory is done replicating it, I'll put it on. I got the "Inspire" emblem from Tokyo today and I'll put that on once I finish all the above mentioned mods.

I'm also interested in getting the front lip of the Modulo kit. It is growning on me. I'll keep the fog light area black like the HFP kit for the coupe's. The rear I may go for the Mugen. Side skirts I don't know yet. I'm waiting on a cleaner looking side skirt and rear lip to come out.

 

[tono]

Congrats
If any one is interested in the JDM mirrors, headlight or leather shift knob our Accords come with them as stock. For the side mirrors ours are left hand steering so no need for any mods on them to fit the US ones.
If any one is interested plz PM.

 

[Stephen83]

Thanks for offering the help tono. Im sure more people will be looking for non-USDM parts and you will be a good resource.

Yesterday I got went to the warehouse to test fit the shipment of FRP spoilers that came and and took some pics. I couldn't do it for the past week since my car was being finished up.

On a side note, a pleasant suprise:
As one of the guys were finishing taking pictures, 2 guys walked over from another building in the same business park with DC Sports polo shirts came up to me and asked if I want to offer my car for exhaust R&D as well as intake and strut bars! I was shocked! hahaha. SEMA is gona start so next week they'll have time to put my car up on the lift and start fabricating an exhaust system! Hey, it's not everyday that DC Sports or any manufacturer walk up and ask you if they can give your a free exhaust, intake and strut bars!:banana::banana::banana:

 

[craziexstylez]

Looking good stephen.... If only I have the patient for you to finish the
project, I would love to be part of the group buy.. But I was too impatient for that. My rear end was missing something and I can't stand the nake look without a spoiler.. I wish I coulda wait a little more longer... Oh well..

 

[argus]

Man, you're one lucky guy!! Congrats though!

 

[Honda247]

That looks sick. Nice job. Glad to see you not hurt.

 

[DrumZ53]

Nice...sorry your car got hit

 

[Vixen89]

That's awesome especially how you made it from a wreck to the Inspire!! Very lucky and you're alive too! ^^

More more! We wanna see the first done Inspire in America!

 

[Rubberman]

Looking good keep up the good work!

 

[Stephen83]

I've decided to put Retrosolution's 35W 4300k HID's in my fogs after I noticed how wide the beam pattern the fog light projected. It is amazing that it compares well against an actual Lexus LS430. I drove behind one and admired how my fog lights are brighter than the LS430's headlights. My foglight's width match as well. There were 5 lanes available and both cars lit up both ways of the 210 freeway so I can't judge how far my lights can really go. I has a colorful cutoff as well. The foglight itself is naturally tilted, I'm guessing to not blind oncoming drivers. I've tried leveling it at many locations in my area that has a wide enough wall to do it. All attempts fail to make them perfectly horizontal as it is inheriently tilted by design. I'm happy with them since they light up the sideways of dark streets as well as all the lanes of freeways. Turning into a dark street is safer now that I can see before and during the turn what lies on the road. My HIR headlights shows more glare than the HID in this fog reflector. Honda made this 8th gen fogs handle HID's very well. Never been flashed yet either. This is taken only one car length from the wall and lights up the equivalent of 5 parking spaces. I cannot find a place big enough to have a wall wide enough to take pics! Imagine how wide it will go when I'm 5 car lengths away!

Above car through moonroof

Inside car

I noticed that I may have gotten a wrong bulb as the left light is bluer than the right. I'll give it more time for the HID's to break in before asking Todd for a replacement.

I also installed the LED's by retrosolutions. They are a nice white color. The door courtesy and licence plate lights has a slight tinge of blue in them though. I prefer the whiteness of the domelights but that's what he has availale. The door courtesy lights does not fit properly as it touches the clear lense cover. I had to use a dremmel to sand down the inside middle of the clear cover to make it fit, which was a 5 minute job.

 

[Stephen83]

One more 8') I need a real camera, this 3.0MP cell is barely doing it's job well.

 

[Pirate]

Hi Stephen, your car is looking good! Is that just the shine of the reflectors, or did you put bulbs in your trunk garnish since I last saw it?

 

[Stephen83]

Thanks for the compliment. The lights were already in the trunk garnish when I had Bistagne Brothers install it.

 

[blauestimme]

Nice...I really like how it projects!

 

[Stephen83]

Few more shots of the fogs. I've been told the colors will settle to 4300k as well as they may need to be exchanged. The reason I'm uploading them is to show the width and cutoff lines these fogs make. I'll probably get new bulbs to get the 4300k color.

I'm impressed by the cutoff line on the last pic where you can see it right above the curb. The distance of the front of the car to that far wall is about 48 steps and the width of the light pattern on that wall is about 98 steps. There is only a car length behind my car and there's no wall wide enough to shine the fogs at so that's the best output in width I can show for now.

 

[Stephen83]

Update on my retrosolutions Nightvision fog light kit:
Thanks to Todd, I was able to get a replacement set in 3 days time and have installed them but didn't put pics up yet because I want them to break in a bit more. I had them since 1/16 and with plenty of use. I have them on even in the day time now so to take advantage of all the time I have to break them in.

When I first installed these new bulbs, it was the same result, slightly blue on the left but more white on the passenger side than before. After a few days, both were the same color! It's interesting as most of the time the driver side would then be blue and sometimes and it would switch back and match the passenger side. (not frequent though) I'm beginning to think it may be multiple problems: 1. due to my fog light reflector/lense having some kind of slight "color"... 2. the varying power each bulb is getting 3. not broken in yet.(this set seems to be breaking in a bit faster than the last) Whatever is causing the bluing, the passenger side is on par with the OEM color I see on other cars.

Time will tell. I'll give these 2 months and see what happens next. Below is a pic I took when both were the same color.

 

[Stephen83]

I also got a deal on ebay on brand new OEM body side moldings for $110 shipped as opposed to the normal price of $155-170 on majority of online sites including ebay. It was a great deal that I couldn't pass up. It came with 4 alcohol wipes and the templates in the original Honda box with the red and white part number. I was undecided whether I really want to put these moldings on the car months back but now with the low price I had to reconsider and decided to go for it. Some people like it and some don't. I find that it makes the sides of the car a bit classier (looking like the older BMW's) and that it provides some protectino from other people's doors.

 

[Vixen89]

I am still debating if I even want side moldings. Looks good though Stephen!~ ^^