Pininfarina's 1984 Honda City R

[Pininfarina]

A few months back I picked this up:

It's a 1984 City R, jdm model.

I bought it sight unseen off a retired couple in omaru and had it shipped to wellington. These jdm ones are pretty hard to find, I had been searching for a while. I won it on a trademe auction for cheap.

 

 

here’s the plan for it:                                                

low as possible, widen the standard steelies, fender mirror conversion, turbo bumper, parcel shelf speakers and twin stainless peashooters. 

I'm actually a bit of a ways through now but I'll post all the progress up to date.

 

should look pretty phat.

[Pininfarina]

discussion

[Pininfarina]

 

When it arrived I was pleased to find it was remarkably rust-free, but the motor ran like dick. It had trouble starting and had a super loud 'pinking' detonation noise under load.

I tried to fix the detonation issue by redoing the timing, thought the dizzy might be a tooth too far advanced but after confirming the timing i figured the weird emissions computer controlled carby was probably just running way too lean (which would also explain the trouble starting and hesitation to rev.)

 

 

My solution was to swap out the motor completely with a standard nz spec one, deleting all vacuum line spaghetti emissions gear in the process. including the cat converter which I reckon was also a part of the problem as a light would come up on the dash occasionally warning me about the exhaust temp. The motor came from my old city that rusted out. RIP

I also chucked a set of original fender mirrors and quarter glass to delete the door mirrors. I scored them from the legendary horopito wreckers a while back, super cheap.

when I can be bothered I will put the tachometer cable housing on the new motor to get that working again, as well as the cool red jdm “combax” cam cover.

[Pininfarina]

I picked up a few bits for it:

Old momo (stamped '91), t1 bumper and fog lights which I didn't get a picture of, and some period sounds. The pioneers are from @Jeffs_Emporium on facebook.

[Pininfarina]

now for the juicy bit, slammage.
 

The rear was simple, I removed the springs.

 

The front was a bit trickier. I know from past experience that just removing the springs doesnt get them low enough, so I used juddies made for a later honda logo wound all the way down with the springs cut a coil or so.

once I dropped it, i found it was sitting on the axle. I had to cut a small flap in the chassis leg on the passenger side to make way for the axle. The drivers side was fine as the axles are asymmetrical.

 

yeah it's a bit rangi. I will fold the flap down and weld it when it's wof time.

[Pininfarina]

Final result with the turbo bumper on: 

no longer nana spec. 

unfortunately it is practically sitting on the lower engine support, so that will need to be re-engineered at some point.

[Pininfarina]

Around that time these arrived in the mail from elite wheels in chch:

Standard 12" steelies widened from a 4j to a phat 7j. 145/70 is the smallest r12 tyre available in the country, so that's the goal.

here's when I released they wouldn't be an easy fit:  

 

shout out to mag n turbo petone

145/70 on 7j achieved.

Looks mint with the chrome ring and center cap added. big fan of the wide steelie look. plus where else can you find a 12x7 4x100 wheel with this offset?

The lip pokes out heaps with the chrome trim on 

after gently massaging the guards for a couple hours it looked like this:


pretty stoked with how it came out.
 

and that's pretty much where I am with it today. This weekend I'll tidy some things up, sort out the lower engine support, get a battery for it and take it for a spin. I've got my carpenter flattie making a parcel shelf for me so the pioneers will be in soon. 

plenty more that needs to be done to it, so stay tuned

peace