While I knew I was looking for a fixer upper, you don’t realize the extent til you have it in your hands. The work I would need to put into it before those fun modifications was far greater than I realized. This is actually going to be a restoration first. I am the fifth owner of a clean title DC5, but it’s been abused and not maintained in the best of ways in the last 20 years.
My new project car
This January 2023, I bought this 2003 Acura RSX Type S sight unseen on eBay. I drove a few hundred miles from Bay Area to Los Angeles to pick it up. While I’m no stranger to fixing and working on this car and expect various problems here and there, I realize there were more issues than described. Regardless, it’s rare to see a 100k mile engine with an unmodified stock PRB ecu. And it’s also California Smog legal, which is why I decided to move forward with the purchase.
There were 2 top surprises. First, I didn’t expect the rubber seal in the sunroof was stuck out and poofy. Realizing later that there’s a crazy amount of rust from the inside. Second, after the crazy storm / atmospheric river in California, I saw a puddle of water in the trunk area.
I suspect there are a number of things related to those issues, it could be a crack somewhere, or the gasket seals in the taillights. I really wont know until I start diagnosing it, crossing off issues one at a time.
Inspecting the car on a dry day
Off the bat, I will eventually need new paint job due to the severe paint fade. Even though it looks good from photos, there are actually more dents and dings that I thought.
The passenger fender was pretty banged up, stated by the seller. However, he didn’t mention the condition of the bumper and that it was cut. I suspect one of the owners relocated the battery here or put cold air intake. It’s a bummer they decided to cut it.
The bumper besides being cut was bruised in ways that it had uneven-ness. I think this is beyond repair. There’s a cracked OEM A-spec lip which was barely holding on. I’m also not a fan of the aftermarket grill. Headlights are in good condition and are original, so thats good! I’d rate the exterior 2/10.
The interior condition
The interior seats were ripped including steering wheel, but I noticed the top air vents, the dash curves more with a gap. That’s due to the severe heat causing it to warp over time. Expected from a 20 year car, but I think it’s a bit more abused from being in the hot desert sun.
For me, the big surprise here was hidden switches near the foot well. I believe one of previous owners installed a kill switch. Upon investigating, it seems to be disconnected but there are extra wires that I’ll have to remove. I’d rate the interior 3/10.
Most of the interior is fine. Very dirty with pet hair so I’ll need to do a scrubbing. The rear seats are not torn, but have small cracks from old leather and very dry. It’s not very comfortable and will need to think about what I’ll need to do here. The rear view mirror is peeling, which is expected but yet another thing to fix.
Engine Bay: The Visual Inspection
The last area I looked at was the engine bay. K&N intake is the only thing left on the car in terms of per formance. It’s clear that it was previously a modified vehicle that was turned back to stock. I saw the k20a2 stamp on the short block, so I was happy to know that.
Upon driving home, I did feel the pedal was way too soft. It was functional but I knew I wanted to look at the engine bay later. I had been driving my WRX STI since and wasn’t sure if I got use to the STI clutch pedal, but I don’t remember my old RSX to be that soft. My previous RSX I rode on the stock clutch, then I updated to an Exedy stage 1 clutch.
Overall, it runs well, except that it is in dire need of a tune up. From a visual inspection, the brake and clutch fluid is black. The pedal is soft which means there’s probably air in the the system. It honestly probably hasn’t been changed since the car drove off the Acura dealer lot.
Engine Bay: The Irregularities
Besides changing all fluids, I’ll probably need to do a good 100k mile maintenance. I will start with new spark plugs and ignition coils. The engine area is really dusty and this is more than most engines. It’s also missing the manifold cover, which is common for people to remove if they upgrade to an RBC or Skunk2 manifold and aftermarket fuel rail, but I’d like to put the cover back since I’m not running that yet.
Peering deeper in the bay, I noticed something off with the wiring harness. The charge harness had something extra connected to it, an extra wire that was disconnected. I’m assuming its for the kill switch or relocated battery. It leads into where the main engine harness goes the dash area, where usually 1 wire goes, but this had 2. Lastly, upon removing the K&N intake, I noticed the breather tube missing, replaced with a clear tube.
The engine has a gates radiator hoses and drive belt, which tells me it’s been changed, so that is good.
Overall, there’s going to be a lot of work I’ll need to do to get this running smooth. I’d rate the engine bay 4/10.
I haven’t had the time to put the car up and look at the bottom, but I suspect the suspension to not be great and I plan to refresh it any ways, starting with new bushings.
Maintenance: 2 weeks later…
The winter storms continue, but it gave me time to gather much needed maintenance parts. I picked up all the fluids (oil, brake, transmission, power steering, coolant) including NGK coil packs. The OEM coil packs is actually the Denso brand, but I respect NGK a lot to use it here.
These NGK coil packs complements the OEM NGK laser iridium spark plugs. I was debating between Platinum vs Pridium, but decided on performance. Platinum Spark Plugs will last a bit longer, but Iridium performs better throughout the power band. This is what the experts say.
I also got Skunk2 magnetic plugs for the oil pan and transmission. The next time I fill up, I’m also going to add Chevron fuel injection cleaner. My RSX gas milage wasn’t too hot upon driving home, and I believe it might be the fuel sending unit. I’ll try the Fuel Injection clean to test if this will make it perform better.
There’s now a new OEM fuel cap and radiator cap directly from Honda. You can also see that I was able to find the original intake manifold cover from a junk yard. My last final touch was replacing the positive terminal “red” cap from the dealer too. It’s starting to look like it’s old self.
Maintenance: Compression Testing
Overall, the flushing and bleeding the system went well. I did noticed some weird things underneath the car. My only hypothesis is one of the owners ran turbo on the car and put ever thing back.
Luckily, I ran a compression test and will post another blog about that and what I discovered.
In the first month of the car, there’s been so much to do to get it running shape, but I’m no where near that. Although I haven’t shared too much about my project goals, I can say my phase 1 is to restore it to stock “near mint” condition, and maybe due some some tasteful suspension mods for street / daily and 1-2 track days per year for phase 1.5-2.
Did I get a lemon?! Even if my plans were to make this a project car. Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks for reading and coming to my RevCircle blog. There’s more to come.
-Tri