I was looking over my progress pics tonight and had a few thoughts/bit o' advice. Here's what I've learned, hope it's helpful to someone else:

· Figure out your goal/outcome before you start. Little purchases add up to a big amount of $/time and contribute to the direction your car takes.

· I’ve spent more money and time replacing cheap modifications or little purchases than on anything else.

· If you have the option, go OEM or a high quality manufacturer. I’m not a snob, just learned the hard way that “replica” is exactly that.

· Save for what you REALLY want not what you can afford right now. Want to be low? Get coilovers, not springs that you end up replacing (for example). Want a good exhaust tone? Get a good exhaust system, not an ebay bargain.

· When in doubt, don’t buy.

· Save the “attention getting” mods for AFTER the car is worth attention.

· Don’t ever let a dealer/seller convince you that you really want something other than what you asked for, unless it is more mechanically sound.

· Some things you save money doing it yourself, some you don’t. If it’s worth the experience/lessons learned try it yourself first. If you don’t want wtf did I just do to my car, or how do I get my car running in the morning moments pay someone to help.

· Don’t be afraid to ask for help, but do your research first. This forum has most of the answers to your questions, but the search function sucks. Type your question in Google first, and add the word “fitfreak” after. If you can’t find the answer, there’s plenty of veteran builders still here, though some have left by now.

· It’s never too late to say, shit this is not what I wanted, and reverse a modification. It’s an expensive decision, but better than driving something you hate to be seen in. See pics for proof.

· Maybe it’s my personal style preference, but it’s better to have quality over quantity. You’re not fooling anyone into thinking this is a race car or VIP until you make it one for real.

· Don’t be afraid to buy high quality used goods. This is the safest and cheapest way to make progress you don’t regret on a budget.

· Enjoy the process.




Here's my progress over time (2010-2013):

 

Good photos. I don't quite like the off-center licence plate though. And red badges make the car look cheaper (aftermarket teen-mod ).
I guess you can tell I like stock cars.

 

#1 is the most important. Have a vision/goal and stick to it. When a car is pieced together with random thoughts it usually shows. Nothing worse than "finishing" and then looking at the car like "wtf did I do, now I have to change X"

I am a fan of how your car turned out, looks clean.

 

Nice Thread, your fit is clean as hell!

 

thought i was reading spam at first.

 

OUTSTANDING post! I think this should almost be a sticky.

I'd like to add:

The first five points I cannot stress enough. Don't buy garbage and don't waste your money!

As for the attention getting, I'd even say keep your car a sleeper, you'll save the PITA of attracting the wrong attention. (Police, thief's, a-holes...)

Before you go to a dealer, do you research first! Know what you want and what you want to pay. There are thousands of Honda dealerships, you feel uncomfortable walk out, they'll prolly chase you into the parking lot and agree to your terms.

Don't let anyone talk you into a repair you are not sure of. I've seem a thousand forums posts, on a hundred forums where people were talked into "easy" repairs, then posted that night OMG NEED HELP ASAP MY CAR WONT START AND I NEED TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW.

"Quality over quantity" PREACH ON BROTHER!

 

Glad ya'll got something from it. I'm not saying everywhere I've been w/ my car has been spot on...which of course is the point of the post. If I had followed my own advice at the beginning of my build, I would have avoided a lot of those pictures.

 

Definitely good to have your goals planned out. Though sometimes it's hard to do that starting off as a noob, because you don't know what all can be done until you've spent some time exploring.

Of course, even if you did start out with a clear idea, tastes/plans can always change too. Glad there's a buy/sell section for when that happens .

 

Are those the OEM Honda window visors? What wax/polish do you use? Looks great by the way!

 

i would run a 5mm spacer on the rear.

 

Yes they are OEM visors.

Meguiars claybar

Meguiars polish

Meguiars carnuba wax

Meguiars ultimate detailer

I have had to park my car under trees outside for the three years of its life. If those can keep me shiny, they can keep anything shiny!

I do the first three about twice a year. The detailer, every wash (about every 2 weeks).

 

Plan to run at least that. Just need to do a bit more research.

 

Im running 5mm Kics on the rear with 205/50/16 tires and 16x7 (40). I love the beefier look and feel. Its a bit more stable at highway speeds, and also doesn't require longer studs like more aggressive kits. Do it!

 

I like this car.

Simple and clean.

As for the sticking to a plan thing, it doesn't always work out. I had the full J's aero set....still was never satisfied.

 

That means a lot coming from you...seriously. I know you're a purist, and I'm not necessarily that by default. However, I did learn that quality parts really do matter the hard way.

I guess that never satisfied part of the game is that part that we can never really quantify or plan for. Oh well...here's to the next piece/mod.

 

:e-beer (or wine/soda/water/etc.): for you!

This is true. I tried desperately to just drive the car in stock form (or at least very near it) and after over a year of that.....I don't know how people do it.

BTW to further embrace your OP, I settled for lowering springs instead of coilovers because I didn't want to wait and save for HKS Hipermax. Now my OEM dampers are blown and the car actually NEEDS new dampers/springs. Money wasted :/

 

-Beer

-I don't know either, but I and my wallet would love to know how people do it.

-I wish I kept a "perfect" record too. I didn't. My tastes and goals evolved over time. Maybe that's part of the game, but I hope at least some people who are new can read my post and profit from it. I'm not sure if I would have payed it any attention or not when I started.

-Shit, if I had looked over my options I would have gone TW, w/ carbon everywhere, and white RPF1's. I didn't, but at least I still ended up w/ a clean car...in the end. Had to take a lot of bad twists and turns to get there. It's weird, now the biggest compliment I can get paid by girls is: "You've done work to your car?" and the biggest compliment I can get paid by guys is "That car is clean!"

 

Hello, I saw a Fit the other day that had a dark look to its headlights and I loved it.

After thinking about it and doing some research, I found that the newer Fits come with black housed headlights. I googled fitfreak to see if you could swap them and several of your posts came up.

It looks like you had some pretty nice headlights built by BlueBoogers (custom HID or LED or something) and then put them up for sale. I am curious, was it because you liked the OEM headlights from the newer models much better? Also where did you wind up getting them and for how much?

I also just read your post about looking back and making the right decisions. The reason I'm even considering different headlights right now is because my current ones on my '09 are pretty nasty looking and I've bought some plastx and compound and still haven't gotten them clean. They might even look worse! So I am at the point where I'm wondering if I should even "waste" the money getting them clean or just save up and the get the look I really want from those new headlights.

I googled the product number of the new headlights (33100-TK6-A51) and a bunch of replica stuff came up. Is that the stuff you are saying to avoid? I was planning on getting the ones from Bernardi with our forum discount but if there's other places to look first, anyone let me know.

Thanks for the post and info, and it is still relevant to me after almost a year!