88 Acura Legend Part 1 - Import Tuner Magazine

People often ask me what kind of car I drive for having the position that I do. Although I have a few other projects, my daily driver is an '88 Acura Legend. Can you believe I actually looked at Legends for six months before I bought this one? One owner, 70K miles, no accidents, and manual transmission-such a gem. No this isn't your typical import. I have always liked the body style of this car and simply wanted a different car. This is going to be an all '80s buildup, old-school wheels and old-school audio. I've got a tape deck and a car phone, too! Now I don't expect anyone to build a Legend, but hopefully this will encourage people to build some cool cars that aren't too typical.

1. Check out those sweet factory fender flares. Unfortunately, no one seems to make coilovers for the '86-90 Legend, but I got crafty and figured out a way to get this car down low.

2. First on the agenda was to get a set of '94-'97 Honda Accord coilovers. A set was sourced by DGR Performance. This method should work on any '87-90 Legend. Sorry, but the '86 models are SOL.

3. The Accord top hats will not fit so I had to use the factory Legend ones on both the front and back. To make them fit the smaller 2.5-inch coilover spring, I had to use a utility knife to trim down the bottom rubber inner portion of the hat.

4. Accord coilover with Legend top hat

5. Our next problem: The Accord front struts don't have a long enough step for the fork bolt to sit properly. Forcing it will leave the bolt up too high and crush the strut.

6. The gap difference is exactly 5mm. Using five of these 1mm steel spacers from McMaster-Carr.com (PN 98055A384), and we were back in business.

7. They are a perfect fit with a 45mm inner diameter and 55mm outer diameter.

8. I got lucky and found a set of race version Volk Artisan Fins in 17x9 with a +15 offset. Here they are after the lips were repolished, faces repainted, and bolts re-zinc coated. All of the restoration work was done by Araya Wheels. I even found the aero covers.

9. If you're going to stretch a tire, make sure you go to a tire shop that has experience, like the guys from 714 Tires. Going elsewhere will just get you puzzled looks.

10. General Tire's new G-Max high-performance tires came in the perfect size for the Volks, 205/45-17 for the 17x9s.

11. Even at a narrow 205, the tires were getting in the way of the fenders. To keep from screwing up our fenders and paint, we went to Isaac Sandoval from Fenda Rolla for his magic touch.

12. Finito.