Tuck It In

Take a quick look at the tech section of any recent issue of 2nr and you might notice we've been a little biased towards the performance end of the spectrum. Not wanting to leave our more aesthetically-oriented readers out in the cold, we've decided to mix it up this month and have a little tech dedicated to something other than going faster-making the car LOOK better.

If you want to impress the ladies or the car show judges, your engine bay's gotta look as good as the rest of the car, if you're going to score. We'll show you how it's done and what it takes... The rest is up to you, young Jedi.

A wire tuck is a pretty straightforward procedure. The first step is to decide who's going to do the actual work. If you and your buddies feel comfortable removing the front fenders and bumper, drilling a few holes in the car, moving some wires and hoses around and putting it all back together, then this is a project you might consider doing yourself. If you don't feel comfortable working with the electrical system of your car, leave the work to a pro.

Once it's been decided who's doing the work, the next step is to decide exactly what's going to be done. The great thing about a wire tuck is that it can be as simple or complex you want. If you choose, you can strip the engine compartment of just about every visible wire, move the battery to the trunk, strip the power steering and air conditioning, and leave nothing but an engine floating in a suddenly cavernous engine compartment. If you're dedicated enough, you can even move the fuse box and the power brake booster to the interior, shave and shape the engine bay and re-spray it.

If you're less dedicated or motivated, or you really drive your car and appreciate the finer things in life like AC and PS, you can leave those in place. Or, if you like to smoke herb and drink beer while working on your car and only want to take on small, simple projects, you can perform the whole tuck in baby steps. Taking 10 or 15 minutes to re-route a vacuum hose or move a single ground wire from the front of the engine to the back can make a huge difference in the way your engine bay looks. Make a dozen little changes over time, or do it all at once. Whatever, the results should be the same.

The MuleAfter swapping the engine for a '98-spec JDM ITR powerplant, painting it, getting the suspension and nameless other stuff done, the owner of this car just ran out of steam. While it looked great from the outside, once the hood was popped, it was a different story. Wires everywhere and butt-connectors galore. Not the prettiest sight, but probably not too far off from what the average reader's engine bay looks like. All it really needed was a little tiding up in the engine compartment to be a real winner, making it a perfect candidate for a mild tuck.

Moving the injector harness from the top of the intake manifold out of sight to the bottom is simple. Just unplug all the injectors and run the harness on the bottom side. It's a good idea to label each injector before unplugging it. If you get them mixed up your car will probably still run, but it won't run right.

Moving the injector harness from the top of the intake manifold out of sight to the bottom

Since this Civic is a daily driver, we decided to do a pretty basic tuck to maintain maximum functionality. We opted to leave the power steering in place. We took the car to Pro Street in La Mirada, Calif., to watch the pros clean up the wiring on our Civic. Eugene at Pro Street is a Honda buff to the core and has been doing tucks since you were in diapers (well, some of you). The tuck and installation of a few other engine dress-up goodies took about five hours. Five hours for a pro to do something he's done hundreds of times means it'll take about 20 hours for the average Joe-if he's got all the tools ready to go. The point is that unless you've got a spare car, you might want to do a bunch of small things individually instead of trying to do it all at once.

Getting Down To BusinessMove Those GroundsThe first thing that Eugene did was one of the simplest. On the front of the engine near the power steering pump, there's a ground wire going from the engine to the body of the car. It's really ugly and right there in plain slight. No problem, its any easy fix. Just unbolt it on both ends of the wire and re-install it somewhere less visible. Just make sure one end is still bolted to the engine and the other to the body in its new location. The ground straps on most cars are similar to the one on this Civic.

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