To kick off this new blog and community, I thought it would be fitting to share my past with cars, specifically my Honda Civic SI.
It started out its life in 2007 to an owner that drove it from Fort Collins to Denver every day, a 130-mile round trip. In 2015, it came into my possession because my previous car, a 2003 VW Jetta GL, had hit some irreparable problems (electrical problems on a VW… go figure). When I bought it, it had blown suspension, messed up alignment, a cracked front bumper, and 120,000 miles. The previous owner had installed a cheap EBay special CAI that sat down in the wheel well, a Skunk2 Megapower cat-back exhaust, and a surprisingly expensive performance chip. Because of its high miles and various problems, I got a pretty great deal on it.
The first thing I did was order Godspeed adjustable camber arms to try and correct the alignment in the rear (camber was actually positive when I bought it, and it showed in the tires). Next, I bought a set of Raceland Ultimo coilovers because it’s almost customary for a new civic owner to lower it as soon as possible.
Its safe to say at this point that I was building this thing on a budget. Once the coilovers and camber arms were installed, I proceeded to ditch all sense and lower it as far as the wheels and tires would allow me by adjusting the camber way negative. If I remember correctly, they were at about -3.5 degrees on either side.
For a while, this was fine. I drove on it to and form work and school without a problem. The low stance didn’t cause too much of a problem, but that was because the previous owner had put 18-inch wheels with slightly large tires on it which prevented me form going as low as I wanted at the time. After a while, I got offered a set of wheels and tires that were the perfect size for my car as a trade for an old set of wheels I had lying around. Thus, I had green wheels.
Once I had the new smaller wheels and tires on, I decided to lower it more. This is where the problems started. Speed bumps became pretty tiring and the bumper was taking a bit of a beating. Since the bumper was already cracked, I decided to get a new one and take a shot at painting the bumper myself.
This did not go well. Regardless, I drove like this for about a year, during which I made some small changes such as adding a new radio and subwoofer, and this pretty neat Personal steering wheel.
After a year, I decided it was time to update the looks of the car. I purchased and aftermarket 2009 (post-facelift) front bumper and imitation Mugen front lip. This time, I spent much more time prepping and painting the bumper, which yielded a much better result.
Once I was satisfied with the looks of the car, I started to focus on the performance of the car more. The first step to more power was to buy a Hondata Flashpro. I managed to find a second hand Flashpro for fairly cheap and the seller was nice enough to give me two pre-made tunes for free. Luckily his car had the same modifications as mine and the tunes worked beautifully.
Now, here’s the part of the story where everything goes a bit wrong.
It all began with a misguided idea that if I don’t bolt the front bumper on, when I eventually hit something a bit hard, the bumper would just come off instead of tearing or cracking. What I didn’t think about was the fact that a bumpy ride on the highway could rip it clean off, and that it did. Only, it didn’t fly off. It fell off and got sucked under the wheels, completely scratching the paint off one side and tearing the other. Since I didn’t have the time to repaint a new bumper, I just bought a quick replacement (and some new bumper screws) and put it on.
Life went on and I didn’t do too much to the car for about a year. During this time, a knocking sound began coming from the engine. The rather cheap suspension always made noise, but it got a bit too loud to just be some normal suspension parts moving around. When a job opportunity arose which would require me to drive an 80-mile round trip on rough highways every day, I decided it was time to check out the suspension problem, and a problem it was.
When I disconnected the control arm from the strut in order to remove the spring, I noticed that the strut stayed in place. This was because the strut was ENTIRELY empty of fluids, making it pretty much useless. I quickly went on Ebay (I know, I hate myself for this too) and bought the cheapest set for replacement stock struts I could and replaced them.
Good news is, it works. The suspension has a bit of an annoying squeak and doesn’t ride very comfortably, but hey, it should last me a bit until I can get proper suspension.
So What’s in Store for the Future?
If you asked me a year ago, I would have rattled off a whole arm-length list of parts and modifications I wanted to do like a Rotrex supercharger, proper bucket seats, carbon hood, Mugen Wing, JDM Type-R front and rear conversion, proper suspension, chassis stiffening, engine internals, build and port the head, etc. Most of that is out the window right now. Now I just want to fix some of the issues such as lack of A/C, a cold air intake that tends to suck water when it rains, and replace the serpentine belt/pulley that’s making an awful screeching noise. MAYBE some coilovers in the future, but who knows. I’ll definitely keep you guys updated as to what happens with it.
What do you guys think I should do? Should I just make it passable and sell it for something better or should I make it something I would want to drive for years and drive it for as long as it will last? What about your past experiences with cars? Feel free to comment below.
