My first highly technical exposure to cars was with Hondas. I had the fortunate (and in some capacities, unfortunate) exposure to some utterly incredible Hondas through my father’s friends. Seeing those cars, and living with the Integra that has been in my family forever was how I ended up where I am today.

Googling around led me to Hondatech at a very young age, exposing me to what I have previously described as the relentless brutality of forums. To it’s credit, a decent chunk of that community has held firm on the “more is less” mentality when it comes to radical modifications. To skip over all of the individual cases, I quickly subscribed to the “B series swap in a golden era Civic with good shocks and OEM big brakes” formula, and that philosophy has transferred into many other brands and chassis for me. But it all started there.

In terms of localized taste, style, and standards, I owe that all to Trever and Jared. They were the two main modified car enthusiasts that I had exposure to at a young age that were participating in the same kind of tarmac performance that I had taken a liking to. Their pursuit of performance through the highest quality of components, while maintaining a high level of cleanliness was infectious to me, and only in the last two or so years do I think I could live up to the standard that they have. So, if y’all read this, thanks for putting up with me and my opinions and questions while I was growing up and making mistakes.

I will say, the downside of knowing these two individuals gave me a taste in components and processes that was so expensive that only in the last few years can I reasonably afford it. I also became the friend known for excessively cleaning things. Worse problems to have I suppose.

Since I started driving, I’d always been involved and kept up with the community, but up until this point never owned one. I’d been fortunate enough to have a decent amount of seat time in friends cars, which was validating my urge to eventually own and build one. During that nearly 10 year run, I lived vicariously through those people.

The most notable being my close friend Dan. I got to watch this car evolve from a $300 VX with 300,000 miles and a single cam shaped smoke machine, to a very competent track and autocross weapon it is today. I’ve been lucky enough to drive it through its stages, and it has been a riot every time.

The last bit of influence is the reliable steed of my family. My family got this car in sometime around 2004 from my aunt and uncle, who purchased it new in 1992. I was praying that it could be my first car, but my mother deemed it too dangerous for my first car, and put the barrier to entry that “it had to be caged if you are going to drive it”, which I knew at the time would be far more likely to kill me if I actually got in an accident with it. So it has remained unscathed and unruined as the family backup car. But I was convinced that I would eventually end up with the one family owned, stock* Integra GS 3 door 5MT with 256,000 miles.

(* The car isn’t 100% factory spec. Outside of general maintenance, there were some forced upgrades. The factory exhaust rotted out sometime around the financial collapse. To rectify this, my father bought a GodSnow (not a misspelling, an off-brand Godspeed) for the material and cut and welded until it fit better and didn’t look heinous. The 5″ exhaust tip is still my pencil cup to this day, and now it sounds and looks great. H&R lowering springs were a similar case, factory springs broke with age, and H&Rs were less than the cost of new OEM.)

OK! Back on track. But if you came here for short and to the point posts, you are in the wrong place.

This story starts over 7 years ago in 2018, when a group chat was assembled from the Facebook group formerly known as OppositeTalk, derived from the Jalopnik blog. The common link was that we all lived in and around Portland, Oregon. (I was moving down for school in a few months) To give some timeline, I met these dudes when I was 18, and I am now in my mid 20s.

That Facebook Messenger chat has ended up in attending weddings, off-roading adventures, lending cars, selling cars, buying cars, and many late nights at various taphouses kickin’ it and talkin’ shit. A small but potent group of friends that has butterfly effected into so many other ventures it is hard to keep track. This tale concerns Bob, the quiet man in the corner with more motorcycles than days in the week.

Bob had a Civic. There was no real details about it, other than a couple people had seen it before and said it was cool. My Honda fandom was obvious, and between myself and other members, every single time that it came up in the group chat, the phrase “Bob, sell me the fucking Civic” was uttered. While infrequent, it was met with an ambiguous yet firm no. Occasionally a photo would surface, or Bob would mention he started or drove it, but we all knew he’d probably have it forever and be buried in it.

July 29th, 2024, a Facebook post from Bob pops up, with the photo of the car that has been stuck in my head for 7 years, with the caption “Anyone want this thing?” with some further elaboration laying out the kind of buyer he was looking for.

I was not in a position to buy another car. This was less than 2 months after buying the most expensive thing I’d ever purchased, and I was still working through the financial burden that was the Banana Barge. I felt scrambled and riddled with anxiety, but I sent the message “I want it.” within 30 seconds of seeing it. I didn’t fully know what was done to it, only knowing very rough details. I didn’t care. I was determined to make it work, and I knew the weight of the long term regret of not trying would be far greater than the short term financial burden.

I already had a trip planned to go down to Oregon about two weeks later, which was a convenient time to go see it for the first time in a long time. I’d only ever seen it twice, once at a cars and coffee, and once when I went and bought a bunch of B series parts from him the year prior.

I ventured down in my trusty Miata on a very toasty weekend and spent most of the day with my college buddies. Caught up with many friend, saw my favorite airplane ever (SR71 Blackbird), and proceeded to way over eat and had to spend a chunk of the afternoon in the bathroom laying on the floor. Not ideal, but after my recovery, I split off from the group to Bob’s.

I was greeted with a driveway full of Toyotas and motorcycles, and tucked in the back of the garage was a slice of golden era nostalgia that would be nearly impossible to replicate today.

The dust layer was deep and the 14 year old S Drives were still somehow holding the car up. The conversation was beyond enlightening. There were many pieces that the car had that I was completely unaware of, because that is the kind of dude that Bob is. He had had the car for so long that many parts that were new purchases to him would be rare finds on Honda-Tech classifies today.

We had already agreed on a number during our initial text conversation, a price I was more than willing to pay given the history of the car. I left at sunset, on the verbal promise that I would be returning with a truck, trailer, and cash to give him some garage space back, and a new lease on life for the car.

A few weeks later, I did just that. On another one of my infamous Oregon errand trips, I dropped off my old grey IS300 to a friend, its former owner, and picked up the Civic and associated 19 years of parts hording. Entirely full truck bed + entirely full cab minus driver’s seat + stuff in the car. The load up and drive home were thankfully uneventful.

Unload the car (and a garage full of parts) and taking the car for it’s first rip the next morning was euphoric. It was everything that I hoped and more; a truly special experience that very few cars I have driven can match. I could wax poetic for hundreds of words about what it is like to drive. It is a tactile and auditory experience like no other. It got it’s first wash that night to wash off the years, and oh what a car.

Before it went into storage for the winter, I got to drive it for a bit around Seattle and sort out what wheels I wanted to put on it. I like RPF1s, don’t get me wrong, but I already had other sets for other cars, and I wanted something of the period as well as a 16″ wheel, because at the time, Continental had discontinued the 205/50/15 ECS. They’ve since brought it back, but I really dig EKs on 16s, and it pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit and gave the car a new look.

At one point shortly after buying the car, I had 4 sets of wheels for it, which is totally outlandish considering it is a street car with backroad intentions. In order from front to back:

– Enkei RPF1 15×7+35 in what I believe to be a discontinued face. Still the lame convex RPF1, but it didn’t offend me nearly as much as the modern narrow versions. This is what the car came on.

– SSR Integral A2 16×7+35. I pre-purchased these when I bought the car, and picked them up that same weekend. While incredibly of the early ’00s era, they were heavy as sin and made the car look really dated. I ended up selling these to a guy with a GD Fit, which was appropriate.

– SSR Type C 16×7+42. OG Gunmetal finished holy grail magic. I bought these off the Backyard Boogie dudes. Nice group of fellas. I still need to restore these, but these are what is staying on the car. I’ve lusted after a set of Type Cs for years, and this is the perfect car to put them on. They are made of playdoh so I don’t trust them on track with any kind of real sidewall rigidity, but ECSs on the street will be chill. Export Model would have been nice for center caps, but I’ll sacrifice that for the right set of Competitons.

– SSR Racing Hart Formula CP-F “Dunlop Motorsports” 15×7+40. These are incredibly rare wheels in an even rarer size. I bought them off Bob when I bought the car, and after looking at them more, they just aren’t for me. I was pretty determined to do 16s by this point, and white on black isn’t for me.

The Type Cs were obviously the wheel that stuck around. The heinous tire size (225/45/16) has already minorly shredded the fender liners (which makes me real sad) despite me raising the car, but this won’t be for much longer. The goal is to replace the tires with the more appropriate 205/45/16 ECS 02 and set ride height with the new size. New fender liners (now discontinued, I’ll have to find a junkyard set and make them perfect) will happen when they aren’t at risk. I am still not totally sold on the SSRs, despite my decade long lust for them, but that could be down to tire size and the fact it highlights how chrome the headlights are. I have plans to fix all of that in the near future, along with the red lug nuts. I was originally planning to do CE28Ns on this car, but after realizing that TEs and CEs are on every well build EK out there, I’m quite happy with finding the right spec and finish SSRs.

This car isn’t without it’s flaws. However they are so minuscule that I have no trouble looking straight past them. The smallest bit of effort, and this thing will be the golden era time capsule that I have always dreamed of.

I fundamentally should not own this car at this time in my life. I’ve rationalized it at this point as the street car, but really this is as close to investment grade as they come. I’m very conscious of that, and I am glad I acquired it at a time in my life where I believe I can take care of it and preserve it at a level it deserves. While it did come at a financially strenuous time, I would have regretted it if I hadn’t chased it when the opportunity arose, and I’m glad I did it. A little bit of financial hardship was worth getting to bury the tac deep into the 9s.

There will be a lot more to come of this car. No radical changes, but little period correct touches and a focus on preservation. For now, I’m just going to drive it every chance I get.

Until next time.