Baby Blue Ej9

[nealt2000]

1997' Ej9 1.4 hatch
Bought her way back in 2003 with only 15k on the clock. Was my first real car (Ok, i had a Ford Ka before hand but it was a little **** box on wheels)

Cheap on insurance, good mpg, and looked pretty cool, seemed like a perfect car to start university with.

Then getting high on god no's what and **** at Uni, i decided to chav the little thing up:
Bought some 17' Lenso alloys, Spax lowering springs, a wings west rear spoiler, lexus lights, carbon back box, bad boy head lights.... what the hell was i thinking!?

After graduating in late 05' i got tired of the abuse i was having how bad she looked, so tried to smarten her up a little. Not having a job at the time, i didn't really have much to spend on her.
Bought some face lift rear lights, pair of edenz seats, spray painted some of the interior pannels black (that was a big mistake!) re-trim the door cards...

Just a little photo shop animation i did as a laugh. Civic transformer!
YouTube - Civic Ek Transformers

Part time jobs and no real money coming in, i could only really afford to run her by this point.

2007 came and having abused the car all those years, the engine and gearbox started to give in. The gearbox was making a high winning pitch, and after hitting the underside one night is started to leak oil. By the time i found out, the engine had sized up!
I was ready to call it a day right there and then and have it scrapped, but just by luck i managed to find my first well paid job.
After a month, id saved enough to buy a new engine & box and put her back on the road.

With regular money coming in, i could spend whatever i wanted on the car now.
First i decided to sort out the rear tailgate, bought myself a sweet looking carbon one.
Fitment was a little rough, it left a large gap all the way around, and some time it leaked when it was raining heavily. Quality of the weave was great though, and weighed a lot less than stock.

Next i bought a Tanabe angled exhaust.

followed by some 16' rota grids

then some more goodies,

 

[nealt2000]

then started fiddling round with the interior,
bought an ek9 carpet and door cards,

then went the hole way and bought an ek9 dashboard
(glad i don't have to do that swap again, never seen so many wires)

then bought a set of Dc5 Integra Recaro seats

got tired of the leaking carbon tailgate, so bought an ek9 one together with the glass.
had it prepped and resprayed to match,

Replaced the rear arches because of rust,

then went on to do a front face lift conversion:
Ive since bought genuine honda items as the aftermarket pannels and not that great with fitment, shut lines are slightly off here and there,

and today now as she stands at the moment:
still got a long way to go!
a lot of the parts ive bought still haven't been fitted,
and she's crying out for a full re spray too!

also recently bought an ek9 steering wheel,
ek9 front and rear anti roll bars,
new bushes all round,
Asr rear brace
Mugen twin loop back box,
pictures will be up soon.

currently in the middle of re-trimming the head liner, having the pillars flocked,
and having the rear seats trimmed to match the front.

 

[Mattharvey12]

That video is quite funny lol.
Liking the transformation

 

[NeilVtec]

Seems like once you got the bug the was no stopping you! those wilwoods look immense, have u fitted them yet ???

Coming along well, we share the same camber adjusters haha good buy!

 

[nealt2000]

nah ive not had the chance to fit the wilwood's yet, still need to get the rear breaks and all the bushes/ bearings fitted to parts first, hoping to do all the chassis and breaks setup all in one go.

 

[Piccolo87]

Blimey quite a transformation! Always wanted to see what these would look like with facelift front end as i don't believe they did them in this colour facelift. If u ever fancy selling those seats dude let me kno there s**t hot! Nice engine swap is all thats missing now

 

[CR1S]

What was this new job of yours to be able to afford all that!!
Those seats are sooo nice
how mucH did you spend on those?

 

[Vtec6000]

Are those genuine front panels? Look to be a very good fit

 

[magikcivic]

It was so rice but looks like it will be nice. Best of luck lad

 

[Daniel_Ek9]

Very nice transformation.. Now that you have the coilovers and the camber adjusters I would deck her

 

[linh-ej9]

good stuff.
the facelift conversion looks spot on and better then preface lift lol

 

[nealt2000]

Nice little update as its been a while.

Last few weeks been concentrating on the interior. Had a bad water leek coming in behind the dash that caused the passenger foot well to flood, and then stink the whole interior out. The central locking wasn't working, the cigarette lighter wouldn't work, so stripped it whole down try to fix it all.

Fixing the leak was pretty straight forward. Applied new sealer all around the little gaps and on the existing sealer. Then painted on top to seal it down.
Cig lighter i just needed to buy a new unit. and central locking was the funny one - i couldn't find anything to fix on it, no loose wires or connectors, so i just left it be. after i re-installed all of the interior, just out of the blue it started working fine again! 2years its been playing up now its fixed again!

Tired of my car sounding like a rattly little tin, decided to Dynamat the interior. First removed all of the existing sound deadening in the boot, floor and behind the dash. What a bitch to get out! Was there for a good few days with a chisel and hammer! I managed to fill 1 and a half black rubbish bags - weighed hell of a lot! then applied the Dynamat Extreme to behind the dash, floor, inner and outer skin of front doors and the rear quarters. Didn't have enough to do the boot area though, so might go back at a later date to finish. £300 for 17 sheets, so its quite on the pricey side. Works superb though, notice a huge amount of road noise deduction up front, no more little odd rattles, and the speakers sound so much more clean.

Bored of the dull grey head liner, thought id pimp it up a little. Sent the headliner, sunroof section, front and rear pillars and arm rest cover off to be flocked in red.
(Tip - don't pull the sunroof off your car on your own, it will fall on you and squash you like a bug!)
Had them done with South West Flocking based in Bristol after hearing good reviews about them.
Not to everyone's taste i would imagine, But i totally love the new look!

 

[kellsled]

that looks pretty cool mate lol

 

[GTLVR82]

Now you're just missing a nice B18C5 or B16B motor! Car looks quite good!

 

[filipe vti]

Very cool car

 

[Gav-EK9]

certainly different, never seen an interior head cloth done like that before

 

[lelouchvi]

very nice wokr =]
did you manage to do a full respray at hte end? pricely?

 

[nealt2000]

certainly different, never seen an interior head cloth done like that before

Nah its been done before, saw some photograph of it on here somewhere, they used red bride seat material/ print. Wanted to achieve a similar effect. Mind you, doesn't half make the interior feel small! Same principle as interior design, the darker you paint your walls, the smaller the room looks.

 

[nealt2000]

very nice wokr =]
did you manage to do a full respray at hte end? pricely?

That's next on the cards!
right now i have a white front and rear lip, silver front and rear bumper, black bonnet, red wings, purple rear spoiler and grill - pretty messed up look!
id post a picture but its just too ugly to look at!

 

[nealt2000]

Another little update i forgot to include. Bought a set of Cusco Side pillar bars off a member on here few weeks back. Been after a set of these for ages! Great to look at they are, also notice the car to be a little stiffer around the bends. But they proving a pain to live with for everyday use. I've had rear passengers fall in and out of the car so far, about a 100 new scratches as a result, the standard seatbelts twist around it a little causing them to not to re-tract as quick - think that will fail the mot?
Hmm... Still look sweet though that's the main thing!