First swiss EK9 (TypeRx) and modding story


are the pedals mounted with rivets ?
A3J52q9-6-400x400.jpg


cant see clear from the image ,if yes,a drill is your best friend for this.
Yeah that's my question too. i couldn't feel or see it and it was the best picture i was able to take from that narrow angle with my phone...
 
One of the nicest guys in the "car scene", if you want so, must be Rene. A car guy with real passion and much of unerstatement. I know him from the earlier days over at the Swiss Hondaholics forum, but his career has brought him from his dad paintshop to being one of the most recgarded high-end car paint shops in switzerland. I've promised h im a few times that i'll bring him my Cars, and finally the stars aligned.
So after having my car up on the lift for a few final cheks before the seasons first rollout:


I took the car to a tour through crowded Zürich


And then finallyl ended at René Sahli Autolackierei. What once was a regular good-quality paint shop is now a paintshop where he and his sister fully work on paintjobs and detailing work (incl ceramic coating and leather repairs) for collectors cars and some very expensive machinery, as well as special paintjobs for expensive custom guitars and the likes. If you have something fancy that needs a paintjob without compromise, he's the man! And that's quite obvoius when you enter the door and are greeted by an excellent all-original Ferrari Dino, sided by two more vintage ferraris in mid restauration.




When you go downstairs to the detailing area there is a not less valuable Mercedes and a Jaguar E-type.


In the backroom he hides his secret collection of Honda Old and Youngtimers. Here's his road ready Honda S800 Roadster


Behind it is a complete S800 Coupe ready for some paint, which is documented to have belonged to Mr Soichiro Honda's unofficial son!! Definitely something that adds a bit of value.
I forgot to take pictures out of excitement, but yeah, to the right you have a glimpse at his fully restomodded Honda CRX AS


Behind that you will find his personal Integra DC2 TypeR. Basically the big brother of my EK9. A lovely car which he owns since a while and i'm happy to see is still in his collection.


René is also the designated paintshop for my 240Z project, once that is ready and im sure my cars are in the best hands here. First of all Rene is a guy who understands quality and knows what a high-end paintjob is. Secondly he is one of only a few who are still allowed to work with vintage Nitro-type paints, which - for me - is some kind of medal of honour, third: he has a spot for the odd Japanese classic car, and last but not least: Anybody that has his tools arranged like this immediately wins my heart.


I hope Renè sends me a few mid-progress photos, as he would usually do for his more high-end clients, but i guess in 2 weeks or so we'll anyway have the final results in hand.
Thanks for taking your time to show us around and i'm excited to see you and the cars again soon. And already can't wait to bring you my big project in a year or so...
 
that shop is full of awesome
Indeed. lovely customer cars and a great personal collection :)

On saturday i was able to pick up my EK9 from Renè's Paintshop. And boy does the car look goo!


Instead of re-painting the hood as well, we decided to save that money, give the few stone-chips a simple pencil-brush-up and instead get the paint a complete polish and waxing.
Also Rene and his team were nice enough to Detail some areas. Look at the difference! left cleaned, right before!


The Spoon Kevlar intake hose which had a crappy rattle-can spray job from yours truly, got a nice sand and filling, then a proper paintjob, along with the Factory battery tie-down. Before:


After:


On the car itself the front bumper and lip got separated and resprayed in the factory NH0 Championship white. Here the Maestro is at work:


And then the whole car got an exterieur detailing, polish and Swissvax Wax layer. I also learned that the NH0 CSW was a bit of a special "one-layer" only paint job, whithout additional clear coating and is therefore really prone to getting dull, and can't be polished too many times. So you better take care of your paint protection on these cars. I will definitely keep a better eye on that. The crappy mobile phone photo's don't do the gloss justice, but i have planned a photoshoot in the coming weeks / months, whenever stars align.
Also i have to re-install the under panel, swap the battery tie-down back to factory, and today (hopefully) i will place the order for the seat spare parts.


Thanks Rene & Team for the outstanding work and overall nice chat.
 
If you own an EK9 oder DC2 Honda, you know that the seats sides are one of the weak points of the car, which usually is worn out pretty quick and looks ugly. especially because it's the first thing you see whenever the door is open. I have been planning refurbish my seats since a while, but only now since the rest of the car has been overhauled, i thought it was time to attack that last remaining area to get her back in a show condition. And then my friend Rene also asked for some parts, so it was time for a group buy.
I was not sure which parts i really need. so instead of buying single parts i thought "why not buy everything which is available"? Ok, Overkill definitely, but that should keep me covered for the next years and otherwise i can easy sell these parts to somebody else. so yesterday i got a complete Recaro Seat puzzle for the EK9 (And some DC2 parts) at my doorstep. The delivery includes all foam pieces and vailable covers.


The foam pieces are genuine Recaro spare parts:


There are some fake parts being sold on the internet, but hese ones are the real deal. easy visible thanks to the mollding numbers, and part number stamps:

Some even have the production date stamped, and i was quite suprized to see that those are quite new. So it seems they still make those. Probably also thanks to the re-enlisted sales of those original seats by recaro? (Not the Honda specific ones)

The covers are not by Recaro but made by Capitalseating themselves with the use of the original Recaro Fabric. For the more complicated upper parts, which they do not sell as completed units, they were nice enough to sell me a few meters of fabric, so my upholstry guy can do them themselves.


the delivery also includes all plastic pieces, bolts, washers, scews, etc, used on the seats. All original Recaro Pieces.


And even the under-seat nets with the hooks. Nice. Not sure when i will have the seats done. most prbably in next winter, when the car is in hibernation i'll take the seats out and bring them to the upholstry guy to have everything ready for next season.
 
I was never a big fan of the chunky SKunk2 billet aluminum battery tie-down. Mainly because it was not fitting the "JDM" theme. But i had it installed for a few years now, since the original one started to have it's paint chip off in large pieces and the quality and fitment of it is really good.

When i had the car partially repainted recently, i decided to also have the OEM battery tie-down repainted after i gave it a sandblast and it turned out nice:


So, back it went (both Skunk2 and OEM are shown here):


And well, it doesn't make a huge impact or anything, but i somehow like the fact that i restored an OEM piece of the car and got rid of the only non-japanese aftermarket item on this car:
 
Looks great! I always wish somebody made a plastic or metal version of the spoon intake arm. Or a 3d print?
 
Recently a Friend of mine pointed me towards a facebook ad for an EK9 recaro seat in switzerland with a fair price. I was a bit sceptic and probably wouldn't have checked out after a 3hour drive only. Luckily i was in that area anyway and thought i'd give it a look. and long story short. I have a Spare EK9 OEM recaro.


As you would expect it has several wear and tear problems, the common problems with the OEM Recaros, but otherwise it's in good shape:


And aside from the seat rail and the missing bottom net (which i have NOS spare's in stock) it's complete:




I'm not sure yet what will happen to this seat, but meanwhile i guess i have more than enough parts to rebuild multiple seats and that's probably what i will do. never a bad thing to have spares i guess:


Also a reader recently pointed me to a relatively new Japanese Company Studio 6 Zero / Studio Roku Zero. They're basically a high-level upholstry shop with somewhat close ties to some of the Honda RnD team. I didn't find that part, but some said the guys were even part of the interieur team of Honda at some point? They make custom refurbishment of all kind of seats, specially Honda. But what is really cool is that they started to reproduce a high-end replica of the original Honda Jersey fabric, which is currently not available anywhere:


Here you can see original colour samples. I think they didn't reproduce all colours in the end but yeah, the red one is definitely available.


According to my google-translating of their facebook, they prefer to refurbish actual seats in their shop, but also got plenty of requests for making replacement covers.
They say they can do it, but are afraid that the re-made covers will not fit 100% as the original foam below might have deformed and worn out after the years and the covers will not fit. Here's an example of their work:


We'll see. i might ask them if they will sell me a few meters of the jersey fabric so i can use them to have my seats reworked, the remaining covers i will use what i have in stock, i guess. but that's a winter project. so no hurry.
 
If you own an EK9 oder DC2 Honda, you know that the seats sides are one of the weak points of the car, which usually is worn out pretty quick and looks ugly. especially because it's the first thing you see whenever the door is open. I have been planning refurbish my seats since a while, but only now since the rest of the car has been overhauled, i thought it was time to attack that last remaining area to get her back in a show condition. And then my friend Rene also asked for some parts, so it was time for a group buy.
I was not sure which parts i really need. so instead of buying single parts i thought "why not buy everything which is available"? Ok, Overkill definitely, but that should keep me covered for the next years and otherwise i can easy sell these parts to somebody else. so yesterday i got a complete Recaro Seat puzzle for the EK9 (And some DC2 parts) at my doorstep. The delivery includes all foam pieces and vailable covers.

Did you happen find anywhere that sells the upper covers? Also the hinge mechanism or whatever it is that gets play in it. Seems like you have it pretty well researched!
 
Recently a Friend of mine pointed me towards a facebook ad for an EK9 recaro seat in switzerland with a fair price. I was a bit sceptic and probably wouldn't have checked out after a 3hour drive only. Luckily i was in that area anyway and thought i'd give it a look. and long story short. I have a Spare EK9 OEM recaro.


As you would expect it has several wear and tear problems, the common problems with the OEM Recaros, but otherwise it's in good shape:


And aside from the seat rail and the missing bottom net (which i have NOS spare's in stock) it's complete:




I'm not sure yet what will happen to this seat, but meanwhile i guess i have more than enough parts to rebuild multiple seats and that's probably what i will do. never a bad thing to have spares i guess:


Also a reader recently pointed me to a relatively new Japanese Company Studio 6 Zero / Studio Roku Zero. They're basically a high-level upholstry shop with somewhat close ties to some of the Honda RnD team. I didn't find that part, but some said the guys were even part of the interieur team of Honda at some point? They make custom refurbishment of all kind of seats, specially Honda. But what is really cool is that they started to reproduce a high-end replica of the original Honda Jersey fabric, which is currently not available anywhere:


Here you can see original colour samples. I think they didn't reproduce all colours in the end but yeah, the red one is definitely available.


According to my google-translating of their facebook, they prefer to refurbish actual seats in their shop, but also got plenty of requests for making replacement covers.
They say they can do it, but are afraid that the re-made covers will not fit 100% as the original foam below might have deformed and worn out after the years and the covers will not fit. Here's an example of their work:


We'll see. i might ask them if they will sell me a few meters of the jersey fabric so i can use them to have my seats reworked, the remaining covers i will use what i have in stock, i guess. but that's a winter project. so no hurry.
Looks like a good service that
 
Recently a Friend of mine pointed me towards a facebook ad for an EK9 recaro seat in switzerland with a fair price. I was a bit sceptic and probably wouldn't have checked out after a 3hour drive only. Luckily i was in that area anyway and thought i'd give it a look. and long story short. I have a Spare EK9 OEM recaro.


As you would expect it has several wear and tear problems, the common problems with the OEM Recaros, but otherwise it's in good shape:


And aside from the seat rail and the missing bottom net (which i have NOS spare's in stock) it's complete:




I'm not sure yet what will happen to this seat, but meanwhile i guess i have more than enough parts to rebuild multiple seats and that's probably what i will do. never a bad thing to have spares i guess:


Also a reader recently pointed me to a relatively new Japanese Company Studio 6 Zero / Studio Roku Zero. They're basically a high-level upholstry shop with somewhat close ties to some of the Honda RnD team. I didn't find that part, but some said the guys were even part of the interieur team of Honda at some point? They make custom refurbishment of all kind of seats, specially Honda. But what is really cool is that they started to reproduce a high-end replica of the original Honda Jersey fabric, which is currently not available anywhere:


Here you can see original colour samples. I think they didn't reproduce all colours in the end but yeah, the red one is definitely available.


According to my google-translating of their facebook, they prefer to refurbish actual seats in their shop, but also got plenty of requests for making replacement covers.
They say they can do it, but are afraid that the re-made covers will not fit 100% as the original foam below might have deformed and worn out after the years and the covers will not fit. Here's an example of their work:


We'll see. i might ask them if they will sell me a few meters of the jersey fabric so i can use them to have my seats reworked, the remaining covers i will use what i have in stock, i guess. but that's a winter project. so no hurry.
They actually bought the same machine which was used to make the original fabric hence why they are so good. There was a built by legends video on you tube about them. I didn’t think you could buy as they were busy with their own refurbishments!
 
Recently a Friend of mine pointed me towards a facebook ad for an EK9 recaro seat in switzerland with a fair price. I was a bit sceptic and probably wouldn't have checked out after a 3hour drive only. Luckily i was in that area anyway and thought i'd give it a look. and long story short. I have a Spare EK9 OEM recaro.


As you would expect it has several wear and tear problems, the common problems with the OEM Recaros, but otherwise it's in good shape:


And aside from the seat rail and the missing bottom net (which i have NOS spare's in stock) it's complete:




I'm not sure yet what will happen to this seat, but meanwhile i guess i have more than enough parts to rebuild multiple seats and that's probably what i will do. never a bad thing to have spares i guess:


Also a reader recently pointed me to a relatively new Japanese Company Studio 6 Zero / Studio Roku Zero. They're basically a high-level upholstry shop with somewhat close ties to some of the Honda RnD team. I didn't find that part, but some said the guys were even part of the interieur team of Honda at some point? They make custom refurbishment of all kind of seats, specially Honda. But what is really cool is that they started to reproduce a high-end replica of the original Honda Jersey fabric, which is currently not available anywhere:


Here you can see original colour samples. I think they didn't reproduce all colours in the end but yeah, the red one is definitely available.


According to my google-translating of their facebook, they prefer to refurbish actual seats in their shop, but also got plenty of requests for making replacement covers.
They say they can do it, but are afraid that the re-made covers will not fit 100% as the original foam below might have deformed and worn out after the years and the covers will not fit. Here's an example of their work:


We'll see. i might ask them if they will sell me a few meters of the jersey fabric so i can use them to have my seats reworked, the remaining covers i will use what i have in stock, i guess. but that's a winter project. so no hurry.
Yeah RokuZero are the group from Honda back in the 90s who were on the interior team. all fabrics are made to the original spec. at this time they wont ship out here. but will do you a set of seats if you send them to them.
 
They actually bought the same machine which was used to make the original fabric hence why they are so good. There was a built by legends video on you tube about them. I didn’t think you could buy as they were busy with their own refurbishments!
the original company still had the machine, they didnt buy it.
 
After owning my EK9 for so many years now, i just found out that my EK9 is actually not a standard TypeR, but an TypeRx special edition! I'm quite excited and shocked i didn't know this all the time!
Let's look deep into the differences between the regular TypeR and the Rx version and how i figured this out.


Honda made two special Editions of the EK9, one is the N1 or Racing "light-weight" edition, which is an EK9 inteneded to be modified for racing (So all A/C and HiFi got removed, and it came with standard (non-recaro) seats, as it was thought they're going to be raplced anyway with full bucket seats of the drivers choice, The second one was the Type Rx (or Type R-X):

The Rx was only introduced in December 1999 for the last two production years (facelift "kouki" model only), when Honda realized that many EK9 buyers wanted to have a bit more comfort features. So they factory installed:
- Keyless Entry
- Pioneer Audio system with uprated Speakers and CD-player
- Metal pedals
- Red stitched shifter boot
- Retracting door mirors.
- A center console in glossy carbon fiber look (vs the matte carbon fiber look in the standard EK9).
- A different wiring harness for the above features.


The engine, suspension, drivetrain and outside appearance are exactly the same as the standard EK9.
So the differences are really minor, but definitely make a change in comfort. I never looked closer onto it, so i thought an EK9 Rx would be more obvious to distinguish from the regular ones and that's why i never actually went deeper into the topic, always assuming that my EK9 is just a standard Facelift Car. There is no special badging, vin-number or anything else except the mentioned feature that lets you know if it's an Rx or not.
Well, what can i say? I'm more than happy to find out my Car is even rarer than i thought :) I don't know any production numbers, but one can assume that only a fraction of all EK9s are Rx's. first of all because they were inly introduced for the late facelift model, and second because it was most probably quite a bit more expensive.

Information is sparse and even in the official year 2000 EK9 sales brochure, t here is only one small part showing the Rx special features:


In the same brochure there's also a little model comparison between the Standard EK9, the Rx and the "Racing" version:


It seems there was a special leaflet brochure, showing the Rx's features a bit more detailed. I foun this one in an EK9 Facebook group and i'll try to obtain an original one of those, so i can get better scans and to have my car's documentation complete.Front and Rear pages:


Inside pages:


Luckily i also own an original Honda special Rx Car parts manual (Parts list News), issued on the 7th December 1999, which was an add-on to the regular spare parts catalogue und shows all the special parts of the Rx in detail.
You can also see here that the Rx was avialble in all standard EK9 colours (Black, white, silver and yellow), and production started with Chassis No GF-EK9-1201361,
The below info also states that the part list was created in 20. November 1999, but some state that the actual production dates for the Rx dats from August 1999 to August 2000, when Production of the EK-series stopped alltogether.


See the following photos with all the special features and part numbers, highlighted in yellow. On the first page, a different wiring harness is shown, which was required for the keyless entry and the retracting door mirrors.
Page-2-Kopie.jpg

Page-3-Kopie.jpg

Page-4-Kopie.jpg





Ppage-9-Kopie.jpg

Update: After digging a bit deeper into my collection of various EK9 documents, i even found an official Honda sales Info on the RX Model.
It got a special order Code (for a specific model) "5HR5R" and the Price info from 16.12. 1999 was 2'198'000 JPY (excluding aqcuisition tax 98'500 JPY and Weight tax 59'800 JPY)
Note that the Standard EK9 (5HR51) without options was priced 1'998'000 JPY in July 1999. so the price difference was quite low, hence many opted for the RX model after it came available.

Note that the following options for the RX were listed:
- Floor mat Carpets (21'500 JPY)
- Black Mudguards (4'500 JPY)
- Door visors (HOP) (11'000 JPY)
- Air clean Filter S (7'250 JPY)
for a total 44'250 JPY for all of the options

So how did i find out? I wanted to install the Mugen EK9 pedals, which are said to fit the EK9 facelift model. When i wanted to install them, i figured out that there are already some metal pedals which would make it impossible to install those. They seemed factory installed too, and not some cheap aftermarket items. After investigating a bit, somebody told me those are Type Rx pedals. I was quite surprized and started to investigate a bit more, and then i slowly realized that my Car has all the Rx exclusive features - and here we are. My TypeR is actually an even rarer TypeRx!
20230501_142107-Kopie.jpg


20230501_142330-Kopie.jpg


As yo can see, my Pedals are a bit dirty but still in good shape. The fact that those are so special made me realize that i might give them a bit of TLC to have them fresh and shiny again.
 
Last edited:
After owning my EK9 for so many years now, i just found out that my EK9 is actually not a standard TypeR, but an TypeRx special edition! I'm quite excited and shocked i didn't know this all the time!
Let's look deep into the differences between the regular TypeR and the Rx version and how i figured this out.


Honda made two special Editions of the EK9, one is the N1 or Racing "light-weight" edition, which is an EK9 inteneded to be modified for racing (So all A/C and HiFi got removed, and it came with standard (non-recaro) seats, as it was thought they're going to be raplced anyway with full bucket seats of the drivers choice, The second one was the Type Rx (or Type R-X):

The Rx was only introduced in December 1999 for the last two production years (facelift "kouki" model only), when Honda realized that many EK9 buyers wanted to have a bit more comfort features. So they factory installed:
- Keyless Entry
- Pioneer Audio system with uprated Speakers and CD-player
- Metal pedals
- Red stitched shifter boot
- Retracting door mirors.
- A center console in glossy carbon fiber look (vs the matte carbon fiber look in the standard EK9).
- A different wiring harness for the above features.


The engine, suspension, drivetrain and outside appearance are exactly the same as the standard EK9.
So the differences are really minor, but definitely make a change in comfort. I never looked closer onto it, so i thought an EK9 Rx would be more obvious to distinguish from the regular ones and that's why i never actually went deeper into the topic, always assuming that my EK9 is just a standard Facelift Car. There is no special badging, vin-number or anything else except the mentioned feature that lets you know if it's an Rx or not.
Well, what can i say? I'm more than happy to find out my Car is even rarer than i thought :) I don't know any production numbers, but one can assume that only a fraction of all EK9s are Rx's. first of all because they were inly introduced for the late facelift model, and second because it was most probably quite a bit more expensive.

Information is sparse and even in the official year 2000 EK9 sales brochure, t here is only one small part showing the Rx special features:


In the same brochure there's also a little model comparison between the Standard EK9, the Rx and the "Racing" version:


It seems there was a special leaflet brochure, showing the Rx's features a bit more detailed. I foun this one in an EK9 Facebook group and i'll try to obtain an original one of those, so i can get better scans and to have my car's documentation complete.Front and Rear pages:


Inside pages:


Luckily i also own an original Honda special Rx Car parts manual (Parts list News), issued on the 7th December 1999, which was an add-on to the regular spare parts catalogue und shows all the special parts of the Rx in detail:


See the following photos with all the special features and part numbers, highlighted in yellow. On the first page, a different wiring harness is shown, which was required for the keyless entry and the retracting door mirrors.

So how did i find out? I wanted to install the Mugen EK9 pedals, which are said to fit the EK9 facelift model. When i wanted to install them, i figured out that there are already some metal pedals which would make it impossible to install those. They seemed factory installed too, and not some cheap aftermarket items. After investigating a bit, somebody told me those are Type Rx pedals. I was quite surprized and started to investigate a bit more, and then i slowly realized that my Car has all the Rx exclusive features - and here we are. My TypeR is actually an even rarer TypeRx!


As yo can see, my Pedals are a bit dirty but still in good shape. The fact that those are so special made me realize that i might give them a bit of TLC to have them fresh and shiny again.
Mine is also an Rx, Also a very late production model, one of the very last ones.
I have that Type Rx brochure if you want scans of it :)
also have new brake and clutch pedal covers available if you ever fancy refreshing them :)
 
Mine is also an Rx, Also a very late production model, one of the very last ones.
I have that Type Rx brochure if you want scans of it :)
also have new brake and clutch pedal covers available if you ever fancy refreshing them :)
Nice. yeah i just saw that production of the Rx started with
GF-EK9-1201361. Added it to info above.

I think the pictures i got are enough, buti want an original printed one for my cars collection :)
I'll have a look at those pedal covers in the coming days. if they're refurbishable, ill stay with the original ones, as i prefer to not remove the factory rivets, but otherwilse i'll happily take them as spares, as long as they're still around :)
Do you know anything about how many RX's have been produced?
 
as far as i know its not special edition all EK9-120xxx are rx and the EK9-110 are r ,most ek9s i've seen in cyprus were Rx.its like a 3rd facelift for the ek9,same rules applies for dc2
 
as far as i know its not special edition all EK9-120xxx are rx and the EK9-110 are r ,most ek9s i've seen in cyprus were Rx.its like a 3rd facelift for the ek9,same rules applies for dc2
The first Rx model was VIN EK9-1201361 the VINs 1200001-1360 were just normal EK9 faceliftsand racebases.
 
The first Rx model was VIN EK9-1201361 the VINs 1200001-1360 were just normal EK9 faceliftsand racebases.
Exactly. and in this page from the official japanese year 2000 EK9 sales brochure, you can see that all three models (TypeR, Type Rx and Racing version) were sold at the same time. so i assume not all serial numbers above 1361 are RX's.
But it might be highly likely that many of the chassis above 1361 were Rx's, because customers chose so.
In the 2000 brochure, the Standard TypeR is advertized on all pages, and only one small corner (Also shown in the previous big post) is dedicated to the Rx extra features.
2023-12-23-09_03_20-2000-EK9-brochure-Model-overview-cluseup.png
 
They actually bought the same machine which was used to make the original fabric hence why they are so good. There was a built by legends video on you tube about them. I didn’t think you could buy as they were busy with their own refurbishments!
the original company still had the machine, they didnt buy it.
No and no.
The original company didn't have the machine anymore, and they didn't buy one either, but they found a company which still had a similar machine running:
1703405471029.png
 
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