Thats dope man, keep it up digging the set up!
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I’d say make 2 separate threads. Great work so far. Looking forward to more. 
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I’m from LI too. Nice cars man.
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BOTH cars look beautiful!
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Damn that makes two of us being young Lol. I’m still in high school…
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Okay story time!
So back in late 2015 I bought my EM1 midway through rebuilding my first car (bought in 2013) a Dark amethyst pearl 1999 Civic CX Hatch. That I did a full b16a2 swap on before I even registered it haha… God I loved that car!
The idea behind the Hatch was to build an an all motor, K series street car. Sadly I couldn’t find any picture of the later stages of that car.
When I bought the EM1 the hatch was already beginning to get stripped down for a respray and had a bunch of Oem EK9 and EM1 parts… All it really needed was paint job and install all the goodies I acquired for it.
(upload://5yIbE0nOs7J0esvcsy6WKagn0Sa.jpeg)
Once I got my hands on the EM1 the hatch instantly became a donor car and all my parts such as 36mm JDM ITR 5 Lug. 16x8 CE28N’s, JDM EK9 Recaros, and Misc bits and pieces all came together and this was the result.
I didn’t get to really enjoy the car like that because given the way the car was setup and the fact that it was my only car really stopped me from driving it. I was always in fear of damaging the BYS bumper or fear of getting it stolen.
Also at the time I was constantly getting pulled over and arrested for driving with a suspended license. (12 suspensions and 22 tickets in total when I finally got around to paying all of it)
Sadly 2 years later I decided to part the car out using the money to move out of my grandmothers house and buy a daily driver.
Thats when I got my F10 and did a simple drop, wheels, tints and carbon bits:
After I got rid of all the parts and got my hands on my “Big Boy” car I didn’t want anything to do with the EM1. But at the same time I didn’t exactly want to get rid of the shell to just anyone.
I owed my uncle some money, and he’s always been a big honda lover so I decided to give him the shell and forget about the car overall.
Like many of us have come to find out… no matter how much you try to convince yourself you don’t need a honda anymore. That’s almost never completely true
Fast forward to November 2019… I started to really get bit by the Honda bug.
At this point the car has sat in my uncle’s garage for 2 years and all he’s done is accumulate parts to someday put it together.
But deep down inside he never thought of the car as actually being his and he always wanted a Black (FBP) EM1. After getting rid of at least 4 FBP EM1’s.
We somehow came to an agreement and I managed to get the car back weeks before my birthday and I told myself the only thing I wanted for my birthday was to have the car running and go for a drive in it.
Sooo, my first challenge was where would I get a swap from. Considering this time around I wanted to put it together as a “Reliable, Daily Drivable car” I didn’t really have a big budget for the build.
The first thing I did was source a donor car. Thankfully I found another 2000 Civic Si 100% stock with a weird flat black paint job for $2000. Drove 5 hours there, lowballed the guy to $1600 and drove it all the way back another 5 hours.
Parted it out. made $1700 in what I sold, kept the motor and transmission. Voila… Free motor and Transmission.
Thankfully my uncle already had everything else I needed besides the motor and transmission and a couple of little things and he ended up giving them to me so we can complete the build.
Sadly given my busy schedule I wasn’t able to finish the car on time for my birthday. But thanks to my job. We were able to use a small area in the warehouse during the beginning of cold NY winters to put the car together during a weekend shortly after my birthday.
Saturday afternoon from 5pm to 5am (late night wrenching full of adrenaline… we’ve all been there) and Sunday 2pm to 7pm and we got the car back together and running pretty well.
Here she is with the F10 shortly after her first start up.
Here she is her first few days back home with me.
So considering I didn’t want to go all crazy on this build this time around theres a lot of parts I didn’t plan on purchasing again.
Such as EK9/DC2 Recaros. But If you can get them for about $300… Why not!
Around Late January 2020 My uncle really started to look into FBP EM1’s.
We ended up finding one on Facebook that we really wanted… In Canada… 10 hours away.
2000 Civic Si, In black, with a Full USDM Type R swap. For approx. $5000 after converting CAD to USD.
And it had Red DC2 Recaros!
I found this car on FB marketplace on a Monday and by Thursday night after many long days and nights of using Google Translate to talk to this guy via Messenger we were finally in Montreal, Canada picking up this car.
The guy ended up talking perfect English and I spent 4 days using translate but in the end we got the car so f*ck it.
NOW… how did I get the seats you may ask… well, my uncle for some reason decided he didnt want the seats so he asked me to negotiate the price down. So I did, and he dropped the price. but after converting CAD to USD it ended up equaling a little over a couple hundred USD.
So I made a deal with my uncle. I’d pay the difference and pay for our rental car and I keep the seats and give him my stock Si seats in return.
So I got them for about $300 total!
How we got the car back is a whole story in itself. Full of adventure such as almost getting stuck at the border because one of us forgot our passport and all our stuff is already at a hotel in the other country and much more but I’ll leave that story to my uncle. Maybe I’ll convince him to start a build thread also.
After I got the Recaros and spring started to come around I started going over all the bugs the car had and making her look all pretty.
I added. EK9 Power folding mirrors, JDM Thin side moldings, JDM Window visors, EK9 headlights, Coilovers, New engine and suspension components that needed to be freshened up to make it reliable, Function 7 Rear LCA and Subframe. ASR rear sway bar, Apexi WS2 Exhaust, Mugen Steering wheel, Custom mounted a Tablet to run my Hondata analytics and data. Crow harnesses, Paint matched harness bar and probably missing much more, but here’s how she looked after all of that.
Story gets crazy after this. It ties into how I got the EK4 but I’ll leave that for my next post. Hope you guys enjoy!
If you have any questions, Please ask. I’ll be more than happy to reply!
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Wow love all the content. Well done 
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Thank You! 
I’ll continue it later tonight or tomorrow after work.
Welcome. Love the ek4.
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Thank You!!
Good read with the stories. Honestly, your 100% spot on when you say we always come back to Honda’s.
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Both cars looking great.
Great background stories on them as well 
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So, I managed to find a couple more pictures of my first car with the full B16a2 swap.
Tiny bit on the ricey side of things but on the bright side I always liked having OEM parts… man I wished I would’ve painted it 
I also just remembered I did a full power doors/ window conversion on that car by taking the floor harness, dashboard harness, door internals, motors and switches from an em1 and installing it onto my hatch.
As long as you use absolutely everything from an em1 or ex and your car is an 99-00 hatchback it’s all plug and play!
AND YOU GET KEYLESS ENTRY if you find an oem remote to program to the car!
check out my Batman door panels I made from my little brothers bedsheets 
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I’m going to continue my story later tonight when I get home from work!
I’m so excited! this is where it gets interesting.
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Sorry about the lack of updates!
It’s been super hectic at work lately, plus I took on a BIG project as of lately that’s really eating away at all my free time. More on that later.
HERES THE STORY BEHIND MY EK4!
So ever since I saw the car when I was a kid, its always been etched in the back of my mind as one of my dream cars. (Along with Supra’s, R34 Gtr’s, Hakosuka Gtr’s, CSL E46 M3 etc.)
Later on in life when I was a bit older (15-16yrs old) for some weird reason I was walking around town and stopped by my friend Alvaro’s shop (back then he was just “my uncles mechanic” to me, nowadays he’s my go-to guy for any headaches I cant solve myself.) and there was this beauty of a hatch in the shop. Him and the owner and now one of my close friends Mel were changing the wheels on the car At first it seemed like any other honda to me, until I looked inside and noticed it was Right Hand Drive. Then I realized the “Chrome Track R’s” (sprinthart cpr’s but I was a kid so I thought they were Track R’s) that were coming off the car and put 2 and 2 together to realize it was the same car from years ago I fell in love with.
Photo by Joey Lee (Stickydiljoe.com)
Mel was swapping the CPRs for some Work RSZ-R wheels. I was still very young so we didn’t really talk much and I never actually saw the car after that for a while. Come to think of it I never even saw the car on the RSZ-R wheels after that day.
Huge thanks to Mel for the pictures/contributing to the build thread!
Fast forward a few years to when I started driving and attending meets and shows and I started to see Mel a lot more, especially when he started to come by a shop I hanged out at “Bullet Autoworks”
Back when all I did was wish I could have both these beauties (Circa 2015 @ Bullet Autoworks)
The EM1, Circa 2015 @ Bullet Autoworks
When we started talking he gave me the whole story about how he bought the car from his cousin Junior. and little by little I watched the car get better and better. We really started to hang out a lot more and during this time the EK4 became the first RHD car I drove, which if you’ve ever done so for long enough to get comfortable you quickly realize how addicting it can be. Eventually around May 2016 Mel asked me if I would like to join him for a 15 hour drive from New York to “Fresh meet Atlanta” in Georgia. I being a 19 year old with the biggest love for cars, plus really wanting to drive the EK4 some more said yes. From what I remember we managed to get there 1-2 days before the show and drove around Downtown Atlanta and then enjoyed the awesome event Rey and the Fresh meet crew put together!
Downtown Atlanta near Krog Street Tunnel (May 2016)
Me enjoying ice cream next to the EK4 @ Fresh meet Atlanta (May 2016)
Not to long after Mel asked me if I would be interested in purchasing the EK4 but having just recently dumped all my money into the EM1 I couldn’t, even considering the absolute STEAL he was giving me.
He eventually sold the car to a friend in Upstate New York and I was left with that sad feeling that I didn’t try hard enough to try to keep the car.
I would always go on Facebook marketplace and search up cars I cant afford (we’ve all done it) and one of the things I would always search up is “RHD”. The EK4 would pop up here and there and I made mental note of where it was and who owned it in hopes of someday buying it.
The car went from New York to New Jersey and then to SOUTH CAROLINA (12-13 hours away) after I noticed the car was so far away I kind of gave up on the hopes of ever owning it.
Fast forward to 2020 … (to be continued)
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Wow, what a freakin story. I’m in for this one
Sorry for the lack of updates, Just realized how hard this really is.
Plus I’ve been in the middle of a full restoration on the EK4. (More on that later)
So I put the EM1 back together, you can say it was a bit of a budget build, but as some of you may know… If you pay attention to details, even a budget build can be nice!
I enjoyed the car for most of 2020. and despite not having any heat or a/c enjoyed every second of it… my girlfriend not so much hahaha. (FYI, Shaved and tucked bays is not fun for something you plan on driving everywhere… take my word for it OR learn on your own 
)
I took the EM1 to very few events. Prime NYC held a “Harlem Meet” which was cool. IDK if any of you guys remember back in the days when Vraceworks used to hold those events in NYC. But it was nice to be a part of one for a change.
Drove to Atlantic City to Fresh Meet AC with some friends, had an awesome time. Stayed at the hotel the event was being held at and really got to enjoy the boardwalk with my friends! I liked it because I didn’t really see them unless its something car related so this helped bring us closer together as friends.
And FINALLY THE JUICY PART OF THE STORY!!!
So its a late night,12-1am and I cant sleep… I’m supposed to drive my EM1 north to Honda day in New Hampshire or something like that but something tells me not too… I didn’t feel like going and had no idea why … I go to the bathroom and there I am sitting on the shitter with my phone in hand checking Facebook marketplace searching up things I can only dream of buying (We’ve all done it, don’t deny it!)
One of the many things I always look up on FB marketplace is “RHD”………
So I’m scrolling through the posts and there she is!
My sexy, beautiful, apple of my eye of an EK4.
Although the post only had 1 picture and a very brief description… I knew that this car was my Bae… it’s one of those things you just KNOW. You know?!
So I click on the Post and…the fine gentleman “Luis” (I only put his name because I appreciate this guy sooooo much, I’ll never forget him.) posted the car up for Raffle… He wanted to know who would be interested if he decided to raffle off his “96 JDM EK4”.
Being the car of my dreams and the car I’ve always wanted. Something inside of me told me to take a shot in the dark and offer him my EM1 for trade.
I went to sleep and many hours later I see a message. He said “nice, I’ll think about it”. I proceeded to tell him about his own car and convinced him of how badly I wanted the EK4. and surprisingly he really wanted my EM1…
We kept on talking and later when he finally said “lets do it” I flew into my car and started driving with no address and just a general idea of which direction I needed to go. I’m 1 and a half into the drive. Crossing the bridge following my boy Mel (the previous owner of the car lol!) to get to New Jersey when I finally get the address. Now at this point, nothing is stopping me and I have so much adrenaline rushing its insane…I’m literally shaking!
Drive another 2 hours and finally get where the car was. He checks out my car… I check out his car… I drool all over his and cant keep myself together and be the “cool guy” no matter how hard I tried and we made the deal.
I Started driving home and noticed one of the tires was low and well… The valve was stuck closed so I had to go back and he let me borrow a steelie that he would pickup later…
I started driving home and I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited. like a little kid at an amusement park…
Pics coming soon…
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