It was August of 2020, and we were still expecting this Covid thing to wind down any week now (little did we know); we were browsing a Motorsport specific buy and sell website called My105 when we stumbled upon a listing for a “2.0L Civic and Trailer” for a modest price.
We were currently between car trailers (as ours had recently been stolen), so the idea of getting a two for one package deal had some appeal.
The listing was from out of state, so we had to take a risk and make the purchase without being able to inspect the car.
We did have realistic expectations of what the condition of the car might be, but when it did arrive, we found there were areas of pretty severe rust, and some of the motorsport prep was questionable.
Here’s a gallery of images of the car from the day it was delivered (click the arrows to show the next image)
We stored the car for a number of months and then around the middle of 2021 when we moved factories we set the car up in a workspace and started the process of mechanically and cosmetically restoring it back to the point at which it would be a functional track day car and promotional vehicle.
You can find more posts about the restoration steps on our Instagram page by going back through the post history.
The first Honed product we have developed for the third-gen chassis is a booster delete kit; the main difference between the AH and later EF/ED kits is that the brake pedal is shorter and requires a different offset height for the pushrod to achieve the desired 6:1 pedal ratio (that we aim for with our manual brake conversion kits). Our car still has drum brakes in the rear, and even so, the brake system works really well, leaving nothing to be desired.
Here’s a video of Grant giving a full walk around tour of the car
And here’s a in-car video from Winton Raceway from which you can get an idea of the sound of the car and the way it takes a set as it goes through the turns.
Image slider from Winton Raceway, photos by Swain Visuals.
As mentioned in the walk around video, on this day the ignition coil began to fail during session 3 (and then again in session 4) so the car did have to get towed back to the pits a couple of times. Fortunately this is an easy fix and we will have the car back at the track again soon!
