EP3 - Project chav

[aaaaron98]

Having never started a thread on PH before, I though I'd make one, displaying the only car I've owned that I feel is slightly worthy of a thread.

So, I've wanted a Type R since I was about 13. The hankering for owning one was triggered when some chav came flying up my relatively quiet road at full chat in 2nd gear. I vowed to myself that I'd own one, and mine would sound even better than that one seemed to do (looking back it probably sounded ste).

I owned a Nissan micra for 9 months after passing my test (most fun I've ever had in a car), then moved to a mundane Corsa 1.4 turbo for 2 years as a long stopgap to me being able to insure something relatively cool.

So the stars aligned in Mid-march this year, as I found out that my current insurer would cover me for the remaining 3.5 months of insurance left, on an EP3 for a fee of only £75 (bearing in mind insurance for one had previously been into 5 figures!!!). I was 19 when I bought the car so I was over the moon at this!

I jumped on PH, eBay, Gumtree and Facebook for sale ads looking at what condition I could afford for the £3000 max. budget that I'd set myself.

I ended up looking at 5 cars within this price range, each and every single one was an absolute dog. All had patches of rust coming through in places, bad service history, and torn bolsters on the seats. Not to mention the owners themselves weren't exactly, erm, in a nice way to put it 'knowledgeable'.

Eventually I found one on Gumtree, listed within budget, good condition from the pictures, good service history and only 20 miles away!

The car was a real credit to the owner, receipts for absolutely everything, all genuine Honda parts used for any work done, oil regularly changed. He had done the timing chain, rocker cover gasket, clutch, refurbished brakes, valve clearances, and many other things I can't remember without looking at the history. The bodywork was absolutely brilliant, and he'd just had the wheels refurbed also!

The car has full stainless catback exhaust, as well as a Tegiwa carbon airbox intake.

So I paid cash for it the same night I viewed, and merrily took it home.

(night I bought the car)


First thing I knew was that the car had a slight knocking from the front end, noticed this on the test drive, but it was a common sign of the droplinks knocking, which are very common on this car anyway.

So I swapped the droplinks out, and also did the track rod ends as also had a very slight amount of play in them.

The next thing I did was get the recaros from the premier edition model, as the normal facelift seats are ste in comparison.

(original seats)

(New recaros)


The new recaros are mounted on M2 lowered seat rails too, so give a much better driving position in comparison to the original seats.


I drove the car down to my mates house near Swindon (I'm from Huddersfield), and it was absolutely faultless. The roads around there seem to be much better maintained too, great for driving! (maybe the placebo effect)

Anyway, took come photos of the car over the weekend etc. Although they seem to have gone really bad quality for some reason.




Anyway, for now that's about it really. Just trying to enjoy the car now. Got a couple of holidays coming up soon I'll have to hold off with the mods as I've got them to pay for (although the urge to cancel and throw money at the car is tempting!!!)

I recently renewed my insurance too, having just accrued 3 years NCB and turning 20, my insurance for the car is £950 after shopping about for what seemed like an eternity! I'm pretty happy to pay £950, to say some of my mates pay more than this for cars with half the power I was pretty chuffed!

Anyways, cheers for reading!

[Resolutionary]

Great write up - we do like a bit of back story here!

I hankered for an EP3 so badly when they were new / nearly new - I have a few friends with nice examples ranging from the stock to the madly modified and in either form they appear to be a very nice place to be / thing to drive.

Keep us posted on progress!