Honda Civic FN2 2007

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Discussion

Sillyhatday

Original Poster:

441 posts

99 months

Thursday 29th June 2017
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I thought after a few threads on here about these popping up, mine deserved one too. It has just been my daily drive for the last 4 years and a bit. There’s nothing special going on with it to be fair, but when you step back for a moment, and think where you’ve been with it, you realise how much these mix of metals share your travels.
I got the car in 2013. It was the second one I looked at. I was actually looking for an EP3 but all the ones I seemed to look at in my price range seemed to be dogs. I threw the towel in and went looking at FN2s.
This one had some tacky bits on the car which was off putting, but the condition was exceptional underneath a few stickers. It had five previous owners in 6 years, with no service history and a crappy pod filter on it (turns out it was a quality brand, more later). So I bought it.
On the plus side, it was pretty much the top spec for the production year with 29000 miles and 19” wheels. It’s GT model with the air con and such, along with rear parking sensors, in built satnav (which I think is actually really good, that said I’ve not used an up to date satnav) and Bluetooth phone system. A luxury for me thumbup
Some negatives being that someone had stuck type r stickers all over the outside. It looked moronic. Stickers on the back window, wing mirrors and factory decals on the sides. The worst being the fake Type R badge glued to the dashboard.



First job I did was to remove the pod filter and replace it for a factory air box. I found a guy breaking a car and bought all the air box assembly from them. Only after I got the pod filter off I noticed it was HKS brand, just badly installed and wrapped in gaffer tape. It looked a mess, sorry no pictures. The pod was sold on ebay and after it all, I made money.
Got the car serviced and as there was no history figured I’ve nothing to lose doing it all myself. A simple oil and filter change was all it needed on that mileage. That’s when I noticed the cheap ass front tyres. So off I went to price up a decent set and realised why these bands of crap were here in the first place. 225/35R19 tyres aren’t cheap. £160 each, ouch. Figured they would stay until they were trashed (which I never did get the chance to wear them out).
So the time after was spent getting to grips, with what was a lot of power for me. The poor ditch finders wailing at any sign of a corner, never mind power and corners. They were honestly the worst tyres I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. To the point that at every chance, I was abusing them.
Had a long weekend trip to Scotland snowboarding. Mate needed some good practice before heading abroad. Mate isn’t into cars and he was worried about the bucket seats being too much to relax in. After 350miles getting there, we only needed one stop as we needed the loo. Otherwise we agreed that 7 hours straight would have been easy. That is the limit on mileage per tank, got a solid 38mpg cruising at 70-75. We made the same trip again a year later in his Octavia and we stopped nearly every hour due to back pain. Horrible hard seats.

Glencoe, Scotland





I always drove to my mates place on a weekend. He was only a mile and a half away. I’m not sure why I didn’t drive, might have gone on the push bike.
We get woken up early the next day, to loud banging on the door. Dads there telling me we’ve been broken into, this and that’s been stolen. Along with your car. Police found it in the village pub car park abandoned, with the wheels smashed up. The key is missing and it’s been impounded.
Cut it short. Few weeks later, money spent, new wheels and tyres, car back, damage inspection and a happier me. Here’s the wheels. I drove it home on a spare set of 17” wheels. Acceleration was epic! In hindsight, the rubbish tyres is probably the reason I got it back. If the car had grip the bds would have made it round the corner and drove off into the night mad





Just drove it for a while. Had another service. Installed some better speakers and a small amp setup. The stereo was awful in standard form. I had some weird troubles with it all and left it half arsed and a small mess.

Got some EBC discs and pads after needing to change the original discs. Only one side came off easily. The driver’s side was totally rusted onto the hub. It took longer getting that off than doing the rest of the job. The slotted discs looked good on the car and the red stuff pads were spot on.



Original discs





Here they are a few months later



Covered in hot spots and warped to st bags. Total junk. Fitted Blue Print parts for ease and after hard abuse and three years. They are still on the car. Only now thinking about getting some new upgraded pads.



Drove it some more.
Clipped mirrors with some dickwad who couldn't wait behind a parked car



New (expensive) mirror going on. Strange thing is my buddy had one of these and a year after this someone did his driver mirror while I was in the car!



Got a Tegiwa catback exhaust. Superb quality product. Highly recommend thumbup







Piece of cake to fit, and a perfect fit I may add. Not like the one on my MR2… This exhaust converts it to a single exit, instead of a dual tip. I think it means better airflow as you can see straight through both silencers.

Theres a bunch more to post, but I wanted to get a thread started as I figured some may find it interesting. Post more when I get time.

The car as it stands now
Honda by Dan Simpson, on Flickr

EDITED to get rid of the broken photofket links. Setup with Imgur now, which is tones better to use in ever aspect.

Edited by Sillyhatday on Friday 30th June 13:20


Edited by Sillyhatday on Friday 30th June 13:23


Edited by Sillyhatday on Saturday 1st July 09:31

CivBrum

125 posts

83 months

Thursday 29th June 2017
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Very nice. I'm thinking of swapping my regular old sensible 2014 1.8 Civic for one. I did test drive a bunch a while back but it was difficult to find one in decent nick, and my girlfriend hates the bucket seats and vtec...

Amazed you can get 38mpg!

steve-5snwi

8,653 posts

93 months

Thursday 29th June 2017
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Those wheels were wrecked, imagine what they would be like if they were chinese replicas !

The exhaust looks good to, how does it sound ?

Mark-t

296 posts

203 months

Thursday 29th June 2017
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Are they SSR wheels? They suit it perfectly.
I'm pretty sure I've seen that last photo before but can't recall where..

I have a Milano red one which I've owned for a year now. It's taken a while but I really like it. Mine is the same spec and I think the sat-nav dash looks so much better than the standard type.

Sillyhatday

Original Poster:

441 posts

99 months

Thursday 29th June 2017
quotequote all
Thanks for the comments. Just popping in to see if there's been any interest.

I'll get time tomorrow evening to answer the few questions in detail. I've got some more close up pictures of the exhaust to add and I'll elaborate more on the original post before I add anymore thumbup

sgtbash

702 posts

136 months

Thursday 29th June 2017
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Looks amazing in the last picture, very nice indeed!

What speaker setup have you gone for?

Mercury00

4,101 posts

156 months

Thursday 29th June 2017
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19" wheels?? It looks like a horse-drawn carriage with those things on! The new wheels look much nicer, are they still 19"?

Sillyhatday

Original Poster:

441 posts

99 months

Friday 30th June 2017
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Looks like photobucket has caught up with me the bds.

I'll sort it later.

Oh they're 18" btw

5harp3y

1,942 posts

199 months

Friday 30th June 2017
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looks spot on, really like these and was trying to convince the wife to get one

Sillyhatday

Original Poster:

441 posts

99 months

Friday 30th June 2017
quotequote all
Got off work a bit earlier today. Fixed all the broken links from photobucket. Just got my MR2 thread to sort out later on.

I've never been in a different version of this civic other than the 2.2 diesel and I was quite impressed by its turn of pace. There wasn't a huge amount of tidy ones (from what I looked at) four years ago. Can't imagine there's many tidy one left after ten years, not without paying a premium.

Impressive how well the wheels took a ride straight over a kerb, between the church wall and a big signpost. All without hitting anything and causing minimal damage. The kerb itself was quite a high one. 10 Inches high or something. Nothing got bent or broken, only knocked out the toe on one wheel, noticed after it scrubbed off my tyre. If you look at the photos, they never cracked, only bent. Testament to quality engineering,

The wheels are Rota GR6 in bronze. I've had many comments about how well they suit it. I'm starting to believe it now after hearing it a lot. Wonder how well these would stand going over a kerb...

You may have seen that last picture before, it's been used to highjack other peoples threads on here rolleyes

The speaker setup I'll go into detail later with some pictures. It's done properly now. I was going for a nice sized system as I quite like my music, being in two bands at the moment and listening a lot at home. In it right now is an Audison audio processor, Genesis Profile 2 amp and CDT component speakers.

Horse-drawn carrage laugh I've not heard that one before. I completely agree, I spent nearly three years convincing myself they looked alright, but always thinking they're far too big for the car. Seeing those old pictures of it with those wheels on after looking at it without, really emphasises it.

After having it stolen and piling money into replacing those 19"s with new ones from Honda, at £400 a peace yikes. I was blind to just wanting it back. I've bonded with it like no other car. I remember well, the image of it sat in some gravel compound. Its chin on the floor looking sad, due to the destroyed wheels and flat tyres. All around the car covered in finger printing dust, from the Police looking for evidence. Still evidence inside it along with a bunch of family belongings that we thought was stolen. It was filthy. I'd no idea if anything was broken underneath. Strange what cars do to you.

More to come.

Edited by Sillyhatday on Friday 30th June 13:58

MikeGoodwin

3,337 posts

117 months

Friday 30th June 2017
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Really enjoyed this read thanks. Always wanted one of these. Remember test driving a new one in my early 20s and still remember that gearbox and 8000rpm, was a fun car. Had 19's and was bumpy as hell.

Sillyhatday

Original Poster:

441 posts

99 months

Friday 30th June 2017
quotequote all
You can't beat swinging the needle to 8000rpm. Love an engine that pulls hard all the way to fuel cut evil

In response to the supprise at 38mpg. I've never seen that again. That was 2 hours sat at 50mph and 4 hours at 70~mph. Last I checked its a regular 25-27mpg. Don't really fuss about it anymore.

A relative passed away and I got left a small amount of money. Bought myself a private plate, something I always said I’d never do.

Wheels. The fact that £160 a tyre was getting really tiresome (pun intended) and that after a few years the look of them got to me. They always looked too big for the car. Fine on the right car, this is just a hatchback. So got a set of Rota GR6 wheels an inch smaller at 18”. I got quality Bridgestones for all four wheels for less than two tyres on the original wheels.
Feel free to tell me all the horror stories of Rota wheels. I’ve had them on a few years with no issues at all.


(bonus points for guessing the Green Day album on the Haribo)

Rota GR6 by Dan Simpson, on Flickr

A few more close ups of the exhaust system. The build quality of it was beyond what I expected for the money. Seemed a shame to put it on and let it become weathered.
Just a few of the welds joining the pipe to the flanges.





The only complaint that I have for it is that, at the time of ordering, nothing made it clear what you were getting with the system. So I just waited for it to arrive. It was short of two stainless bolts and the spring bolts for the backbox joint. No big deal as they sold them separately on their website. The whole thing bolted on like an OEM product. No modifications or tricks to getting it to fit.
As to how it sounds, as one has asked. Tegiwa advertised it to be perfect for a daily driver. I agree with that statement. It doesn’t drone much, only mildly at 80mph as you’re doing 3800rpm, which is where it starts coming on song. So you can’t really fault it for that. 2500-3000rpm it is a bit droney if you’re accelerating, which again seems a characteristic of the engine from the OEM setup. Otherwise sounds standard to me, until you get past 5000rpm :devil:

https://youtu.be/0xejbMmsKE4 <<Video. Sorry PH won't allow embedded video links frown (more points for spotting the poor rev matched heel toe)

The standard stereo system is awful. There’s no way you could say otherwise. Truly awful. The stock speakers are similar to the ones in the older EP models. Paper cones and a ten pence diameter magnet on the back. Zero bass response and distortion as you gesture at the volume knob.
I had intended on using the Audison processor to take the signal from the stereo in the dash and convert it for use in aftermarket amps, it can also take a line input from a phone and can control the unit from a special controller. I got a sub in to test and routed my cabling for the door speakers. Three amps in total. Tweeters, mids and sub. I spent hours tracing faults as the sub wasn’t doing anything! I figured it out in the end, that Honda has a sub bass filter on their stereos below 80hz. The sub was cut off at 63hz. I was so mad. The only way I could use it properly was with its aux input. In the end I didn’t want to mount the controller on the dash, or run an aux cable from the boot to the dash area. In a rage I ripped half of it out and left it like that for weeks.
Once I’d calmed down, I decided I should grow up and ditch the huge subwoofer. I sold it and the amp for it. The tweeter amp was picking up alternator whine and I didn’t feel like fitting filter capacitors into the charging circuit, to sort it out. So that went too.
So the passive crossovers went back in. Leaving this. Which I have only recently tidied up.




Future plan is to box over the amps so I can safely use the remainder of the storage space under the flap in the boot floor.



Ramona comes on the adventures. Fan of Scott Pilgrim much laugh
I'll grow up one day.

Of course, the PH smiley


More to come


Edited by Sillyhatday on Friday 30th June 18:10


Edited by Sillyhatday on Friday 30th June 18:15


Edited by Sillyhatday on Saturday 1st July 09:35


Edited by Sillyhatday on Saturday 15th July 11:12

steve-5snwi

8,653 posts

93 months

Friday 30th June 2017
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I'd swap that head unit and go down the route of a small sub

MRobbins1987

509 posts

130 months

Friday 30th June 2017
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Looks good Sillyhat, I had rages on my FN2 and swapped for td pro race 1.2's in 18's makes a decent difference. The Rotas look great on these.

Butter Face

30,279 posts

160 months

Friday 30th June 2017
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I quite like the Rotas, just swapped my Grids for TD Pro Race 1.2s for a more BTCC look hehe

Sillyhatday

Original Poster:

441 posts

99 months

Friday 30th June 2017
quotequote all
Butter Face said:
I quite like the Rotas, just swapped my Grids for TD Pro Race 1.2s for a more BTCC look hehe
Yes. I like the simplicity of them. Bet there lighter too smile

In regards of headunit. The satnav controls are on the radio itself, along with some of the climate control. On the basic stereo cars it's easy to swap in a nice double din screen. I've grown accustom to not having one anyway. Just adds more weight :P

Need to resize my images I think, they're enormous

w00tman

603 posts

145 months

Saturday 1st July 2017
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Looking at one of these now at the moment - c.2008-2009 model for my budget.

Any tips? I know to avoid the 19" rage alloys and that rust around the top of the window is a known issue - anything else you'd want to look out for or is a must-have now you've owned for a while?

Budget is around £7 - 8k I think, so hopefully not dogs..

Sillyhatday

Original Poster:

441 posts

99 months

Saturday 1st July 2017
quotequote all
I'd say there's nothing special to look for really. At that money you'd be looking at the best examples there is, low mileage and tidy.

Yes the roof rust is an issue, one that I've not sorted on my own yet. It wasn't there when I bought it rolleyes

Make sure there's plenty of oil in the engine. It will not burn oil for a few weeks and then in one week it'll use half a litre. Can catch out owners that aren't fussed about doing weekly checks. You can run low quite easily if left unchecked for months.

My gearbox doesn't feel as smooth as it once did. I've got the oil to change soon. So make sure 3rd gear goes in smoothly, the syncro wears out.

For that money I'd look for a championship white car. You'll get the LSD, headlight washers, stereo connectivity (I'm stuck with CDs) etc. Prices on tidy cars in general are holding good money.

Apparently the boot can leak in water, through the joining of the roof to sides on the car. You can see the joins when the boot is open, they are where the boots hinges are. I've just cured some surface rust on mine. I've never had a leak, but I've seen someone elses leak.

Brake calipers like to stick, so be mindful of that. Seems to occur fairly regular. Mine was sticking when bought, but I managed to free it off and keep a close eye on it at service time. Seen a few EP owners have to replace them, they have the same brakes, more or less.

Yes, avoid the big wheels. They actually cause more understeer. Which in an understeer bias chassis, isn't fun.

In general I've never had any major issues. I've got a few of them to make a post about, probably tomorrow now. The engine has never had anything off of it, other than the oil cap. Long life spark plugs are still original. I spoke to Honda and they said it isn't worth changing them until 75000 miles.

I have had a squeaky idler pulling on the fan belt. It's the pulley right at the top of the engine staring at you. It's where the power steering pump goes on the DC5 Integras and others. Sprayed some chain lube in it and it's been alright for a few years.

Oh and on the older cars, I guarantee that at least one of the folding mirrors don't work. I've seen failure on a 60 plate and two 57. You got to live with it unless you replace them every few years

Can't think of anything else right now

Edited by Sillyhatday on Saturday 1st July 10:09

MRobbins1987

509 posts

130 months

Saturday 1st July 2017
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w00tman said:
Looking at one of these now at the moment - c.2008-2009 model for my budget.

Any tips? I know to avoid the 19" rage alloys and that rust around the top of the window is a known issue - anything else you'd want to look out for or is a must-have now you've owned for a while?

Budget is around £7 - 8k I think, so hopefully not dogs..
Check through the gears as synchro's can be an issue and look for either a championship white or one built after April 2010 as they come with a lsd, you should get one in budget and they make a massive difference. They are pretty much bulletproof, and Honda generally cover the rusty roof free of charge so long as it's got full history, it doesn't necessarily need to be at Honda.

w00tman

603 posts

145 months

Saturday 1st July 2017
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Thanks guys - great info. Hadn't considered a champ. White one so thanks for that - off to peruse the classifieds!