This is my build thread for my current daily. Sadly, at this current time I am essentially living paycheck to paycheck so progress will be sloooooooooooooooooooooooow. But any progress is better than nothing I suppose lol.

Anyway, in late 2023, I sold my 2008 Si and picked up a JDM EK4 with the intention of using it as my daily until I could find another 6th gen hatchback on FB marketplace to replace the one I had to sell to move from Texas to Oklahoma.
Unfortunately the tag/registration office was not letting me register the EK4 since I didn't get a title (car was never registered here in the US prior to my purchase) and only had the import/customs documents with the seller's name attached to them.

I wasn't going to take the risk of driving it to work, unregistered. So I jumped on facebook to see if I could get lucky enough to find another hatch to drive in the mean time.
And that was when I found this ugly duckling, listed for sale at $4000




1997 CX hatch, factory 5 speed manual, clean interior and only 158k(?) miles. Basically everything I was already looking for, aside from the....interesting paint job.

With all things considered, managed to get the price down to $3500 and so I took an uber for 45miles away and drove back with this beast!




Filling up for the trip back home!

Car had two steelies in the rear since apparently the seller had both rears blow out but luckily still got the wheels.

Car came with the following:
- ebay front/rear lips
- ebay Type R style wing
- ebay cold air intake
- ebay 99-00 style tail lights
- ebay black housing head lights
- aftermarket foglights (non-working)
- NRG quick release hub with MOMO Montecarlo steering wheel
- BLOX coilovers
- avid1 AV18 wheels
- Yonaka exhaust
- VIS carbon fiber hood
- decent sound system

 

I know a lot of people don't like the paint job or think it's tacky but I honestly I have no issues with it. I'd personally never do it myself but I knew I'd be able to live with it looking like this until I had to funds to get a decent respray.
Honestly the worst part about the paint job was the way it was done. It was somewhat (excuse my french) half-assed. With overspray on every wheel, some interior pieces and nasty panel gaps from, presumably, taking the fenders and maybe doors off. Also missing a lot of the weatherstrip seals, which is probably the number 1 thing I dislike about the car. I'm always finding small bugs and debris in the car.






The very first thing I did to the car getting new tires so I could be off of the steelies



Nothing crazy just some Toyo Extensa HP II's to match the front set

 

Because I'm a Honda nerd, I imported an EK9 rear "H" badge. It looked a lot more detailed than a lot of the fakes I had seen so I choose to believe it's legit lol






Life got stressful and money got tight so progress on the "build" so far, basically stopped for a good while

Next thing I did was removed and sold the door panels since, the car was missing the window crank handles, I plan on one day converting to power windows and I just needed the money lol