Deetz

I am usually not the one to be starting a debate type thread like this, but i have noticed so many people talking about it lately, i wan to bring up the topic very specifically!

Taking a perfectly good LHD car, cutting it up, welding, switching over steering, brake components, wiring, dashboard, wipers....ect....just simply does not make sense! The time spent, money spent, and the result afterward, as well as resale value....it just does not seem worth it. Remember, i am talking about converting a car, not one that came that way!

This being said, i am from Canada where we have a 15 year old import law, so we get in genuine right hand drive cars all the time. Nobody here in their right mind would ever waste the time and effort to do such a conversion. They are actually looked down apon here to some degree, and resale is much much less on all rhd cars.

The only really cool about getting the real thing is that for a cheap price, you can buy a rare and/or unique model that we never got, something actually special in a number of ways, they also have very low mileage on them....this is the draw here and why they are as popular as they are! The funny thing is though, 90% of those cars are up for resale within one year from the time purchased from importing it. Something to think about!

For all those who think i am a hater or rhd, i am not. I had one myself. Since i owned a few Honda's already, i picked up a very low mileage 1992 Toyota Celica GTR. It had all kinds of cool features that the north american models never saw, i had fun with it for a couple years, then like everyone else, parted with it after a couple of summers.

Anyway, back to my point. FOr all the young and/or impressional people out there people out there with a perfect usdm left hand drive car, think twice about cutting up your good car in hopes to have a knock off rhd....most will regret it!!

For those who have the real thing, enjoy it for what it is!

97ej6dx

I agree.. Im planning on importing an Orthia in the next year or 2 and im seriously thinking about converting it to LHD because it would be just a pain in the *** to drive on roads with right hand traffic. but then again the work involved may be more than i want to put in to it .
They have a 25 year import law here however if the car has a US counterpart or you submit a few of the vehicles that they dont sell here for crash testing then people can import them fairly easy but no one wants to submit the cars so thats why alot of people go to canada to import cars , register them with a canadian VIN and since the vins transfer over easyily to the US they bring them down here.
Lucky for me the Orthia is basically a 6th gen civic wagon same lines same everything. So the only thing i may have to do is do a civic front end conversion to make it legal (which i already have)

Deetz

Thanks for your input 97ej6dx, if you ever want any info on the Orthia, i have detailed information on them, as i had the engine shipping in from one for a car i built a couple years ago. They were a 2'0L AWD wagon....basically a smaller civic version of the CRV.

mrharmonic

its 35 for the state of cali

ScottF

I agree, it does seem ridiculous, it would seem that, if done poorly the results could be unreliable at best or lethal at the worst...

97ej6dx

yeah lol ive been wanting one for about 3 years ever since i learned of there existance. A guy on here is from New Zealand and he had one for a while and threw a civic front on it and it look stunning. Im lurking on Trade Car View to find the right one fore me. Alot of them are just front drive but a few i found are 4wd. and another thing they have to have is air bags. Thats also a requirement for vehicle importation atleast for the years they sold them The US civic had them so the orthia needs to. I actually joined NZ Hondas and i got alot of info on them that way because alot of guys on there have them. I was wondering what the 2wd orthia rear subframe looked like and they are itentical they also have the arched gas tank so even if i did not find a 4wd one i could do the conversion but.. finding the trailing arms would be hard. and it just so happens there are Manual orthias but 90 percent of them were 2wd most all of the 4wd orthias are autos but i figured its easyer to do a manual swap than it would to try to get drive trane parts . I could just get a manual CRV trans with shifter assembely since its cable and not linkage. So Now im looking for ANY 4wd orthia not to picky of color or if its 2 toned or not there is one in TradeCarView they are selling for 784 USD, then the shipping is 1800 to the US (california) then i would have to either have it shipped to me in illinois or i would take a road trip . No way im registering it in california it would be near impossible. i would have to go thru an importer tho which my freind is getting his importation licence in a year or so which is when i plan to do it. then he will be able to figure out how to get it registerd. my insurance company is pretty cool so im sure i can get it insured there are quite a few privatley owned RHD rural Mail vehicles and from what i understand illinois dose not have a restriction on RHD cars. Some states do tho.
The part that is going to be interesting is the Civic front end conversion. the orthia front core support is alot thinner and may not pass or may be to different than the civic to use the civics crash test results. I did however find out the crash tests from a russian site and they look excellent but unfortunalty the US has to do there own.. so hopefully i dont ahve to convert it till later but if i do have to .. well i guess thats fine i was going to anyways haha . put a civic badge in the back and turn heads in the local honda scene.

Deetz

For those wondering what an Orthia is....its a crv powered civic

97ej6dx

I really want the 99-02 beacuse they have awesome seats but they are hard to find at least the site im looking at they are mostly the 96-98s
But they are essencially a civic wagon. The civic Sedans also came with the 4wd option thats another thought 2 haha but may be down the road id rather have an orthia for sure]
this is the one i was looking at on trade car view http://www.tradecarview.com/used_car...orthia/507226/

fastrxu

A couple years ago i almost spent all my tax money on a rhd swap......instead i bought a house.
Did i make the right choice?

bsmith100

Couldn't you get by with a hatch? You are going to spend so much money to import the wagon. Is it worth all the added expense?

Then you will have all the problems that go along with a RHD car. You'll never be able to go to a drive thru window.

bsmith100

Without a doubt!

97ej6dx

Well Not being able to go thru the drive through will help me kick my fast food habbit haha. And it is worth the added expences the wagon is self is 780 bucks then shipping will be 1800 to cali then another lets say 1000 for it to get to me. the about 500 for legal fees for getting it registerd plus a 3 percent terrif on that 780 dollars initially so total comes out to about 4 grand. so pretty much the same price as a hatch plus this thing is 4wd so winter time will me fun


and if i do get tired of the RHD i can convert it to LHD. Its something that no one has here. i have a coupe and people in New Zealand are CRAZY for our coupes so its pretty much the same thing about me for the orthia wagon.. ive wanted it for so long besides i will still keep my coupe and just build on the orthia for a while

00 civic si

I REALLY like that.

Back to your topic, I completely agree, 'conversions' are not cool... It's that jdmfanboy crap... and they devalue something that is only getting rarer everyday...

fasthatch95

hell yah wish more people would understand jdm pride and tru expensive taste! tryen to keep it rare and genuwine.

bluej1

well the conversions are a bit over the top i must agree, but when you look at real jap. cars they are all rhd. now i went from American muscle to import. because parts were easier to find, and a bit cheaper too. but if i were to get my hands on a rhd ej1 like i have now the value of it in the states for those who love true imports would sky rocket!

97ej6dx

most of the RHD coupes are found in the UK altho very few were in Japan. But still a hard to find item in it self. hatches and the sedans are a dime a dozen in RHD but def the ej1 and ej6,7,8 and em1 in Rare in RHD

deschlong

iTrader: (8)

Yeah I'm with you Deetz. If I picked up a 15-yr rule RHD here in Canada, almost the first thing I'd want to do is convert it to LHD. I *personally* can't stand driving an RHD vehicle on our North American roads. The novelty is non-existant, and I think the folks who spend the time, money and effort to do it are pretty much out to lunch.

But ... ironically, I do hope they keep doing their write-ups as I'd need to do about the same approach if I was to convert to LHD.

97ej6dx

Good thing about LHD conversions is they are pry dirt cheap to find at local scrap yards and all the LHD parts are locally sold.

Ghetto Civic HX

I don't know. You can always sleep in your car, but you can't drive your house!

97ej6dx

In the US the fedral gov has that rule on RHD vehicles HOWEVER each state has its own regulations and just so happens to be Illinois allows RHD vehicles beacuse of all the rural mail vehicles that are privately owned and insured. and illinois has a lot of rural haha.
But Id rather it he LHD then again the conversion looks to be a Pain in the ***

nix94delsol

It kind of depends on preference, if you're a regular at car shows full of LHD cars, your obviously going to need to do something tasteful to make your car stand out. I'm not saying im going to go chop my WRX in half to make it a rhd to be all jdm, im just saying that sometimes its neat to see someone that's been so devoted to modifying cars that they would take the time and put in the effort for said conversion.

97ej6dx

I agree it is a nice toss up esp if its something thats not sold over here ill use the orthia as an example however if its going to be a car thats driven alot rather than a show car the RHD aspect is sort of thrown out the window. If i were baller id get 2 orthias make one LHD drive it as a DD then build the other one but haha that would be Uber expensive. Parhaps someday.

77777

having had and driven an rhd car i do prefer it honestly, but converting it is just way too much work and a waste of time and money. but same goes for lhd swaps, i think its even more stupid, be it easier or not, why not just buy a lhd car in the first place?

ChokolAwt

iTrader: (1)

i disagree. im helping my friend swap his prelude to rhd. its giving us a chance to completely redo almost everything from the firewall forwards

Deetz

You prefer it, why???? There is no advantage to it! It kinda of sucks for hiway driving! I had one too, but it is in no way better

shot from my car when i still had it....biggest advantage for that car is it was a convertable, no blind spots!