What am I in for? I've already noticed that they're not quite the sport car I thought they were. What are the major issues anybody has encountered? Do these have any wheel gap from the factory? Because this one doesn't, and I'm used to EFs. I want to make sure that I'm not buying some poorly modified one.

 

if its stock it WILL have wheel gap. If your looking for a sports car buy the DC5 type-s

 

It might not be a true sports car but it one hell of a fun car to drive!!!

 

I don't know....I test drove an Ep3 and planned to buy it about 2 days before I test drove the Type S....After I test drove te dc5...I came back that same after noon and bought it...If that tells you anything.

 

Check my sig, I'm trying to sell mine. PM Me if you are interested.

 

I love mine, and they're pretty unique. Honestly, with a good suspension and some nice wheels it's pretty easy to have a nice clean fun car to drive. If you're looking for more power, than an EP is just as good as any other Honda that you slap a big ol' snail to. Just go for a car that gives you more of what you're looking for in a car.

 

Yeah...If you like it, get it.

..:::Why would you want to serve cockmeat all day?:::..

 

HAHA wtf. I noticed that too and thought the same thing.

 

I ended up buying it. I have 5 speeding tickets on my record and a couple other moving violations... The Si felt like it was telling me "I can go 120mph, but 60 is so much more logical, don't you think?"

That's the type of car I need right now, a super hot looking car that tells me I shouldn't race it. I may some day step up to the RSX, I love the way they look too. And I got it at employee pricing at the dealership I work at. Can't beat that with a stick!

Ditto on the questionable serving of **** meat. Ow, and I thought roosters were really chewy.

 

Hey Homicide... is that the stock ride height? The one I bought must be lowered.

 

Lowering it much more than a inch without going to rollcenter adjustors will really kill the handling. The type-s is set up to be much more of a sports coupe while the ep3 was detuned so as to not out preform the acuras. The real limiting problem with the ep3 is the limit on tire size, while you can 255's on a dc5, 225-235's are the limit with stock fenders in the poor civic.

 

Yessss... if only I had that feeling haha.

 

To answer your question, since nobody else has...the 02-03 Civics have a problem with the camshafts becoming "pitted" after high mileage. Apparently only the 02-03s received these poor castings and the 04-05s don't have this issue. The pitted cams can cause driveability issues and a loss of power.

The 04-05 models come with sideskirts and a lighter flywheel, the 02-03s do not.

Sign up on ephatch.com!!! It's like crack. you've been warned

 

that was more a issue of people running the honda recomended 5w-20 oil and reving the motor. The k's have a oiling issue on the back of the head, running the same wt oil as honda recommends for the k20a2 (5w-30) pretty much fixes this problem....fyi, the 02-03 heads have the same part# as the 04-05 heads. The cams were changes in the 04-05 motors to the same cams in the k24a1 crv motors.....yup, truck cams......

 

Hmm, I've been running 5w-20 Synthetic. I think I'm gonna have to make the switch to 5w-30.

 

Steering rack creak. Be nice to the tranny. Don't speed so much.

 

Yep, I got the creak and my tranny is pretty sensitive. The creak isn't really a big deal, but I hate dealing with messed up transmissions so I'm trying to easy on mine, good advice.

 

lol but the heads weren't causing the pitting, so that doesn't matter. It's the cams which are different, and thus the 04-05's solved the problem.

 

Me too

 

So I bought the crappy EP3. Does Honda now recommend 5W-30? Has anyone driven the 02-03 and 04-05 back to back? Is the power shockingly different? If I were to post pictures of my new car, could someone give me an estimate on how much it's been lowered?

 

Stock wheel gap is like 3in haha, they're pretty damn high stock. Look in the picture thread, there's a few stock ones, just post some pics.

 

Congrats, you sound thrilled!! LoL

Honda doesn't necessarily come out and say they recommend 5w-30, but members on here and ephatch.com have had better results using it.

As for the ride height, just stick your head under the wheel well and try to see what color springs/coilovers are on it. I'm guessing you have coils based on how low you keep saying it is.

 

dude it says it right on the oil cap to use 5w30 lol...i still have been using 5w20...i may start using 5w30 thou too

 

Every k20a3 motor including the base rsx that I have seen have 5w-20 on the oil caps....I cut mine off and run 10w-30

Imo the 02-03's have more "top end" than the 04-05's but that may tie into the fact the later cars have about 50-60 lbs more "stuff" on them.....like rear wheel well gaurds, 4 extra wheel lugs and nuts, under hood plastic fender gaurds to keep stuff from falling into the fenders from the hood area and extra head light bulbs...stuff like that....they also have a 16mm rear sway where the early cars have a 14mm bar....

Just to give you a heads up....with the macpherson strut front suspension on these cars, you kinda kill the handling if you lower the car more than a inch....early hondas with the upper and lower a arm suspension designs were not so effected by ride hight. What this means is you have to watch the front lca angle just like the Vdub, BMW M3 and 911 guys have to. If the lca angle up from the center line of the car, they turn into a understeering pig.

 

same motor dude, type-s is 5w30 , at least mine says it