As Forrest Gump would say, you can tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear. But what about the car they drive? Flip through the next few pages and see what kind of mental picture you come up with for the owner of this one. Fresh outta high school, rocking a fixie to his Wendy's gig and ruining his credit by pimpin' out the Civic mom and dad bought him? Maybe someone a little older, with a few cars under his belt wanting to relive the good 'ol days by building a Civic in the new way. Maybe you picture a husband and father of two, who's moved past a modded E32 AMG, 350Z and MR2 to build this Civic, and not because he's crazy, bankrupt or nostalgic. No? Perfect.
"I had my first son, bought a house for the wife and kid, and just didn't have time to mess with building a car," explains James "FLOSS" Camarador, regarding the built E46 M3 he was flossin' at the time. Sounds plausible, but if the bet came to us, we'd put chips on James' wife giving him static about dropping coin at the speed shop every weekend, instead of at Ikea and Bed Bath and Beyond. "But once things settled down a little," he continues, "I decided I needed to get something to preoccupy myself with." They say compromise is the key to a successful relationship.
This was the fourth Honda James had owned and built over the years, and though the styles of building a Civic have changed, the processes haven't. "I bought an EK partly because I wanted to do most of the work myself. I had a suspension, wheels and the interior pieced together all within the first month," he explains, regarding the full Omni Power coilover suspension, Blox camber-adjustable front upper control arms, and Skunk2 rear lower control arms, trailing arms and camber kit. Over the following month, he also tracked down authentic EK9 Civic Type R front and rear sway bars, along with a matching gauge cluster, carpet, floormats, door panels, airbag delete, and rear seats, which James installed with complementary red Recaro SRD seats and a Personal Neo Grinta steering wheel.
Within seven months of owning the car, it had been through ten sets of wheels. "I'll admit it," confesses James, "I have a bit of a problem with wheels." That's one way to put it. "Particular" might be another, seeing as how he hasn't varied from his current set in the better half of a year. And just what holds the attention of an OCD Civic veteran and self-proclaimed wheel whore so well? For James, it was his custom set of forged, three-piece CCWs. That or the relative ease of obtaining them. "Sure, they're not cheap," he explains, "but they're light, strong, and available in any width/offset imaginable . . . and I got them nine days after placing my order." Five figures could scarcely get wheels here from Japan that fast. "And when I thought the front wheel fitment could've been a little more aggressive," he explains (James is very particular about these things), "they sent me out a replacement pair, along with a prepaid shipping label to send the other two back in their boxes. It couldn't have been easier."
And don't think fitting those rollers was a bolt-on affair, especially in James' case. He was hell-bent on his Civic retaining its original paint, which meant that massaging the fenders had to be painstakingly undertaken. "I used a hammer and a blow torch," he says, coyly. "It's a secret method my dad taught me in the Philippines."