I picked up the '99 Civic Si back in late February of 1999 as my first car. It was one of the first Electron Blue ones out and after much debate back and forth on whether or not I wanted a GS-R, I decided on a Civic mostly because of the return of the Si and I figured at the very least it wouldn't be as common as a GS-R or another typical Civic. Looking back at some of the photos of the car it's pretty entertaining and humorous to see what all I did to it back in the day. The photos are pretty bad quality since back then all I had was a Kodak DC200 digital camera. Pretty sure it was maybe a single megapixel. I took a lot of actual film photos that I scanned in but they were all resized.

The car naturally didn't stay stock for very long. In fact I had already ordered Skunk2 coilovers for it when I decided I was going to get it. I also bought a used GReddy SP exhaust off a local friend. Thanks to my brother and all of the "Ichiban Motorsports" people back then, modifying our cars was pretty much all we ever thought about. It also helped having Ryan around, an ASE certified Honda Mechanic that actually worked at a dealership and always snuck my car in to get worked on. The day I picked up the car, Sheldon drove it home for me (woops, I didn't have my license yet) and on went the windshield decal and coilovers. The GReddy SP exhaust went on a few days later along with a makeshift intake. Back then I was also doing some random shooting work for the late and great TMR M'zine. Ryan Hill hooked it up with a 5Zigen Fireball exhaust which replaced my GReddy SP later on. Those were the extent of the modifications for a bit, especially since I decided to plow the car into the rear end of an Explorer. Lack of ABS and driving experience along with slippery roads made for a nice lesson learned.


Back then I helped keep the Ichiban Motorsports website running, which actually garnered quite a lot of decent traffic. We were one of the few websites that constantly updated with new photos and "cutting edge" design back in 98-99. Since it was always such a pain to get someone in Gainesville to take photos of the cars for me to update, I did what I could down South with the cars we had there. Many of our weekends were spent cleaning the car and adding whatever goodies we could that week and taking new photos. The above photos are some I still have lying around with Ryan's Si hatch back in the day. I clearly developed awesome photography skills back then.


I also took advantage of anytime the guys came down from Gainesville to get photos of their cars. Above are some pics of Richard's wickedly awesome Civic hatchback back in 1999. We all know nowadays that wouldn't have been cool. It sported a Wings West kit, fully shaved body with molded side skirts and Supra, yes Supra, taillights. White with blue pearl paint. Also turbocharged with a DRAG turbo setup on a 1.6 SOHC. This car sadly burnt down on the side of I-75 one night. The Accord was Tim's. Back then it was dumped with Ground Control coilovers. Him and my brother drove down during a hurricane and they had to leave the car outside our housing neighborhood because it would've basically been completely underwater had they tried to drive it in.


The first trip up to Gainesville with the car was for the FSA / Florida Import Challenge weekend. We worked with TMR M'zine to bring about a show with some actual media coverage in Florida which back then was tough to come across. This was still back in 1999 and we rolled out with Matt's Milano Red '99 Si, my brother's '94 hybrid coupe, Louis' brand new soon-to-be HybridKoop, Kyle's fully done-up show Civic and Mark's JDM DC-2 Teg, one of the first and few back then on the east coast. My brother actually raced at that event, smoking the entire way down the track. Oh, and Matt won a trophy with a pretty much stock car (it had coilovers) - it pissed off a lot of people, pretty humorous back then.


While I was still in high school, I managed to pick up several website design jobs to pay for toys on the car. My first big purchase was a set of SSR Schumachers from Options Auto Salon. It was one of the few sets they had left in stock and it came full tire packaged deal for like $1400. Back then I thought that was awesome. They were 16x7 and to this day they are still one of my favorite set of wheels the car ever had. I also started throwing more random stuff into the engine bay including a set of STR cam gears, DC Sports header and a pieced-together cold air intake. Car also ultimately got a Fields VTEC controller and an awesome custom valve cover that was half polished and half painted Electron Blue.


Here's a bunch of group photos with other Ichiban cars back in the day when the car had the Schumachers on them. We threw our own show in 2000 before I moved up to Gainesville. Brought out all the cars. The Citrus Silver Civic was my brother's after he got it painted sporting back '97 GS-R mesh wheels. The Turbo Integra was Mike's, but we called him TurboTec. It was one of the fastest Integras on the East Coast back in the day. He drove it up to Atco one time, ran 11s and drove it back to Florida. The orange Civic Sedan was Doug's pumpkin. It had an Integra front end on it. Looking back we did a lot of awfully silly stuff that we thought was cool.


The above series of photos are mostly photos of the car right before I moved up to Gainesville for college. Pictured are photos with Ryan's bike right after he got it. The decal on the car sporting the Honda Motorcycle Wing was in memory of his passing. The photo of the heads up display is when Ryan decided to hit 142mph in my car on the way back from Gainesville. That top speed would stick for quite a while until my good 'ol buddy Dewayne (that bought the car from me) decided to go 146mph. And get pulled over.


Right after I moved up to Gainesville and right before classes actually started, my brother and I made a trip down to Orlando/Cocoa Beach to hang out with the Dy brothers and company. We took these photos one day after the group of us took a very spirited drive on some of Orlando's freeways. The S2000 was Mike's and that's Tim's Type-R.


This is what it looked out in our apartment building's parking lot. A bunch of little loud rice burners :)


One of the first things I did to the car when I got to Gainesville was toss in an upgraded stereo in the trunk. I had something similar back in high school that I bought cheap off a friend but decided to change it up a little bit. Nothing fancy, I wasn't much of a stereo guy. I also got the front lip painted a flat black, something I always wanted to do to the car. It wasn't quite a trend back then.


Prior to moving up to Gainesville in fall of 2000, I went to Hong Kong during the summer. While I was there I picked up some goods including a set of Civic Type-R cams and some random Spoon Sports accessories. I also picked up the good 'ol Hyper Rev book for the EK generation Civics. After much staring at the Spoon Sports SW-388 wheels, I was convinced that I was going to be a JDM nerd for my car. With the help of all the guys on the old school Hybrid forum, I was able to get myself one of the only sets of Spoon Sports wheels in the states. I was probably just one of few people with them on a car back in 2000. The wheels came in the same day as my carbon fiber hood, so it was an awesome day for my Civic. I remember afterwards everyone was really confused on what I had done to my car and not many people liked it.


The Schumachers that were on my car went onto my brother's car for a while since I couldn't find an immediate buyer. I think it looked much better on his coupe than it did on mine.


One of the best parts about living in Gainesville was getting to go to Gainesville Raceway for their test-n-tune nights. One of the best prepped tracks in the nation, we used to go weekly either to spectate or participate. It was cheap as hell and you'd easily get in 10 runs if not 20. The people that worked there were awesome too, they always let us line up against whoever we wanted. Here are some random photos of the Civic at Gainesville Raceway. It probably made close to 300 passes down the track before I blew up the motor. Woops.


I went back home down south in Christmas of 2000 and shot the car again right by home. My brother got rid of his coupe and picked up an E46 that he would build. This was the last time I shot the car with the Spoon Sports wheels. On one of my trips back, in the rain some car decided to merge into my lane without looking over on an onramp. My gut reaction was to get out of his way and I ended up smacking one of the wheels onto a curb. In retrospect I guess I should've just let him smack my passenger side but oh well. It was time for a new set of wheels anyways.


Replacing the Spoon Sports wheels were a set of Volk Racing CE28Ns in their 8-spoke design. Most people saw the 10-spoke design out on the market, the 8-spoke one was pretty rare and really lightweight. The bronze color was a nice change to the car too. Shortly after I got the wheels on the car though I grenaded the B16A at the track (video at the bottom). Civic Type-R cams on stock valvetrain with a chipped ECU and a late shift caused all sorts of valves to be dropped. It was alright though, I already had intentions of having an LS/VTEC built by John Brown (cashing in on my favors) so the car was already anticipating a new motor. The smarter thing for me to have done though was to probably have sold the B16. Oh well, you only live once and it's always nice to say you blew up a motor.


The motor was delivered to me the day before an NHRA Sport Compact event in Gainesville. John Brown and his crew headed up to campaign their Civic at the event which at the time had been converted to an all motor car for his wife Janice to drive. The motor consisted of a completely brand new LS bottom end with Type-R pistons and shotpeened rods. Oil squirters were also installed into the block. The head was a brand new Type-R head with Crower valvetrain and for the break-in period, GS-R cams. The thing was immaculate having 0 miles on it and it helped to have John Brown working at Braman Honda at the time. I was excited to get the motor into the car. I also picked up several new bolt-ons at the time including a JDM 4-1 header and decided to scrap the exhaust for a stock Type-R one. I was getting tired of obnoxious sounding exhaust systems on my car.


Some photos from the night I got the car back and one taken the day after. Car on the outside looked the same, engine bay kinda looked the same. But boy did the car feel entirely different. I didn't get on it at all, but the lower end torque was night and day difference compared to the B16 (obviously). I started sourcing a heat shield for the JDM 4-1 as I wanted my engine bay to look at stock as possible. I began breaking in the motor in anticipation to taking it down south for the cam and Phantom Grip LSD install and to check out an event at Moroso.


Headed down south with the car to get the Skunk2 cams installed into the motor along with the LSD get a valve adjustment and some dyno time. The car pulled 190 / 140 with relative ease even with the stock Type-R exhaust. There was more in the car in terms of tuning but I was happy with the results given the time we had. That is the ex-Castrol Syntec Civic in the background of my car. Went to Moroso to check out some races and headed back up to Gainesville. Also installed the JDM 4-1 header heat shield making the engine bay pretty stock looking other than the intake.


I didn't do much to the car for a while. Had to pay off a lot of bills from the motor and what not. I did decide to sell the 15-inch CE28Ns and ordered up a set of 17x7 Gunmetal GT-Ns for the car. I was one of the first sets on order from Mackin back then. I thought it really set the car off and I was getting bored of tiny wheels on the car.


While down south that year for Christmas, we shot my brother's E46 with my Civic. His E46 sported 19-inch Lowenhart BR-5s, full MVR kit and a wicked JL Audio stereo setup.


One day some lady decided it'd be a cool idea to come flying out of a Wal-Mart plaza across three lanes of traffic and straight into my car. I'm not sure where her line of sight was, but I was sitting at a red light in traffic and hadn't moved from the point that she was exiting the parking lot and to the point of impact. Everyone around me was confused on how she possibly thought it would be a good idea to go straight into a car. I thought about repainting the whole thing at this point but didn't really have the extra money. Car went to Orlando to get fixed.


Your eyes do not deceive you and I was not trying to go for the absolute sleeper look. I got bored with the car sometime in 2002 and decided to put the entire thing back to stock and tried to sell it. No one really wanted it at the time in the state that it was. I pretty much listed everything up for sale and only some of the stuff sold. The only thing that I really kept on the car was the LS/VTEC in there. That phase didn't last very long though as someone called in a favor for a paint job for me so I decided to rebuild the car (again) in time for HIN Orlando.


The color I had decided on was the BMW M3 Steel Gray and threw in some copper pearl. The copper pearl idea came from the fact that I had just picked up a set of 17-inch RH EVO CP8-R wheels. They were really lightweight 17-inch pieces and the bronze center finish with the polished lip was a little different for the time back then. I got the car back from paint and body two days before the show in Orlando.


In pretty much one really long day and night at Sound Depot in Ocala, I put back together everything on the car. Another GReddy SP (yes the first exhaust I ever owned) went back on the car along with an Injen cold air intake, another new JDM valve cover, my old 4-1 header with heat shield, the TEIN NA suspension, GReddy oil catch can, an MSD SCI-L I had bought long time ago, polished spark plug cover and a relatively simple yet clean trunk setup. We swapped out a lot of miscellaneous nuts and bolts, put in a new head unit and made a new center console piece to house the V-AFC and air/fuel gauge. Looking back and comparing it to the time crunch on the Integra, simply bolting-on a bunch of parts was a joke back then.


As expected the car caused decent contraversy with most people. Being its first major show (I attended another HIN in Ft Lauderdale but the car was Electron Blue w/ the GT-Ns) with the paint job and what not some people liked the JDM/clean theme but was really confused by my wheel choice. Like Warren Fortune Shim-Quee. That jerk, I hated him that night. By then more people knew about an LS/VTEC estup and were examining it inside and out. I even had a guy that argued with me saying that there was no way I could have driven the car there with the way the oil return line was setup. I also brought back the old school Ichiban Motorsports shirts on the seats. My brother brought out his gunmetal EG hatch to the show.


The day after the show we shot the Civic and then I did some group shots with my brother's EG hatch. I was pretty happy with how the car turned out overall but there were some more little things I wanted to do to it. The next show was going to be Daytona Beach so I started figuring out what little things I'd be adding.


For Daytona we had wanted to slap on a GReddy turbo kit that my brother had pulled off the EG but decided that we didn't have enough time to get it running properly. So instead we took the AEM big brake and audio stuff out of the '00 Si my brother had just picked up from good 'ol Kevin Jones. So the car had a video/DVD setup for Daytona along with an awesome Atari video game setup. Since everyone was doing PS2s and XBOXs, I wanted a cool Atari controller in my car. I had Pong and everything. Also threw on a new set of headlights onto the car.


Right after Daytona the car was shot for Japanese Performance magazine, some mag based out in the UK. I decided to do some photos of my own that day of the car probably in its best condition. It was nice and clean, fast and wasn't too flashy.


After moving down to Orlando and graduating from UF I shot the car with my brother's 00 Civic Si that was named Super Sperm. It was turbocharged and fairly fun to boost around.


While the other white Si was on jackstands, I decided to borrow the gold LE28Ns and put them on my car for a little bit. I think they looked pretty nice on the car.


After I sold the RH Pro CP8-Rs I picked up a cheapo set of Rota Group-Ns in solid black. These stayed on my car for about 48 hours.


Darin wanted to get rid of his 16-inch Slipstreams that were on his EK and put smaller 15s on the car. So he traded me straight up and I was cool with it. This was pretty much the last of the car. I sold it to my good friend Dewayne shortly afterwards.


A couple of years later Dewayne came down to Orlando so I could shoot the car. It was still in great conditions and he had completely redone the stereo in the car. The car ran in an issue of HCI Magazine thanks to Neil Tjin. And that would be the last of my old Civic. Dewayne still owns it and it still runs strong... 10 years later!