Photo credit - Joint Gathering Photography
Kenneth's EP3 is a proper head turner, it's caught our eye at nearly every event we have seen it at, is it one of the closest things we have to the mad styling of the max power era in the modern age? Time to find out what mad mods have went into getting this motor to show stage.
When Kenneth bought this EP3 in 2021 it was a pretty standard example in Milano Red, it had a Mugen wing and a few light engine mods. Kenneth always had this idea of building something unique and decided this was the car he'd like to do it with, so to start with he ordered the widearch bodykit from FiberWorx and hunted for front bumpers online until settling on Buddyclub copies from a European company. After this the EP3 went to Robert at RM Bodyworks in East Kilbride to be painted in RS Ultimate green, luckily Robert likes a project and isn't afraid of a bit of fiberglass work.
Next big job on the list was to get wheels to suit it, which can be quite challenging when you have a car this wide! Kenneth settled on a pair of Cosmis Racing xt-206R 18x9.5" wide staggered for the front, however the rears he had ordered Cosmis Racing xt-206R 18x11" which turned out to be too wide so he had to send them back and go down to a smaller size, it was at this point the decision was made that the car would have to go on bags as it would not sit right, it needed to be lower! So Kenneth decided to go down the root of buying an Airmext Airride kit from China - which he says "I felt like this was amazing value as it cost £2K for absolutely everything"
Photo Credit - Joint Gathering Photography
Unfortunately at this point there was a pretty big set back to the build progress when Kenneth was getting the all the components together for the Airride kit he found the inevitable metal muncher - rust, he also discovered some Stevie Wonder tier repairs being carried out and covered with underseal. Thankfully for Kenneth a friend rented him space on a ramp in his unit to carry out the repairs needed to the underside of the car to get it to show-worthy condition - "I stripped the full underside of the car back to bare metal and a friend welded up any areas needing repaired and cut out the rear arches to allow me to run the bigger wheels, the car spent two months up on that ramp but in that time we managed to replace every single bush with polybushes, every bolt was replaced to a stainless cap bolt, it was mad when it rolled out of the unit on the bags and the big wheels, after months it actually looked right".
Photo credit - Full Beam Foto
Now that we're moving in to a new show year the car is about to have it's interior ripped out "I've bought some new GhettoWxrkz carbon back bucket seats, Green TRS harnesses and have a lot of custom touches plus a proper bootbuild as we ran out of time last season to do it.
Photo credit - Joint Gathering Photography
The next major project for the civic is to get the engine swapped for a K20/K24 Frankenstein engine Kenneth currently has stripped down waiting to build "the plan is to forge the engine, but I'm not sure whether I want to supercharge it or turbo it yet" "I also plan on putting a Quaife LSD in it and a Haltech ECU for the next big step for the build".
Spec list -
Full respray in Ford RS Ultimate Green
Fiberworx widearch bodykit
Custom Bonnet Vents
Mugen Grill
Tegiwa custom big wing - full carbon blade
Hardway Customs lighting bolt end plates
Cosmis Racing xt-206R wheels
Yokohama advan ad08r tyres
Re-trimmed door cards, A pillars & glove box
Dreamfast official custom saw gearknob
SJ Conversions custom saw clock faces
Kode black suede - green stitching steering wheel
CG Carbon Covers dashboard, centre console & sill inlays
BAF Motorsport K brace
Custom false floor
Tegiwa intake
Tegiwa Strut Brace
Fujitsubo cat back exhaust
Skunk2 lower arms
Beaks Tie bar
ASR subframe bar
Hardrace rear adjustable arms
Hardrace extendable tie rods
Tegiwa rack raiser
Delrin rack slider
Fully polybushed
Airmext Air Supension kit