1997 Civic Type R sold on Bring A Trailer

[MINTY FRESH]

Hello Folks,

A first generation Civic Type R sold told on Bring a Trailer. I believe it was the first EK9 to be auctioned on that site. The comments were fun to read. It went for 36K American, which with fees would be 51K Canadian.

Minty

[330R]

That listing has me wanting one now. No room, no money, no sane reason to get one. The on track video was a great choice by the seller. I was surprised at the number of people chiming in to say they have an EK9 already or one on the way. A lot of love for the EK9 in the comments.

[MINTY FRESH]

Hello 330R,

I believe I saw you a number of times in the comment section. I use the name CarsGo.

[330R]

Hey MINTY,

Yeah I kept coming back to that auction over the past week. I've known about and really liked the CTR since '97 but dangit I just really have the hots for one right now. That will just continue as more show up over here. I saw your posts, too. So you're one of the EK9 owners I saw posting! Sucks about your transmission troubles upon getting your car. Question - is the race base trans different from the other EK9s? When you wrote the race base trans was expensive to repair.

[MINTY FRESH]

Hello 330r,

Well it was actually a good thing in some ways. Based on what the Japanese trained mechanic I found at a local Honda dealership had deduced based on the great compression and other things (the timing belt he replaced had no wear) the engine had been recently rebuilt. But whoever had raced it had trouble shifting gears. Due to this they had ‘hurt’ the transmission and dumped it at a wholesaler in Japan. When I got it I found out that I didn’t have much experience driving a car with straight cut gears and chewed up internal components. That was fun. The rebuilder had a hell of a time. He first ordered components for a regular ek9 transmission and that didn’t work. Then he contacted a specialist and got the right parts. Then I got it back and found out the lsd was fried so we put a new one back in.

My car is in the for sale section of this website. You can see the history in there. I had actually forgotten I had it still for sale. Funny enough I was trying to sell it for 40K Cad.

Minty

[330R]

Mind blown! I never knew the Race Base EK9 came with straight cut forward gears! I thought it was just a mechanically same stripper model so that racers could toss out the base seats, toss in a racing bucket, etc. and go racing. I see what you mean that it was a blessing in a way for the transmission trouble. Loss for the previous owner after putting money into an engine refresh. I'll have to check out your f/s post.

Have a good one
Scott

[MINTY FRESH]

Hello Scott,

I vividly remember the first time I drove the car. It had a bad battery and little to no gas. As I drove to the gas station I was wondering what the he$$ was that noise coming from the transmission. I had to go online to figure out what the whine was about because I had no in-person straight-cut gear experience. And when I was having the transmission rebuilt I didn't think to mention to the rebuilder that the transmission was 'special', I thought/assumed he would know based on the VIN.
Anyway, here is my advertisement: viewtopic.php?t=1338
Have a good one.

Andrew

[Aquafina]

Just adding some info here. Race base came with a standard CTR transmission. Dog engagement (whether helical or straight cut) gears and clutch type LSD would have been added in after it was purchased from Honda.

[MINTY FRESH]

Hello Aquafina,

Makes sense to me. It was an actual race car. Thanks for the information.

Andrew

[MINTY FRESH]

Hello Everyone,

As a follow up to what Aquafina wrote, I left a message on www.ek9.org to ask the community for clarification. Fortunately, a very helpful person responded and agreed 100% with Aquafina. Please see below:

https://www.ek9.org/index.php?threads/r ... ion.80816/

So that about settles that. By the way, straight-cut gears may be fun on the race track, but they are hell in town!

Andrew