Evo IX MR FQ360 HKS Diary - June 2009
Alright Boys and Girls. I have seen on the MLR a lot of build/makeover and progress threads all containing useful information and great pictures, so here I wanted to do one myself. Hope you enjoy my thread
I started out my career as a young 17 year old driving a Vauxhall Corsa. I loved this car so much, first car and all that, and freedom at last, to me it was quite nippy but at 17 and just passing your driving test you just wanted to go places, and fast.
Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 SXI
After couple of years of driving the Vauxhall i then moved onto a Black BMW Mini Cooper when i reached 21. It was actually a nice very nice car but it wasnt without its problems, constant electrical issues and it always had this funny rattle behind the dashboard which drove me crazy.
BMW Mini 1.6 Cooper with Chilli Pack
After 2 years of ownership i upped my game and jumped into a Honda Civic Type-R in black (EP3) Anniversary Edition
The Type-R was an amazing car, it looked the nuts with its simple lines, black paint and red Recaro interior, i loved it. I received a fare amount of attention when i had the car and always found excuses to go for a drive, but after only a single year of ownership i sold the car
The reason being the insurance was now up for renewal and when i was shopping around for quotes on the Type-R i quickly tried a quote for an Evo VIII MR FQ320 that i recently saw while perving on Xtreme's website. After filling in all the information and bracing myself for quotes i couldnt afford, it turned out to only be £100 more expensive per year I quickly became excited at thought of owning an Evo as the only thing i thought that would hold me back was the insurance. Now i knew i could get insurance at a reasonable price my mind was made up, time to look for my dream car.
So the search began, but i didnt have to wait long as the car i looked at on Xtreme's website was still for sale and not knowing too much about them tbh i gave them a quick call to find out whats what. I had limited knowledge of Evo's mechanically or which model to go for etc but after a chat with the boys down there i jumped straight into the deep end and bought my dream car, my first Evo. It was a 2005 Evo VIII MR FQ320 in Silver.
And here she is:
I couldnt believe, there stood on my parents driveway was an Evo, My Evo
Whenever i drove the car you couldn't help but feel excited, like i was better than everybody else, i dont mean that in an arrogant way, i mean because i was driving a faster car than majority of people on the roads. I always found excuses to drive to the shops, drive to the pub and drink water, i was really happy and just couldnt believe id finally own an Evo.
So life with the Evo was going great and i loved every minute of having the car, so quite similar to the situation with the Type-R i had it was coming up to around a year of ownership and the insurance renewal was looming. I remember when i picked the car up from Xtreme 12 months earlier there was a Grey IX that caught my eye which i was instantly drawn to. Obviously i was very excited about the prospect of owning my first Evo but that car always stayed in my mind. Anyway, the VIII was due for renewal but i really fancied a Grey IX and after looking on Autotrader i came across a private seller in South London. I dropped him an email and we spoke on the phone to talk about the car. I got the impression this guy needed to sell quickly, and without driving the car it was costing him a lot of money just sitting there. I used this to my advantage and although the price was relatively cheap and was keenly priced to sell i made an offer £1000 under what he was asking. At the time i think Xtreme had one for sale for around £26,000 and put it like this, i paid at the time under £18,500 so i knew i was getting a good deal. So i made the journey down to London, test drove the car and did the deal
And here she is:
I was a Happy Boy!!! it was like :googoo:
Strangely enough It was only now i had the IX i found out about the MLR and i wasn't aware of it when i had the VIII. I quickly became a member after hearing about it from a friend through work who was a member of the site at the time 'HIPPY'. I hadn't been a member of a car forum before so i didnt know what to expect, but soon enough i got into the swing of things and manged to pick up some useful information.
Not going to bore you with anymore for now:smthumbup
My first purchase was a set of mudflaps from FQ Performance. Me and a friend of mine fitted them ourselves which i was impressed with, because in normal circumstances i may have booked her in to have it done properly by somebody else. When i had the VIII i never tinkered with anything and it was kept standard so changing parts and upgrading to new parts was a bit new to me.
My second purchase was a set of US Spec Rear Lights off a fellow member on here. I think they look so much better without the orange lenses, and again fitted them myslef
Growing up iv always loved my music and had quite a collection so i wanted to swap the current headunit for a DVD player. I purchased this from Bassjunkies in wolverhampton, and since my Corsa i kind of taught myself about installs and ICE so i quickly fitted this without much trouble.
Next step was to fit this HKS Mushroom filter which was off the VIII MR, my mates a mechanic so this was a job for him to do.
While doing this i bought a few dressey uppy bits for the engine bay and fitted those
What i wanted to do next was De-Tango the front headlights to compliment the new US Spec rear lights. Id read through a few posts on here on how to do this process but i didnt feel confident enough to do this on my own so after speaking to a member on here, he offered to do them for me one Sunday afternoon.
He wasnt far from me so after a couple of hours and hanging around the local village the job was complete and very much worth doing, he did excellent job:smthumbup
Alright Boys and Girls. I have seen on the MLR a lot of build/makeover and progress threads all containing useful information and great pictures, so here I wanted to do one myself. Hope you enjoy my thread
I started out my career as a young 17 year old driving a Vauxhall Corsa. I loved this car so much, first car and all that, and freedom at last, to me it was quite nippy but at 17 and just passing your driving test you just wanted to go places, and fast.
Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 SXI
After couple of years of driving the Vauxhall i then moved onto a Black BMW Mini Cooper when i reached 21. It was actually a nice very nice car but it wasnt without its problems, constant electrical issues and it always had this funny rattle behind the dashboard which drove me crazy.
BMW Mini 1.6 Cooper with Chilli Pack
After 2 years of ownership i upped my game and jumped into a Honda Civic Type-R in black (EP3) Anniversary Edition
The Type-R was an amazing car, it looked the nuts with its simple lines, black paint and red Recaro interior, i loved it. I received a fare amount of attention when i had the car and always found excuses to go for a drive, but after only a single year of ownership i sold the car
The reason being the insurance was now up for renewal and when i was shopping around for quotes on the Type-R i quickly tried a quote for an Evo VIII MR FQ320 that i recently saw while perving on Xtreme's website. After filling in all the information and bracing myself for quotes i couldnt afford, it turned out to only be £100 more expensive per year I quickly became excited at thought of owning an Evo as the only thing i thought that would hold me back was the insurance. Now i knew i could get insurance at a reasonable price my mind was made up, time to look for my dream car.
So the search began, but i didnt have to wait long as the car i looked at on Xtreme's website was still for sale and not knowing too much about them tbh i gave them a quick call to find out whats what. I had limited knowledge of Evo's mechanically or which model to go for etc but after a chat with the boys down there i jumped straight into the deep end and bought my dream car, my first Evo. It was a 2005 Evo VIII MR FQ320 in Silver.
And here she is:
I couldnt believe, there stood on my parents driveway was an Evo, My Evo
Whenever i drove the car you couldn't help but feel excited, like i was better than everybody else, i dont mean that in an arrogant way, i mean because i was driving a faster car than majority of people on the roads. I always found excuses to drive to the shops, drive to the pub and drink water, i was really happy and just couldnt believe id finally own an Evo.
So life with the Evo was going great and i loved every minute of having the car, so quite similar to the situation with the Type-R i had it was coming up to around a year of ownership and the insurance renewal was looming. I remember when i picked the car up from Xtreme 12 months earlier there was a Grey IX that caught my eye which i was instantly drawn to. Obviously i was very excited about the prospect of owning my first Evo but that car always stayed in my mind. Anyway, the VIII was due for renewal but i really fancied a Grey IX and after looking on Autotrader i came across a private seller in South London. I dropped him an email and we spoke on the phone to talk about the car. I got the impression this guy needed to sell quickly, and without driving the car it was costing him a lot of money just sitting there. I used this to my advantage and although the price was relatively cheap and was keenly priced to sell i made an offer £1000 under what he was asking. At the time i think Xtreme had one for sale for around £26,000 and put it like this, i paid at the time under £18,500 so i knew i was getting a good deal. So i made the journey down to London, test drove the car and did the deal
And here she is:
I was a Happy Boy!!! it was like :googoo:
Strangely enough It was only now i had the IX i found out about the MLR and i wasn't aware of it when i had the VIII. I quickly became a member after hearing about it from a friend through work who was a member of the site at the time 'HIPPY'. I hadn't been a member of a car forum before so i didnt know what to expect, but soon enough i got into the swing of things and manged to pick up some useful information.
Not going to bore you with anymore for now:smthumbup
My first purchase was a set of mudflaps from FQ Performance. Me and a friend of mine fitted them ourselves which i was impressed with, because in normal circumstances i may have booked her in to have it done properly by somebody else. When i had the VIII i never tinkered with anything and it was kept standard so changing parts and upgrading to new parts was a bit new to me.
My second purchase was a set of US Spec Rear Lights off a fellow member on here. I think they look so much better without the orange lenses, and again fitted them myslef
Growing up iv always loved my music and had quite a collection so i wanted to swap the current headunit for a DVD player. I purchased this from Bassjunkies in wolverhampton, and since my Corsa i kind of taught myself about installs and ICE so i quickly fitted this without much trouble.
Next step was to fit this HKS Mushroom filter which was off the VIII MR, my mates a mechanic so this was a job for him to do.
While doing this i bought a few dressey uppy bits for the engine bay and fitted those
What i wanted to do next was De-Tango the front headlights to compliment the new US Spec rear lights. Id read through a few posts on here on how to do this process but i didnt feel confident enough to do this on my own so after speaking to a member on here, he offered to do them for me one Sunday afternoon.
He wasnt far from me so after a couple of hours and hanging around the local village the job was complete and very much worth doing, he did excellent job:smthumbup