Even without knowing the car's purpose or the owner's M.O., it's hard to miss the styling preferences of a Japanese Honda enthusiast in Ryan Der's '99 Civic DX hatch.
The San Francisco native and UC Riverside student strategically sprinkled equal parts Japanese aftermarket and reconstituted Civic Type-R throughout his prized whip. A lot of Si is also incorporated into the hatch, but there's little doubt the DX is meant to resemble a JDM EK9 Civic Type-R. If Der was aiming for classic, he hit the mark squarely.
With the car flossing such legendary looks, you'd expect the Type-R's B16B to be underhood of Der's three-door. There is a 1.6-liter in the engine compartment-just not the one you think. Der kept the stock D16Y7 and made a JDM performance left turn, supercharging the single-stick non-VTEC motor. (We like to think it's American ingenuity.)
"Power was never an issue for me [with this car], because I was focusing on building a nice street/track vehicle," Der says. "At the Streets of Willow [road course], I was able to keep up with S2000s and M3s in the corners, but in the straights I was getting smoked."
With his previous '95 Civic Si, Der says he was more interested in straight-line speed. Prepping cars for drag racing was his introduction to wrenching, and by the time he picked up the DX, he was an experienced DIY'er. The only work not done by Der or friends was the alarm install.
DIY means saving money, of course, but Der also stayed hands-on for the experience, the opportunity to learn his car and pride.
"It's an accomplishment, something we can stand behind," he explains. "Besides, I like knowing that if something ever happens to it, I can fix it."
Over time, straight-line steering got tedious and Der's decision to buy and transform a DX into a circuit car was his admission that he'd outgrown the drags. Although Der never had a specific plan for the build,he knew what he wanted before he bought the car, right down to the color. He gradually collected suspension and CTR parts that went on the car the moment he got the keys.
Soon after, Der jumped on a good deal for a Jackson Racing supercharger and, like nearly everything else on the hatch, installed the supercharger himself (with a little help from his friends). The car fired up on the first try.
But the enthusiasm was short-lived. Engine gremlins started popping up after the blower install. Der, who drives home to San Francisco once a month from Southern Cali, was starting to sketch on the six-hour drive.
"I'd be on [Interstate 5] halfway from where I needed to be and I'd get a 'check engine' light," he recalls. "It was scary. I'd have to pull over and call one of my buddies to get the [trouble] code." Ultimately, Der figured out the engine was running too rich and having some EVAP issues.
Currently, Der is upgrading the hatch's unique brake package, finding Brembo 12-inch front and 11-inch rear rotors and front four-piston calipers for his application. He's also got his eye on taking power to the next level. Factoring in $8,000 in build costs along with the purchase price, Der says he's dropped about 17-large on the DX.
He admits to one regret about parts he's chosen in the past, offering newbies a shred of advice to ditch poseur gear and only go for the real deal.
"I used to buy a lot of replica parts thinking that they were the same, and that the difference wouldn't matter to me."