Okay so there have been people looking into buying an ep3 lately and have been asking the same questions I did 2years back. So I decided to make a thread on what you need to know and look out for when out searching for a civic also what you can expect through owning one.
COMMON ISSUES
1. Engine mounts, our ep3s werent hard parkers in japan during its life maybe when it retired in the holding yard waiting to be imported. They've been tracked in japan before, harder than us noobs going hard at wakefield or eastern creek. They will break at some point and that some point is between 65000-80000km. usually its the driver side mount that drops, you can tell by the silicon liquid squirting everywhere, its brown and hard to clean off.
price to fix the problem?
350-500 for mounts alone, labour will vary
Suggestions:
1. daily driven,part time track (2-3times a year) : Mugen mounts they look like oem mounts but stiffer slightly. unfortunately mugen only supplies driver,passenger and front mount so you can either buy a rear mount or buy inserts from energy suspension from the states or ebay. 50bucks over paying honda for a new rear mount that'll cost you 300 min.
2. Js racing: stiffer than mugen i think, offers complete replacement 4 mounts.
3. Innovative 60a good for track, gets annoying for daily drive when your car is at idle. though the vibrations go away when you accelerate
4. hasport 60a same as above just more bling than innovatives but at a added cost.
2. Steering rack, common fault on the 2001-2003 ep3 however that got changed somehow by honda for the 2004 and 2005 facelift ep3. Everyone gets it, costs you 50-80 bucks to get it regreased and clamped up again alternatively you can diy, search it up in the civic 01+ forum theres diagrams. will link here
3. Clutches : they say it'll last you 120000km but you never know how hard its been driven, I havent changed my clutch yet at 75k km. reason is probably everyone has to hold down the clutch inorder to turn the car on, i switched mine off when i first got it. when you have to clutch start it all the time, the torque delivered to the thrust bearing is too great and so destroys that bearing over time and so you need to replace the whole clutch. ask youre mechanics to disable the feature, takes 5mins if they know what they're doing. nothing to worry about because we dont have cruise control.
4. coilovers : from experience you'll need to get shortenned tie rods after installing them as the ends on the ep3 is too long, one solution is js racing tie rods. theres others like M&M but its abit more pricier than js. no matter what coilovers you put on from bc to tein monoflexes you'll get the same problem with toe adjustments.
Thats basically it other than that, its a quick grocery getter!
Differences in 2002/3 vs 2004/5 model
02/03
reflector headlights ( chromed/grey)
http://i804.photobucket.com/albums/y...r/IMAG0239.jpg
red recaros in suede
darkened rear tail lights ( dark red)
03/04
projector headlights
http://i804.photobucket.com/albums/y...IMG_9318-1.jpg
two tone recaros ( red on black)
clear tail lights, think of the jazz
different front and rear bumper.
different front lip
updated grille
IMG brings in alot more ep3s than other dealers, theyre easier to bargain with and very helpful people. just google up internationalmotorgroup
other importers along fivedock on parra road but i havent dealt with them yet. everyone else feel free to add any extra info.
The ones we get here are c-package ep3 that comes standard with aircon,hid and power windows.
