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Hello guys! Been a while since I last posted on here and my car park has changed... but not really! My MB2 is sadly not with us anymore, I was involved in an accident last year around march and sadly sustained chassis damage. They had just redone the asphalt on a road I used to enjoy driving on at night, it suddenly switched from old harsh but grippy road to freshly new asphaltwith no signs. New humid roads = slippery like ice so I understeered into a cement block, saved it a bit but not enough so I hit the corner of the block with the back of my front right wheel arch, bending the roof rail and the firewall corner. I was fine but I didn't recover mentally for another 2 months at least, I was really attached to my car. Time came when I started looking for a new car, and in just 2 years the marked had imploded, I couldn't find anything I liked for a decent price. My dad then reminded me about Rovers! I started learning more about the history of this joint venture and really liked the R8 platform in particular (Honda Concerto, Rover 200 [Coupe, Hatchback, 3 doors and Cabrio] and 400 [Sedan and Tourer wagon!]. Many of you will know about it in detail already but for a quick debrief, the R8 platform had Honda D series engine options as well as rover K and T series options, front Rover Macpherson suspension for Rover T series engine size concerns ( Double wishbone domes are way too bulky for the T16 2 liter, especially turbo on the 220 Coupe ), Honda Civic EF derived rear suspension, mostly upmarket Rover designed interior with real wood trims and honda sourced switches + little details. With that in mind, I set out to scour the menacing dephts of facebook marketplace and found 2 candidates under 2k euros, a black prefacelift Rover Coupe with 280k KM and a British Racing Green facelift fascia Coupe with 317k KM. We went to check out the first one, lo and behold it ran on 3 cylinders at best, had a rust hole in the sill big enough for 2 fists and was resprayed black from Nightfire Red, which is a gorgeous color and a sin to respray. Only thing left to do was check out the other one! Turns out it was on its 5th owner, a farmer with an extremely thick regional accent I could barely understand, and apparently hoarder of cars (even had an MB6 once). The car had a lot of chipped spots on the doors and generally anything around wheels, like it was driven HARD on gravel. Despite that, it run well and had 0 rust! The interior was dirty, driver seat scratched but still solid once cleaned, and the extremely bolstered Rover seats were RIGID still. We ended up getting this one for 1200 euros! Even drove it home 400km on worn front bushings, still a pleasant ride nonetheless. Fast forward a year and it's still my daily, improved upon every month I owned it, from maintenance to sorting gremlins. I really love the D16A8 DOHC lump, it sounds heavenly with a filter and pulls quite high in the rpm! The gearbox has super short ratios, even more than the CRX equivalent (in fifth gear my tacho sits at 3800rpm at 100kmh...) Pardon my formatting skills, just tried to cramp as many photos as I could of the things I really like about the car! The frameless doors are definetely up there, but the T top roof with removable glass pieces is amazing! By now you would probably be asking yourself "Wait, why make a post about it NOW of all times, and why here?!" My dad recently got wind of a pretty sick and well preserved example of a CIvic MB1 1.6i SR VTEC in Orleans Blue Pearl near our city! The car has 52k KM on the odometer and has been garage kept its entire life, 1 owner, only used for big trips around europe apparently. The catch? it hasn't actually ran outside the garage in 22 years at most. We thoroughly checked it out and haggled it down to 2k euros. It is an almost fully optioned example, with the only options missing being the Honda head unit + CD changer and leather interior (Which I wouldnt have liked as much). It has 4 rotors and ABS, Sunroof, 15 inch alloy rims, spoiler and bumper lips, fog lights, all four electric windows, AC and alarm + keyfob! I don't have many great pics of the car as a whole, since the calipers are seized and basically every single wear item needs to be replaced because of the age, but I'll surely post one in the gallery in a week or 2! For now, I only have these messy photos under my dad's garage's neon lights, which alter colors way too much... Under the passenger seat, in the secret cubby I discovered the original folder with every single document about the car and even a Honda Gold Card! So there's that, I'll definetely update this thread whenever I feel like it, thanks for reading :D

Hello everyone, recently pretty much every welding point of my exhaust is starting to rust apart, and the middle muffler already fell of completely (although ridiculously loud it was fun to see what sound that little d15z8 could eventually produce, even with its catted headers). Now i'm looking into aftermarket exhaust systems, but - at least here in germany - pretty much every system thats not just the rear muffler bolt-on is optimized for the models that have the cat under the car, not in the headers. Now I'm considering moving my cat underneath the car instead and switch over to an exhaust setup of the sportier models. Besides still having to clear up the legalities of that in germany, what are the technical problems i might run into? Could i reuse the little cat piece, is it universal or would i need a different one? Could my Ecu even handle having to relocate the 02 sensor, and will it still be able to adjust the air/fuel ratio correctly? Will it bork the way the car runs on cold starts or in closed loop? I dont have any experiences making serious modifications to cars yet, and not alot of contacts in my vicinity. If anyone has any experiences or insights please let me know, it would be greatly appreciated! Chsi

Awesome to hear youre a bit of a Rover head yourself too ahah! I always kinda ignored the MAs and MB1 but I'm starting to prefer this front end for some reason now ahah. I'm sure the MB1 still has some surprises for me, but I gotta say I didn't expect the material on the seats to be different from regular cloth seats, like on the MB2. It's some sort of soft carpet-y like material, extremely comfortable and I love the pattern. The dash and console trim is also pretty cool but doesn't come out nicely in photos under that light (in photos it looks like a weird greenish camo and the blue sunstrip on the windshield doesn't help), irl it's more of a... clear coated dark marble like looking texture? I really like it. Sadly the clock's LCD decided to implode years ago probably so I'd have to source one of those someday I still have all 4 original mats with Civic stitched on the driver side one, in pretty good condition, though they were out of the car when I took this photo. As far as I'm aware the heated seats option was Rover exclusive even though they are mentioned on the user manual as I was skimming through it yesterday, quite fun I gotta say. I'd also love to know if, given these have an ir keyfob, they also have an interior ultrasound sensor for detecting movements like on my Rover coupe! I tried checking for sensors on the pillars but couldn't find anything, the only thing I found was weird tiny dots next to the door lock assemblies, which I'm pretty sure I didn't have on the MB2.

Sorry to hear about your other MB, it hurts when your attached to a car and something bad happens to it. At least youre OK wilhich is the main thing. Love that Rover, always been a fan of Rovers (I used to help my brother in the garage he worked in/Co owned that repaired/broke/restored Rover SD1s). Always had a real soft spot for the R8, came close to buying a 216SLi in nightfire red metallic. Deffo is one of my most favourite colours on a car! That MB1 you've bought is a real rare gem! Finding any pre-facelift Civic M in good condition is like finding the proverbial hens teeth! Loving that one, same colour as my wee 1.4 MA8. I bought a drivers seat from an SR to us the base for my pass seat so it had height adjustment, same as drivers side. Had that same black/red pattern which I think looks funky as hell! Keep us updated mate with loads of pics of the Civic, and get a wee thread going for the Rover too. Both genuine modern classics now.

If the reason for moving the cat is to fit an aftermarket exhaust, it might be best looking into an adjustable cat replacement (test) pipe - something like this https://share.google/n1r8yBj8vDQZ475Xs Then you'd be able to keep your current setup, but use this to make up for the difference in length You'd have to check that the fittings are right for your exhaust. Other than that, a custom exhaust place would be able to either make a section to fill the gap or even a full system back from your headers

Sorry for your loss, but nice to see you found a solution you're happy with! Although for some 'more reasonable' people than us old car people that 2 car solution you picked might seem a little risky or unreliable even, i think its a good choice for a lineup of daily and project nonetheless. Looking forward to seeing it unfold, and to see what you'll be doing to both of them!

It almost seems old fashioned to create a build thread these days on the age of social media (one of the worst things that happened to the car community is the 2382834 facebook groups full of scammers and people asking the same questions over and over - but thats a rant for another day). I always find they are a great thing to do, if for nothing else for my own benefit to remember what I did previously 🙃 also found lots of great gems of info already on this forum - and more to discover im sure A bit of backstory - I've been bitten by the Honda bug after buying a 2010 Honda Accord with a K24Z engine - I'd originally intended to get something as a cheaper, ULEZ compliant run-around (I don't live anywhere near a ULEZ but sometimes have to drive into them for work) after getting bored with a non-ULEZ diesel Mercedes that i'd owned previously. I then discovered the scene for those cars, and good they look with the right modifications. I love it to bits but it's heavy, and the modifications you can do are somewhat limited by it having the less desirable R40 head on the engine and the rarity of 2.4 petrol, manual examples in the UK. Most buyers bought a diesel version (it was peak era of buyers being encouraged by the government to buy a diesel - how the tables have turned). I only know of a handful of others in existence and even fewer are modified. They are popular in the USA so some tuning parts are available over there but it often results in expensive shipping, import duties and long waits for things to arrive, and no chance to get anything second hand as most sellers aren't willing to ship internationally. Me and my father in law have been looking for a project to do together for a while as we've reached the end with most of our other projects (mostly just repairs and upgrades to our other cars) - initially I thought maybe a restoration project but we went to a car show recently and saw lots of cool JDM cars and thought that it might be an idea to do something along those lines. I have always been interested in a K-swap of sorts anyway and as I know quite a lot about Hondas and K-series engines from modifying my accord a plan was formed.. Initially I started looking at the usual suspects for a K-swap like an EG, EK, etc but we missed the boat on getting one for a good price and even rotten examples are changing hands for more than £2000 now, so I started digging into more unusual choices. After speaking to an acquaintance he mentioned to me that the MB civic might be a good place to look as it shares a lot of parts with Civic EG and Integra DC2, two now (to me at least) unaffordable cars but with great aftermarket support. I also looked at a few more leftfield choices like a really high mileage Honda CR-Z (came to the conclusion the subframe was rotten) and a Honda logo (too much fabrication). The MB/MC seems to be the last affordable 90s Honda, so it was now or never. I found a low mileage MB2 for sale. It was a 1.4i model, completely base spec, but that didn't matter for our purposes. In fact, I was quite interested because it didn't have a sunroof, and I've had nothing but grief with sunroofs in the past letting in water and making the car smell like an "old man's ball sack" (as my fiancée succinctly put it), and the low spec didn't really matter anyway for what we were going to do. Because of the low mileage (56,000) and original looking condition, including what I believe to be original dealer plates and stickers, I thought this could be a promising lead on a shell. It's very late for an MB2 - March 2001 on a Y plate - I've seen EP/EU civics rolling about on older W and X plates so they must've been sold at the same time - it would've looked and felt incredibly dated by comparison I imagine! The pictures weren't great as they were clearly from an auction (you know the ones I mean with the car photoshopped badly onto a showroom backdrop) I arranged with the seller dealer to go and see the car (near Bradford by the way - the stereotypes are alive and well) and when we arrived I was told the car wasn't available as there was "a problem with it" and it was parked at his house (undoubtedly this is why it was auction in the first place). Whilst being annoyed at him, I explained that we wanted to buy the car as a shell anyway and asked what was wrong - some kind of overheating issue - so we went around the corner to have a look at it on a driveway. The car looked fine although very dirty, and the sills/bodywork etc seemed to be solid other than normal age related surface rust and mileage genuine as the seats look almost new. The bodywork was unfortunately a bit tatty with various dubious repairs and perished rubbers but it's to be expected for the price/age. I took it for a quick test drive - which was a particular highlight as the prospective seller lit up a cigarette while I was driving around - without asking permission might I add - but other than the rising temperature everything seemed fine, so we agreed a price - so I drove it to the nearest petrol station, bought a bottle of radiator sealant (it seemed to be losing coolant) and poured that in, along with some water, and then drove it 1 hour home with the windows open and heater blowers on full to try to make sure I didn't break down on the M1. The car made it back fine although the temperature was climbing when stopped in traffic, it went down again when on the move. Here's the only picture I have of it at the moment: The current plan is basically to do a K-swap with a K24A with mild upgrades (K20 oil pump, 50 degree VTC), and an EP3 civic gearbox. We would love to build a boosted car eventually, but lets get the basics done first. As it's a heavier (by 90s standards) car and K24s are much cheaper these days, it seemed a better choice than a K20. In terms of styling i'm not really sure at the moment - probably try to keep it OEM+ for sleeper factor although not full sleeper - the wheels will definitely need to get changed as it's currently running 175 wide 14" tyres, budget brand that were getting on 10 years old (can confirm - they have no grip whatsoever). Watch this space 👀

If I remember rightly, the dome where the front interior light is is the sensor/receiver for the IR remote.

The coupe one seems not to work (for me at least) The old Mb2 sure is moving, though! I really like the facelift-look of the plastic parts being colour-matched, i plan on doing that to my Mb3.

Just found out I can insert videos so here's one from the coupe mainly for the sound(slower than usual as I had the roof off and uphill) and one from my old MB2 at an event! Highway acceleration.mov WhatsApp Video 2026-07-09 at 14.02.37.mp4

Didn't know I could add videos ahaha, here's what mine sounded like (cut off right after the cat) petal_20251015_104629.mp4

Yeah, it's the second time that happened too... last time it was the end muffler. Cant lie though, even though it was ridiculously loud i cant say i didnt enjoy it... had to record a few videos of it, for memories sake... InShot_20260707_215220204.mp4 Now its crudely welded together and still blowing underneath the middle console (the handbrake handle becomes slightly toasty on long drives), but at least the police hopefully wont stop me for it. Its just temporary until i find a way to resolve my upgraded exhaust issue... Yeah, it took me a while as well until i realised my cat situation, but i'm glad i did before planning ahead too far. I'd have loved to try and do some improvements performance-wise, but with the ECU being non-chippable due to the economy stuff being hard-coded in it, there isnt really alot to do. But at least they do the efficiency thing pretty good, without hypermiling but still driving a little conservative i managed to hit a max of 42.8 mpg.

Oh yeah these exhaust LOVE rust, my mb2's mid pipe fell to the ground while driving and it sounded like a kanjo racer, my ears still hate me. The one on the Rover coupe, which is the same basically apart from maybe different hanger location, had insane blowing so i changed that too, still blows pre cat... I didn't know they made models with an upstream cat like yours, I guess the VTEC E engines were the d series efficiency flagship so they had to do that. Good luck with it

Thats the part that makes a car a hobby i'd say! I'm still a long ways away from being able to upkeep my car all by myself, but i'd like to reach a point like that where i can confidently do my best to keep it alive. Stoked to see theres still enough reachable people out there doing the same!

Yeah they definitely wouldn't be viable for someone who doesn't enjoy doing a bit of trouble shooting, but I feel like I can say I'm really knowledgeable about D series engines and just Honda chassises as a whole so troubleshooting comes out as fun, aside from some issues I'm still trying to tackle!

Ay up lads indeed of some help please. Can’t find any wings for my Mb1/Ma. Would buying a full front end of an mb6 fit nicely? Needing to know ASAP please

RIP 1998-2016 Honda civic 1.6iLS gearbox is done cant get it out from 4th gear......... it was a fun car, maybe i will do a gearbox change or swap the engine to my EJ9...hmm have to drive my CE8 ACCORD NOW here's some pics of him: .