Today is a very special day and probably one of the only times I will ever do anything like this here on The Chronicles. As you all know by now, I freelance for a variety of automotive magazines and I started recently doing some work for a U.K.-based magazine known as “Total Honda”. They are a Honda-dedicated publication overseas and a relatively new magazine. They first asked me to shoot and write a story for them on Bisimoto Engineering’s 2012 Civic Si project. I agreed to do it and also agreed to help them out by shooting a couple cars over here in the U.S. for their publication. These American Honda builds would hopefully help them increase their viewership in the U.K. and possibly help them expand their title throughout the world. I was very happy with the Bisimoto story and hoped to continue the momentum doing a story on another car. This next build would be a privateer build belonging at an enthusiast whose car has been around for quite some time but is never much in the worldwide eyes of the Honda community…
I chose to do the story on David Andrade aka DPK David’s Civic coupe because I’ve known him for quite some time and watched the transformation of his car throughout the years. We always talked about working together on a feature on his car because he felt that nobody would be able to tell his story like I could. We have become close personal friends over time and I thought it would be cool to get him into a magazine outside of the country. I’m pretty familiar with this car and all it’s subtle details so it was going to be a relatively easy shoot in the short amount of time that was allotted to me to complete a story for Total Honda. When I shot the car, I had every intentions of it being on the cover of Total Honda and at no time did I believe otherwise. I was very happy with the resulting shot that I did for the cover and was a little surprised when I received the magazine in the mail and there was another Civic on the cover. You guys know how blunt and honest I can be most of the time, it is no secret. When I found out that it didn’t end up on the cover, I was pretty bummed, haha. I worked pretty hard on the photos and I felt that the shot I did was a more attention-grabbing than the shot they ended up using. Either way, what was done was done. If they felt that the car they used was a better fit for the cover, than so be it. There is nothing I could really do about it. I am not the art director over there or anyone in charge of how the magazine was put together…
Today I am doing something very different and presenting to all of you David Andrade’s complete feature from Total Honda, including some shots that weren’t used. The reason behind this is because I know many of you who follow this site are fans of his build and I don’t believe you guys would have been able to see this story otherwise. They haven’t really pushed it much through social media sites so if I hadn’t mentioned it, you probably wouldn’t even know that this feature existed. Me posting this up on The Chronicles should have very little effect on his this issue sells over in the U.K. One being that they chose to run a different car on the cover and they felt that the Civic they chose would be able to carry that title throughout the two month span that is is on news stands. DPK David’s story is in there somewhere but again, nobody will have known about it. I am offering it to you today so that you guys can have the opportunity to see my work here that you probably wouldn’t have been able to catch unless you bought the issue on iTunes or subscribed to the magazine. I won’t do this with American books because they are more readily available to you. This feature is an exclusive here for you today only on The Chronicles…
Total Honda magazine is actually filled with some very good content and once they get their footing, it’ll grow and be a pretty good U.K. Honda magazine. If you wish to subscribe, click here so you can be transferred over to their Facebook page… Use this story today as an example of the good stuff you’ll be seeing from me in the future in this publication…
Now, here are the photos and the complete story from Total Honda magazine’s feature on David Andrade’s EJ1 coupe. There are links below certain photos that lead you to larger, higher resolution photos. At the end, I have also attached a 1080P-sized desktop image. Enjoy…
KING KOOPA from Total Honda Magazine May-June 2012 issue…
DAVID ANDRADE’S 1995 HONDA CIVIC EX
PHOTOS & STORY BY JOEY LEE
The shot that was my intention to be used for their cover… Larger Version (1600×1067)
Life is often filled with indecisions. The choices you make in your life ultimately shape your future and the mistakes you make also define your character. There are times when you are faced with very tough decisions to make and you are stuck at a crossroads; some people take longer than others to decide, some can make quick decisions on the fly, and some just choose to ignore the issue. No matter which one you are, the reality is that you face choices every single day. The decision-making process is as commonplace as every breath that you take on the daily.
When it comes to cars, every enthusiast knows that choices can ultimately make or break a build. Whether it is a particular part to use, wheel selection, or something as monumental as what paint code to pick, decisions are an essential part of any project. There isn’t an exact right or wrong per se, but even the smallest details can affect the overall theme and execution of a build. Honda guys/gals should know all too well about the importance of fine details. In a community that is so vast and with many building the same chassis, it’s important to be unique and to stand out amongst the crowd. You’re likely to see very much of the same products on a number of different Hondas. After all, there will always be parts that are popular and sought after. It’s important to remember that building a Honda isn’t just all about what’s popular; to truly build a great Honda, you have to mind the details and portions of a build that are often overlooked.
David Andrade knows all about the pressures of making the right decisions—well, “right” in his eyes anyways. He is a man that is often troubled by his inabilities to make concise decisions. Andrade could be shopping for clothing or shoes, or ordering a meal and be stuck on making a decision. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that David is probably the most indecisive person ever. The only constant, which he had very little trouble on deciding to have in his life, is his wife-to-be, Jackie. They have spent the better part of their adult lives together, and in that time, David has been messing with this green 1995 Honda Civic coupe. While he is moving forward with Jackie into the next stage of their lives, we must note that he has intentions of moving on without his coupe. This EJ1 Civic is a culmination of everything he has ever envisioned for his build. There have been many great times with it, and some bad ones. David just feels that it may be time to move on and to challenge himself with a new project. It has been quite the journey with this build and by the time you finish reading this story from start-to-finish, you will realize that there isn’t a whole lot more you could do to this coupe. Every part of this Civic has been paid its due attention by Andrade. It may seem simple at a glance, but there is so much more to this Honda than meets the eye.
“I bought my (Civic) coupe back in 2004 from my neighbor.” David says. “At the time it had all kinds of random ricey mods done to it; the car had white vinyl interior, a body kit, 18-inch wheels, and a big spoiler on it. It always just sat outside on the street and every time I came home, I would see it sitting there. I knew I could take that car and do something with it so I bought it from him and took off all the stuff I didn’t want.”
Back in 2004, Andrade wasn’t that heavily involved with Hondas. He had another car before purchasing his Civic and though he was a fan of all genres of automobile modification, Hondas were far from being his expertise. His plan early on was just to bring the car back to OEM-specs as much as he could. No more body kit, no big wheels, and the white vinyl interior definitely had to go. While he was busy putting his coupe back to stock-form, a couple of his friends were also doing something similar—but with JDM OEM parts. David was intrigued by the idea and followed suit. It was the best of both worlds; he could not only keep the car as OEM as possible, but also continue to modify it by adding OEM parts, only from Japan-specific counterparts. “My plan at that time was just to build a simple, clean Honda that looked like it could have possibly been a factory option from the dealer, just with some minor power upgrades.”
Andrade’s game plan worked, as his JDM/OEM-specific build began to garner attention from his peers. He started attending events regularly and got heavily involved within the Southern California Honda community. A U.S.-based magazine publication also took notice of his handy work and even featured his Civic in their magazine around 2006. His friends’ builds were also beginning to become quite popular. They were getting recognized at events as well as on popular internet forums so they used that momentum and decided to unite to start a new car club; “DPK”. By the middle of 2000, JDM parts were all the rage. They were everywhere and it was just commonplace to see a Honda with Japanese-specific OEM parts. David and his friends needed to find something that truly set them apart from the crowd. They had to find their niche so they resolved to use elements that were popularized in the American hot-rodding and lowrider scene; the chroming, dipping, or plating of parts, hence the name “DPK” or “Dipped Parts Krew”. Plating and chroming certainly wasn’t anything remotely new within the automotive sub-culture, but in the Honda community, it wasn’t often used as an essential modification. His friend Rudy unveiled a Mugen-equipped RSX with 24K gold-dipped parts galore and his other friend, J.P., had re-emerged with a turbo Civic hatchback laced with copper-plated parts. David knew he had to step his game up so he decided to tear his car apart and rebuild it. So off to the garage it went, where it unexpectedly sat for over 3 years.
The length of time in which the car sat may seem a little confusing, but let us remind you that David Andrade is the most indecisive man on the planet Earth. We skimped through much of the first part of his build because the second incarnation of his Civic is much more intricate. To put his inability to make a decision into perspective, let’s just say that if his survival didn’t depend on the consumption of food, he would still be trying to figure out what to eat for his meal back in 2002. Eating isn’t a hobby of his either, he just does it because he has to. If it’s that hard for him to choose what to eat, imagine how difficult it must be for him to pick what he wants to do to something he loves like his Civic. The first order of business was to strip the car and have it repainted. Because of the EJ1’s ricey-past, the body work that was once done to this chassis was just beat. It then spent the next couple of months at a body shop where necessary repairs were made and the shell was re-painted inside and out in a shade of green that was customized by Andrade himself. One of the more notable points of David’s build, the completely smoothed-out and shaved engine bay, was a decision that he didn’t struggle with making—because it wasn’t his to make. “I had the body shop clean up some little things in the bay before they painted it. When I got it back, well, they did way more than I anticipated.” Andrade explains. “I guess my body shop guy thought it would be nice of him to shave my entire engine bay as a gift to me, but it wasn’t what I wanted at all. I couldn’t really be mad about it because it was already over and done with but to this very day I sometimes regret it because I always worry about cracking parts of my engine bay when I hit something on the road.”
After the shell came back freshly painted and shaved from the body shop, it spent the next couple years inside his mother’s garage while he collected parts. The B16A he had swapped-in before was still running fine, but the thought of owning a K-swapped coupe fascinated him. He then sold the motor and saved up for the K20A2 he has now. Even the most casual Honda enthusiast will take a gander at David’s engine bay and understand that it is “clean”, but you really have to understand the amount of work involved to truly appreciate it. To stay true to the “DPK” namesake, Andrade had the valve cover, radiator stay, parts of his Hasport engine mounts, and other miscellaneous brackets dipped in a black chrome finish. The RBC intake manifold has been polished and the vacuum line has been re-located to the bottom side of the manifold to hide it from view. A throttle cable bracket from a J-series Honda Odyssey is mated to an EP3 Civic cable to also give it a cleaner look. The throttle cable controls air flow running from the 70mm BDL throttle body into the port-matched manifold. An R-Crew K-swap header drives spend exhaust gases into custom 2.5-inch piping before it exits through an inconspicuous flat black Vibrant Performance muffler. Everything else you’ll find in the bay, in one form or another, is completely custom-made; the fuel set-up was created and routed from the center-feed K-Tuned fuel rail based on Andrade’s preferences, the brake lines have been hand-bent by his good friend Ryan “Rywire” Basseri, and the battery and fuse box have been moved behind the dashboard of the Civic. The most impressive piece in the engine bay would have to be the custom-made engine harness. The harness is a completely hand-made piece also by Ryan Basseri. Where the wires run and how they appear to the observer is also a product of David’s careful planning. He worked closely with Ryan to ensure that he had exactly what he wanted. You’ll note that the harness runs into a custom-mounted mil-spec plug located on the firewall near his reconditioned brake booster.
Like the bay, the interior is also devoid of all unnecessary items. David enjoys cruising in comfort, so most of the front interior remains intact. The rear however, has been gutted. The coupe rear seats are gone, along with the rear carpet, and in their place sit a custom-chromed Autopower roll bar. The front seats have also been replaced with sportier Status Racing Ring buckets. Being that the car is K-swapped, it no longer retains the air conditioning so the A/C and heater switch panel has been ditched for a trio of gauges mounted to a sheet of carbon fiber. Below those gauges are battery terminals for the battery inside the dash. Seated on the passenger floor is an AEM Series 2 Engine Management System. Tuned by the world-renowned Bisimoto Engineering, David’s K20A2 makes 218whp and 157lb-ft of torque.
One of the many indecisions David faced was what to do with the aesthetic side of his coupe. A glimpse inside his garage reveals three different front bumpers; one completely stock in appearance, one with an authentic Mugen front lip, and the one you see on his coupe now, which is an OEM front bumper, coupled with an incredibly rare Buddy Club front lip. When we say “rare”, we mean that there’s a strong possibility that it’s the only one that exists in America. If there is one mod that he’ll never be able to make a decision on, it’s his choice of wheels—He’s been through so many sets of wheels (Volk Racing, Mugen, Sprint Hart, etc.) that we’d be sitting here forever if we had to name them all. David even went as far as to do a 5-lug swap recently so that it would open the doors to a bigger selection of wheels. He swears that these front-staggered Volk TE37s are his favorites thus far, but knowing how he is, we highly doubt that he’ll keep these on his EJ1 for long.
After hearing David’s story on his 8-year long journey with his coupe, it’s a little sad to hear that he may be ready to move on to a new project. Of course, knowing David, that decision probably isn’t set in stone. “I’ve really toyed with the idea of taking my coupe out to the track though to do some local race events.” David says. “I’ve always wanted to but I think that I’m ready now. It’s always been a fear of mine of damaging the car or cracking the engine bay, but I’m honestly a little over the whole car show stuff. I just want to drive my car hard to see how it’ll do on the track. I recently started attending track events as a spectator to see what it’s like along with some other friends of mine. I don’t know, it’s either I sell the car and build something new or I hang onto it for a while and beat it up on the track—I haven’t really made up my mind yet.”
Why are we not surprised?
SPECS:
POWER: 218HP/157LB-FT TQ
ENGINE AND DRIVETRAIN:
2004 2.0L Honda K20A2; Hasport mounts; Blox camshafts; BDL 70mm throttle body, fuel pressure regulator; Custom air intake with HKS intake filter; R-Crew K-swap header; Ported-matched shaved/chromed RBC intake manifold, vacuum line re-routed to bottom-side of intake manifold; Vibrant exhaust; Polished PWR radiator; T1R radiator cap; 12-inch slim fan; K-Tuned fuel rail; Rywire Mil-spec quick-disconnect wiring harness, fuel lines; Skunk2 oil cap, valve cover hardware kit; Custom black-chrome dipped valve cover, intake manifold, fuel rail, fuel pressure regulator, mounts, misc. hardware; AEM Series 2 EMS
SUSPENSION AND CHASSIS:
D2 Racing 36-way adjustable coilovers; Blox Racing 24mm rear sway bar, rear lower control arms, front and rear camber kit, extended lug studs, suspension bushings; Benen lower rear tie bar; chromed Auto Power roll cage; EM Racing c-pillar bar; ARP roll cage hardware
BRAKES:
Re-conditioned OEM 36mm Integra Type R 5-lug conversion, Polished 98-spec Integra Type R brake master cylinder, Integra Type R brake booster; Polished OEM S2000 clutch master cylinder; Hawk brake pads; Earl’s stainless steel braided brake lines; Rywire.com custom brake hard lines; OEM RSX Type S axles
WHEELS & TYRES:
16×8 +38 Volk Racing TE37 (front), 16×7 +33 Volk Racing TE37 (rear); 215/45-16 Falken Azenis RT615K
INTERIOR:
Status Ring suede front seats; Memoryfab low-position seat rails; Momo Monte Carlo steering wheel, steering hub;NRG Quick Release; Mugen shift knob; chromed fuel pump cover, rear seat brackets; Civic VTi gauge cluster; custom battery terminals; Odyssey battery relocated behind dashboard; Alpine head unit; Rywire wiring; Equus gauges (oil pressure, water temperature, voltage); Pioneer AVH-P4100 head unit; Memphis Car Audio Hybrid M-Class amplifier, 15-M226 six-inch speakers (x2), 15-MCP10S4 10-inch subwoofer, 17-1 CAP
EXTERIOR:
Buddy Club EG6 front lip spoiler; Spoon side mirrors; JDM Civic headlights, corner lights, taillights, thin side moldings; USDM mud guards; custom shaved front license plate mount, emblems; OEM antenna block-off plate; Custom green paint inside and out; Welded and shaved engine bay
Attached below is a 1920×1080 desktop image for you guys that like to switch up your wallpaper from time to time…Actually the above images are huge enough to serve as desktops already but this one is sized proportionally. Thanks for looking guys…
Not tryin to be a kiss @$$ but I like the cover shot of the green ej with the hood off over the cover car chosen by the editors. I think it’s way more eye catching.
Car is pure perfection… For someone who has trouble making decisions you sir have made excellent choices while building this car. Congrats on the feature !!