OK so on to the story of this Civic.
When I just graduated from high school my mom helped me get my first car which is this 1998 blue civic LX that you see in the pics. Back then I was not car savvy what so ever. I just knew I liked Civics. I'm sure the buzz from F&F aided in that. Anyhow we went to the dealer and got the car. Now if I was savvy, there would have been no way in hell I would've gotten a sedan LX. I would have at least opted for an EX coupe or an older SI. Oh well.
So with the platform that I had to work with I decided to mod the car. At the time I really liked the body kits and flashy lights and wheels. So I tried my best to mimic them. My thoughts were to upgrade the looks first, then throw in a new engine when I was ready. I never got to that point. Looking back I can only cringe as to what I did, lol.
At the peak of my modding this car had a buddy club front bumper (not painted btw), cleared out stock headlights, chrome snake eyes window washers, LoL, those fenders that you guys love so much (not painted also), white indiglo gauge overlays, and an intake that was all sound and no performance.
At that point I knew I needed to redo the whole car over from scratch but an opportunity to get into another whip presented itself. I ended up giving my car as is to my mom who bless her heart, loved the way the car looked. I in turn got my 6th gen Accord coupe. Here is a pic of what she looked like...
Gawd I loved that car! How I miss her
My AV6 was done right. Kept it basically stock, but I did give it a mild drop with eibach's prokit, had an AEM V2 CAI, a grounding kit, a B&M Tranny super cooler, and I also swapped out the J30's cams for some j32 cams.
Well fast forward to this past summer. I got married & had a kid. So with my growing family a sports coupe was not going to cut it. So yeah you guessed it, I got the old Civic back from my mom. She got herself a new car.
Now after going from a performance tuned, good looking ride to the blue beast, let me tell you its been rough. I got rid of the nasty bumper and the side skirts. I reverted the front back to stock but I added a lip to it. I left the skirts stock as you can see. I fixed the headlights, restored the clarity, fixed the intake so now its a properly working short ram (hot-air) intake. I also gave the car a minor tune up. I ripped off the old gauge faces and retrofitted cool white leds for the back lighting throughout the car.
I'm at the point now where I can either drop a few grand into the Civic and restore it, or I can sell the car and get me a new ride. I'm still not sure which way to go on this. If I keep the car here is what I would do...
-Drop it. The car needs some new springs and shocks. I'd probably go with the Eibachs again.
-Paint it. I'd go with a dark gray all around. I think it'll look good that color since I have the black housed headlights, taillights and gun metal wheels.
-New interior. I'd rip out the old carpet and put a fresh one in there. I'd go for a black color. I'd swap out the seats for some RSX seats while I was at it. The lighting inside is already done up.
-Engine. I'd swap out the D16y7's intake manifold and heads for a y8's (the mini-me swap). I then would piece together a turbo and crank it to about 8psi.
I know that the car would be pretty nice with all that work but I just don't know if it'll be worth it in the end. After all the car is over a decade old. What do you guys think? Dump it or keep it? Options on my table for a new car are a used 07 Magnum R/T, a used 07 or 08 Cadillac SRX, or a used 08 and up Pathfinder.