01 / RESPONSIBILITY
Don’t make me explain this to the boring people.
You can suggest some properly stupid ideas, but safety, UK law and insurance still win. I’m the one driving the thing — my life is on the line, K?
About the project / FN2 – Zero to Hero
Cheap on paper
Financial nightmare.
What I thought I was buying
The advert was asking £2,200 for a 2007 FN2 Type R GT with 157,845 miles. It was described as a largely stock OEM example, with fresh tyres, a 12-month MOT and, rather confidently, “absolutely no rust whatsoever.”
I drove to Leicester to see it, which probably meant I was already a little too invested by the time I arrived.
The car was far from perfect in person. I could already see damage to the mirror glass and indicator repeater, the headlights were cloudy, and it only came with one key. The service history was also extremely thin, with no pile of receipts or invoices to fill in the gaps.
Then I drove it.
VTEC did what VTEC does, and suddenly a lot of sensible objections became considerably less important.
I eventually paid £1,900.
The things I knew about
I knew it was a very high-mileage car with poor history. I also found the oil level was below minimum, only just touching the dipstick.
It only came with one key, so one of the first things I did after buying it was have somebody come out the next day and make a spare.
The vehicle-history checks were reasonably reassuring in some areas: the mileage trail looked consistent and there were no obvious major history red flags. But the MOT history did contain advisories, including marginal braking performance and a badly deteriorated CV boot.
Shortly after buying the car, I also discovered that the clutch-fluid reservoir had effectively run dry and the remaining fluid had turned into thick sludge. By the time I booked the car into Honda, I already knew about the clutch-hydraulic problem, the stiff gearbox and the handbrake struggling to hold the car.
Then Honda looked at it
I took the car to Vertu Honda Mansfield for a major service and a proper inspection.
That was when the bigger picture started to appear.
The brake fluid had a high water content. A front brake was binding slightly. The handbrake was marginal. The rear beam was heavily corroded, although still structurally sound. Some cotter pins were missing from the front suspension, and there was no record I could find of the valve clearances ever having been adjusted.
None of those problems individually made the car a write-off. Together, they painted a fairly clear picture of a high-mileage Type R that had kept going while a lot of maintenance was postponed, undocumented or simply forgotten.
I originally wanted a cheap manual car to practise in.
What I actually bought was a neglected Type R that needed bringing back properly — while also being my only car.
That is where FN2 – Zero to Hero really started.
Now you’re caught up on the car, it’s probably time I introduced myself.
Or, if you don’t give a fuck about that, skip straight to What I’ve Done →
About the builder
The Wheatley of financial decisions.
I only started driving in 2024, originally with an automatic-only licence. Then I realised I actually liked driving, went back for a manual licence, and somehow decided the sensible next step was to spend my £2,000 budget on the cheapest hot hatch I could find.
That probably tells you everything you need to know about my judgement.
I’m not a mechanic, fabricator or experienced builder. Most of this project is me seeing something, thinking “how hard can it be?”, buying the tool, trying it anyway, and then finding out exactly how hard it can be.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it fails.
Sometimes I learn from the mistake.
More often, I learn just enough to make the same mistake again with slightly more confidence and considerably more money.
The general approach is basically: research enough to avoid doing anything genuinely stupid, then YOLO the rest and see what breaks.
That applies to the mechanical work, modifications, budgeting and most of the other decisions around this project.
Best case, I learn something useful.
Worst case, it becomes content.
Realistically, it’s usually both.
FAQ
A few reasonable questions.
What is the victim?
A ’07 Honda Civic Type R GT, chassis code FN2 — the third generation of Civic Type R, following the EK9 and EP3.
For the nerds out there who like numbers and technical stuff, see Official Honda technical specs →
What can you influence?
Pretty much anything that isn’t safety-critical or completely stupid. Parts, styling, consumables, priorities, future mods and some of the bigger decisions can all be influenced through ideas, polls and eventually votes.
That doesn’t mean every winning idea automatically gets built. It still unfortunately has to survive the boring stuff: safety, UK law, insurance, compatibility, budget, downtime and the fact that I still need the car to get to work.
Are polls binding?
No. Polls are for the smaller stuff where your opinion is useful but nobody’s life needs to revolve around the result — consumables, maintenance choices, temporary decisions and things I can easily change later.
They help steer the project, but they’re not a legally binding contract with the internet.
How can I force you to do a modification?
Not yet. Polls can influence me, but they can’t force anything.
Later, paid Votes and funded Ideas are planned for the bigger decisions. Once one of those opens under defined rules, the result can commit me to actually doing it — as long as it doesn’t clash with the boring stuff or the other project rules.
So yes, I dare you to make my car pink.
But I won’t go quietly. So, be prepared to work for it if you dare.
So, what have you done to the damn thing?
You somehow made it this far without using the Current Build / Setup link in the top nav, and apparently ignored the shortcut I already gave you above — which even has a cool easter egg.
Fine.
Rules / Guidelines
The great wall of experiment.
02 / REALITY
Make it survive contact with reality.
Before your brilliant idea gets anywhere near the car, it still has to survive compatibility, cost, tools, skill, downtime and whether I can actually put the thing back together again.
03 / PARTICIPATION
Know what you’re signing up for.
Polls are opinions. Votes and funded Ideas can actually commit me to doing something. If your money or a binding result is involved, I’ll tell you the rules, limits and weighting before you get to cause trouble.
04 / DAILY DRIVER
You break it, I still need to get to work.
Go wild, but while this is my only car, every idea still has to account for reliability, cost and how long it leaves the car in pieces.
Social / Project Links