Over the past weekend, The 18th annual Honda Meet was held in Lake Elsinore at the Diamond Stadium. Attendees came out in droves, bringing all kinds of builds, excited to show them off to other Honda enthusiasts.
While Civics and Integras made up a bulk of the cars being shown off, smaller communities still made their presence known.
With the wide variety of tuned Hondas and Acuras, as well as 30 top of industry vendors turning out in the Lake Elsinore sun, attendees swarmed the parking lot of the Diamond Stadium to look at everything from the usual swapped Hondas to industry builds from SEMA .
This year was special, with the release of Honda’s race car, the FL5 or 11th gen Civic Type R, getting a new release after its American debut in 2017. The FL5 was a huge feature, with companies like Apexi showing off their new parts, as well as other enthusiasts showing off their new cars.
Of course, there were the classic ‘90s Hondas and Acuras that took up most of the lot. Civics, Integras, and Preludes are all built extremely differently. There were the benchmark K and B swaps and there were more interesting builds like a J swapped drag racing Civic, built by Josh Scott.
Scott, or gunmetal_civic_started out with a 1997 Honda Civic Dx and was the first car he financed, it’s now been converted to rear wheel drive. The Civic has a built twin turbo V6 that came out of a Honda Odyssey minivan, helping the car run an eight second quarter mile. The car pushes out around 900 horsepower.
He took the car off the road in 2008 and originally swapped K series engine into the car.
“The K-series is an amazing engine, but having to break the car down on the drag strip became tedious, with a J-series it’s easy,” said Scott. “I can also get a lot more power for less money.”
This car is an extreme example of many Honda builds, it started out as a daily, and eventually it got a new motor. In this case, it got a rear wheel drive conversion as well as a parachute.
Parked right next to Scott was another extremely interesting build, a 1997 Honda Civic hatchback built by Amy Newman. The car is a tribute to her dad which is themed around rainbow trout and fishing.
She told me a similar story to a lot of other enthusiasts, a disappointed parent who they were trying to show how cool the car is. Sporting a custom interior, all wheel drive train, and B20 engine swap.
“Cancer took my dad, and I’ve been building the car for him,” said Newman. “The paint and the fishing theme are for him.”
Amy reps a “Fuck Cancer” sticker and a tribute to her dad on the rear window of the car. His memory lives on through the 97 hatch with an interesting Canadian front end swap. As well as pink wheels with rainbow trout center caps, and a rare brown interior swap.
With all the amazing builds it’s only right that the vendors came out swinging as well. With 30 vendors, there was no shortage of merchandise.
The excitement around these companies bringing out their SEMA, and high quality builds makes them a step above what most people are able to make.
One of the highlights from the vendors was from Greddy who showed off three extremely rare first generation CRXs. The silver Mugen CRX is owned by Junior Asprer, a legend in the import community.
The red car on the right was built and restored by Greddy Performance’s president Kenju Sumino. Both of these cars were built in the image of the top of the line Hondas from the 1980s.
Lesser known companies, like S1 Built, brought out a K-swapped mini truck which the crowd went crazy for.
There were a few Actys in the parking lot, something not known to American Honda enthusiasts. These two were here at the JDI booth and had constant crowds admiring the interesting minivans and their custom interiors.
The Spoon Sports booth was relatively quiet this year, only having their Integra Type R and their track Built Honda Fit.
A personal favorite was the Honda Merch booth which was celebrating the new Civic Type R and remembering its roots. Parking both next to each other and displaying how far the tiny hatchback has come.
In the middle of all of these great brands two, time attack cars were parked. These huge crowd pleasers, which are fully purpose built cars, were on display to marvel at.
The K-Powered NSX, tuned by RS Future, displays the extreme aero that has been constantly developed to keep these cars running competitive times. The car will be on full display again at Super Lap Battle.
Parked behind the NSX was the Art of Attack EG Civic, but it has won FF Super Lap Battle before. The car is also powered by a K20 engine, and is fully purpose built for the tracks of Southern California.
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