7,000 Mile Roadtrip in a Civic and Miata - Episode 1

[Music] almost a year ago we drove an Evo 9mr and an STI swapped Subaru Forester from Florida to Alaska and now we've decided to take another road trip this time it'll be in cars that we bought for five thousand dollars then we'll be taking his supercharged Miata and I will be taking my type are swapped Honda Civic on a journey of 7,000 miles down to the southernmost point in the continental US and all the way up north to Nova Scotia [Applause] [Music] [Music] well then I can't believe it but Advance Auto has let us go on another road trip another one this time we're gonna give a little bit little bit more crazy I suppose this time we're gonna do $5,000 like budget cars basically like what can you get for like a good car for $5,000 and I have picked a Honda Civic DX it's got the full type are swap so it's supposed to look and act like a Type R I've always wanted a Honda so I'm very excited to finally have the opportunity to get into one you would have always wanted a Honda what's that supposed to mean I've never really wanted a Miata but everyone has always told me that I should want one so I got one but this Miata is supercharged with a small Jackson Racing twin-screw supercharger produces approximately eight horsepower as opposed to the factory six so I feel like it's good foil your car absolutely yeah I have opted for the hatchback so hopefully that makes things a little bit more convenient for me despite the fact that I have no cruise control no power windows no power steering no AC no power locks so I'm bear bones here but should be fun it's lightweight fun Honda it's very Honda it's very hurry this is as Honda as it gets exactly yeah so hopefully it'll hold up to my you know high school expectations of what a Honda should be over the next three weeks we're taking our $5,000 tuner cars on a 7,000 mile journey up and down the East Coast so we're gonna go down to Key West Florida and check out the southernmost point in the continental US from Florida we're gonna go up through the mountains the Blue Ridge Mountains up into Toronto where hopefully we'll get to track these cars kind of see how they do on the track then we're gonna make our way up to Nova Scotia and drive cabot trail which is from what I can tell online one of the most gorgeous roads that I've ever seen or will see and I'm very excited for that Honda Civics and Mazda Miata are both very popular cars and we've driven them before whoo we've never had a chance to really discover what it's like to own these cars what better way to find out by taking them on a road team so the car that I picked for this road trip is a Mazda Miata 1997 na so this is the last year of the first generation of the legendary mx-5 everyone always says that Miatas are always the answer whether it's to a track day or for just a car to have fun with but I don't really know if anyone ever says that they're the answer to a roadtrip car so what we're going to find out on this trip is whether or not it can still be fun if you're trapped in it for three weeks of straight driving all right so this is my 1997 Honda Civic DX that has been converted to be a Civic Type R it has all of the type art goodies on it it has Recaros from the tie bar and it's Thai power steering wheel cluster shift knob take our wing rear lip side skirts front bumper and most importantly the B 16 B from the tie bar as well as the transmission from the tie bar that has an LSD and yes this car has VTEC [Music] it has rubs out an eight and a half thousand rpm yeah so in most regards this is just a standard little Miata he's got the flip up headlights it's got a hardtop roof which is very nice and it's got little hoop bars so the if you didn't have the hardtop on you could take it on track 1.8 litre so all very standard stuff not that exciting the interesting thing about this particular car is that the previous owner before me actually fitted it with a supercharger a Jackson Racing m/45 twin screw blower this car is still by it absolutely no means fast maybe generates 150 wheel horsepower on the six pounds of boost that I think that it makes so it's not a fast car but it is fun and it makes some cool noises and it's generally adorable now I finally have the opportunity to see what all this Honda buzz is all about so far I love this car it's so wrong you know like they don't make cars like this anymore like the new tie bar I've driven the new tie bar it's a fantastic car but it's like it's totally different it doesn't quite have the same soul that this thing has I haven't gotten a lot of seat time with this car yet but man I really enjoy it the journey is off to a great start and we've made it down to southern Georgia we're headed to our first destination of Key West Florida to see some teal colored beaches and enjoy some key lime pie but after driving for a few hours we're both starting to realize some of the drawbacks of our cars Honda Civics are stolen a lot it's the most stolen car in the US last year 45,000 1997 Honda Civics were stolen and considering they only made three hundred eighteen thousand Honda Civics that means fourteen percent of every 1997 Honda Civic was stolen so I've made some precautions to make sure this car won't get stolen it's got a front camera and a rear camera and it's got motion detection I have another GPS tracker in this car I will be taking my ECU out of the car every night meanwhile over in my little Miata I was concerned for a different reason a common mod with Miatas for taller people is to do the foam ectomy which is essentially cutting out a piece of foam from underneath the outer layer of the driver's seat that's going to let you drop down a little bit further into the seat so that your a little bit more headspace which this car has and you know I fit so right now for example I'm not wearing shoes this is for like rude purposes obviously not some cup psychopath you just drives around not wearing shoes the sole of the shoe is actually going to encroach upon my legroom space and cause my leg to be scrunched entire milimeters quotes from my body not even wearing socks because of course again that's more of a barrier and that's less distance than my leg can stretch out no matter how badly I wanted to amputate my right leg the trip was off to a great start both benzevich and my Miata are fun little cars to drive but we were also taking a third car on this trip we needed a support vehicle in case something were to happen to one of our cars and we needed something to film rollers out of one thing to note is for this trip we've got a camera vehicle that we have both Devin and Christopher driving it so this is going to act as though with a vehicle that we can film out of people that wouldn't carry a bunch of the extra stuff we have in since I don't have a lot of cargo capacity also a support vehicle shouldn't anything happen to either of our cars fingers crossed that that is not the case the Miata clutch has been acting a little funky feels like there's a error in the clutch line I'm gonna go ahead and just assume that that's the slave cylinder because they're notorious on Miatas for going out I would have changed it before the trip there's a stainless steel clutch lying on the car from the previous owner and I just kind of assumed that that slave cylinder had already been changed out so that's kind of my fault knowing that it's a common issue I should have changed it before the week out on the road but it's not too bad of a job here in advance they had one they have two windsock just gonna go pick one up change it out that solves a problem great if it doesn't at least the avenue slave cylinder [Music] so changing the slave cylinder on a Miata is pretty straightforward it's easy to access I know on a lot of other cars that it's not so easy to access so you know we're doing in the parking lot I've been taking it real slow just you know making sure I do everything properly and we're still almost done in hindsight I should have changed the slave cylinder out before we left for the trip but because the car came from the previous owner with a braided clutch line already installed I just assumed that the slave cylinder had been changed as well not to worry though the new slave cylinder was only twenty dollars in advance and it wasn't taking too long to get it swapped out so new clutch slave cylinder is in clutch feels a lot better hopefully that was the issue and that solved the problem I guess we'll find out I really don't wanna deal with this anymore but you know things happen [Music] he's coming he got oil [Music] that half the court after the slave cylinder change we were back on the road we only had three more hours to go that day to make it to Miami Florida the plan was to spend the night there and wake up bright and early the next morning to make our journey to the Florida Keys [Music] and over 80 degrees Fahrenheit the temperature outside was getting warmer so it was finally time to take the top off the Miata [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we have some lovely weather here in Key West today and it's 82 degrees which is phenomenal considering it's March according to a thermometer that I have in this car it is 105 degrees right now inside this car which is pretty crazy considering you know it's 82 degrees outside so that's 20 degrees warmer in my car and I had the wise decision to pick a car that does not have AC equipped normally I would complain about not having AC in this heat but seeing the Florida Keys is so cool and I can't think about anything but that teal water but I think it's pretty conclusive that I have brought the finest automobile in the history of automobiles for the beach I'm actually really envious of you right now good good I'm drinking it in yeah you know it's funny so far I haven't actually gotten a good reception from driving a Honda Civic you mean that the masses don't appreciate your JD I'm 9,000 rpm engine yeah I mean nobody nobody appreciates 1.6 liters anymore size matters dude I mean clearly that's why you picked the Miata right [Music] you know like a lot of people say the Mian is like for hairdressers is a very feminine car I don't get that where's that coming from I mean I am fabulous the keys are gorgeous we had a three-hour drive south that day surrounded by the teal waters of the Atlantic and with the top down I was really starting to understand what the Miata lifestyle was all about but I wasn't the only one enjoy I am no this is dumpling the car we've made it into Key West the southernmost point in the continental United States of America but we're not just here to sightsee we're on a mission to get some of the best key lime pie have you not actually had key lime pie I don't think so seriously Wow okay that's pretty cool my dad's a big key lime pie guy so he have key lime pie all the time hmm I love Kalyn pie Kermit's supposedly has the best key lime pie available so it was an obvious destination for our road trip and we can see that they have a lot more than just key lime pie they put key lime in things that I didn't know key lime could be in they have so many different variants of key lime that we're gonna have to keep coming back for more I'll start with traditional key lime pie and Ben is having chocolate covered key lime pie will have key lime slushies and even key lime ice cream so next up on the agenda is deals gap Taylor the dragon we're gonna see what the cars can do in some back roads mm-hmm I've never been I'll tell you what the me Allah can do struggle why is that supercharged by the AC onna basically cancels it out oh well don't remember the AC on there what's your point hopefully it'll be cooler up there yeah I think it will be I've never done the Taylor dragon just surprising because we don't actually live that far from there let me tell you something about the Miata yes it's supercharged no that does not mean that it has a decent amount of power I still feel I still am not any faster than the standard v6 Camry that you'll encounter on that round it's a it's a ton of fun yeah it's a blast it's a riot it's an experience but it's not fast I mean but that's Taylor dragon isn't about going fast is about having fun somebody had too much key lime pie that's what happened to get it triple it's true luckily only got a double yeah you're safe yeah no key wes is great but like it's very touristy I'm excited to go back up north and like through the mountains you know I mean I've seen a lot of beaches yeah I'm ready to see some mountains I'll be I'm excited for some fun roads I'm a little depressed I'm gonna have to put the hardtop back on you're lugging it without it it's a really fun time without the hardtop just sell the hardtop somewhere maybe not before we get to Canada yeah that might be a bad decision [Music] [Music] well we've made it another day without the Civic getting stolen last night was what I was most worried about because we stayed at the same place in Miami which was a high risk for getting stolen and also staying there for two nights in a row is not a good idea but the Civic is still here so it's all smooth sailing for the rest of the trip I've been trying to figure out a good name for the Civic and nothing really sparked an interest for me nothing really just sounded like it would be the right name so I put up a pole and Instagram and asked what you guys think a good name for my Civic would beat and there was one that stuck out among the rest because civics are stolen so often the best name recommendation that I got for the Civic is Mia because it's about to be m.i.a we are headed to a road called the Tail of the Dragon located at the border of North Carolina and Tennessee this is one of the most popular mountain roads to drive in the US and it's about 1,000 miles away from us and to be honest it's a fairly boring drive back up through Florida other than seeing a few fan boats on the Everglades there's not much to do and I think the boredom has really started to get to Ben because he started buying me strange gifts then there's there's an object in your car there's an object amazing objects in a car a horse oh it's cut it just wanted some coffee dude did you pay twenty dollars all right what do you what do you think oh no I I should be keeping the Hornet the horse isn't the last of the gifts that Ben has given me heat a large iced Coronado cherry the next night I found 14 spicy air fresheners in my car so I did the only thing a reasonable person would do I open them all up and shove them into Ben's small Miata for a surprise the next morning so I wake up to wait a strong scent I'm just like considering his cabin is like half the size of mine to me he got me back good plotting my sweet revenge I'm gonna revoke that horse statue for sure we've made it into Georgia there's only 400 miles left to go until we reach the tail of the dragon but before we get there we're gonna stop in Atlanta Georgia to host a little car meet up with our good friend David Patterson so we are in rush-hour Atlanta traffic's that naturally things are progressing very quickly but we are almost to the meats that will be having an advanced parking lots in Atlanta with David Patterson here we are in Atlanta we've met up with David Patterson Colonel VC is Mustang behind us have a meet here at an event Auto Parts these days Ben and I don't really have a lot of time to go to car meets so this was a refreshing change of pace about 30 or 40 people arrived with their cars most of them probably there to see my Miata [Music] after speaking with the store manager advanced autoparts was gracious enough to less use their parking lot for the Meetup and our friend and YouTube elder David Patterson was kind enough to put us up for the night thanks a ton David [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so we just had a lovely night last night a little car meet here in Atlanta Georgia crashed with David Patterson that dude in blue just the loveliest guy he nailed Andra or gems of humanity and now we are setting off for Tennessee and deals gap the notorious legendary tale of the Dragon [Music] so far the trip is going really well the car has been very reliable the exception of that law slave cylinder issue and I think that it's gonna be an enjoyable drive that deals gap so now we are headed to Tail of the Dragon which is one of the most curves per mile road in existence as far as I know it's a destination driving location for sure for a lot of people a lot of people a lot of motorcyclists go to tail the dragon otherwise known as deals gap and they just go for a cruise so that's what we're going to go do we're gonna spend a day or two there and just drive some nice mountain roads I am really excited to get the see some mountains because I feel like we've been driving on these straight southern roads for a little too long so it's time to get up and into the mountains [Music] oh man it's gotten really cold Oh cold yeah we got goose bumps I need to get a jacket on and some pants ah dude it's good to be back in the mountains you know I don't know if it's the cold weather or this mountain view that's given me these chills it's the cold weather yeah it's probably cold weather yeah yeah oh the Sun is making me squint more than I usually do oh yeah you see that smoke come here yeah it's probably a civic that's gone off the road and it's currently on fire hopefully not a premonition of what's to come we're here at the border of North Carolina and Tennessee and tomorrow we're gonna take our cars through 318 turns and 11 miles on the tail of the Dragon [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Gears and Gasoline

Views: 2,091,848

Rating: 4.9545021 out of 5

Keywords: Road Trip, Epic, Cross Country, Cross Continental, Honda, Civic, Type R, Mazda, Miata, MX5, Supercharged, B16b, Key West, Nova Scotia, Driving From, Florida Keys, Canada, Key West to Nova Scotia, Gears and Gasoline, 7000 miles

Id: -wtBiv8hJpE

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Taminator1776]

I wish I could get a TypeR swapped Civic for 5k where I live. One day I'll just import one

[u/Mnm0602]

Funny enough I had a 97 Civic DX Coupe and I was one of the 14% that was stolen. From right in front of the house. I blame Miami’s hardcore love for Civics and rampant crime, F&F movies, and Honda’s insanely poor design that made them easy to steal.

I always thought the B16B was one of Honda’s coolest motors because it could rev out to 9k stock.

[u/liebereddit]

I have a Fast Forward supercharger in my '96 Miata. It makes a WORLD of difference. The power is very noticeable and immediate, about 190hp according to the company that makes the supercharger. Normally, that's not a lot, but keep in mind that the Miata is tiny. It sounds amazing, and I've had zero problems with about 30K miles on it. It cost about $5,500 professionally installed. I highly recommend it. A supercharger *transforms* a Miata.

Here's a picture of it with my other baby which is faster, but not as fun. https://imgur.com/a/wbdR5Ql

[u/01WS6]

I had a good lol at 4:00 when he says "and yes this car has VTEC" and you see him hammer the gas, and the car goes no where.

Miata actually sounds pretty cool though.

[u/idontgetitmanwtf]

I swapped a B16B into my 2000 hatchback back in the day. My best 1/4-mile time was only a 14.9 but it was still a fun little car.

https://i.imgur.com/lesuqgY.jpg

[u/[deleted]]

Jeez Ben and Ben are my heroes man. I dream everyday of a job like theirs. Another road trip in the books! Can’t wait to see this one through. The last one to Alaska was so entertaining!

[u/Anach]

Always amuses me when people talk about 90's vehicles like they're 20+ year old classics... oh wait... damn...

[u/Bluethunder1]

DX as bare bones as it gets, huh? My CRX HF with all that + stock no passenger side mirror would like a word...

[u/jaayceeisblue]

I myself have a 2000 Si (Canadian one with the D16 w/ a few bolt ons). After watching this video the urge to swap over to a B series is extremely temping. Probably whenever I have the opportunity to buy a new daily driver I'll strongly reconsider doing the swap.

No doubt these two cars are reliable, however I predict that the hatch will come through....just gotta watch that oil consumption though 😂