the
mo
tor
hoo
d.c
om
3
0
“The problem with road-
legal track cars is that
they’re shit to drive on
the street and slow on
the track. My only answer
was to build a car that
I knew would perform
how I wanted and forget
the street completely,”
explains Elliot
line of owning an effective track car that could still be used to blast
down to the parts shop to collect yet another upgrade, without
concern about losing his licence, paying even more taxes, and
gaining a bright new sticker on the windscreen. You see, Elliot grew
up chasing lap times as a young buck in karting, before moving
on to the bigger versions in tin-top racing. He would dabble in the
deliberate loss of traction before doing a full 180-degree switch to
chase it once again with the street-legal Silvia featured back in NZ
Performance Car Issue No. 212, then finding himself in a Honda
Integra Type R doing the same. However, Elliot tells us that the
constant jumping through hoops to retain the government-approved
ticks on the windscreen were holding back the car’s potential, while,
at the same time, racking him up a whole lot of unnecessary costs
that should, instead, have been spent on going faster.
The solution was simple: forget those Sunday drives and go all
out on a track-dedicated build that would never see the street again.
While that could have seen the Type R stripped of its plates and put
on a serious diet, Elliot decided that it was far too nice of an example
to ruin; rather than squeeze the B-series heart to within an inch of its
life, better results were to be had by sinking a Honda ‘big block’ into a
’92-spec EG Civic that he purchased with this exact project in mind.
That Honda big block, aka K-series, has become the favourite
for H-badged engine conversions, capable of producing figures
more impressive than most worked examples of its predecessors
in factory form. With various versions available in a wide range ofHEART
ENGINE: Honda K24A, 2354cc, straight-four
BLOCK: Type R oil pump, balance shafts deleted, J’s Racing baffled sump
HEAD: Type R VCT gear, IPS K2 camshafts, Buddy Club P1 valves, Buddy Club P1 valve springs, Buddy Club P1 retainers
INTAKE: RBC manifold, Skunk2 70mm throttle body, Skunk2 six-inch velocity stack
EXHAUST: Modified Skunk2 three-inch exhaust, PLM V2 K Swap headers, Adrenalin R resonator
FUEL: DeatschWerks DW200 fuel pump, Turbosmart FPR800 fuel-pressure regulator (FPR), BDL fuel rail, 1000cc injectors, K-Tuned fuel filter
IGNITION: OEM
ECU: Hondata K-Pro
COOLING: Fenix universal radiator, K-Tuned thermostat housing, Setrab oil cooler
EXTRA: Custom coolant overflow, custom oil catch-can, Hasport engine mounts, Rywire Mil-Spec K-series chassis adaptor