1991 Honda Civic Si Hatchback

...Civic Si sitting in the bak of the showroom at a dealer in Chicago.  I was looking for a...BMW?!  LOL...and saw this guy and fell in love!  I moved back to CLE and almost immediately started modding it.  First thing? I removed the silencer box on the intake to make it louder...and it went crazy from there.

First off I pulled the stock 1.6 liter and built it up in my basement: oversize pistons, GUDE Gorilla cam (1 of 10 ever made), ported and polished head, and TONS of other mods to that motor.  Trans was beefed with a 4 puck, race clutch and 8lb flywheel.  It revved and revved up fast!

And all of this was done by myself....with the help of a HONDA service manual I picked up.  Page by page...I remember putting it all together and spending days making sure it was all in and in correctly.  Then that fateful day came...

I got int the car, still sitting in my garage in Lakewood Ohio.  I put the key in and was literally shaking. I've never built a motor before...would it even work!?  Everything was overbuilt, but, I had never done this before.

"crank crank crank.....crank crank....REVVVVV.....crank crank...."  and then it fired up!  I sat there holding my breath....and just let it run...and run...I almost cried!  I did it!  I built a race car!

After that there was a lot of mods and adds...a lot of JDM stuff. Everything was done for a purpose though.  Nothing just for frills.  And after 500 miles of break in (according to GUDE), I smoked a Mustang GT coming down Lorain road in Fairview Park.  

Drag races, autocrossing, street fun....you name it, the car was flawlessly fast and fearless!  Beat cars twice it's size!  I ran a fastest 1/4 mile time of 12.1 seconds at over 105mph!  Full interior.  All motor.  And won the EP class in auto-crossing in the SCCA.

Then came the ZC turbo swap, putting a 92+ civic turbo in this thing and doing some custom work to make it fit.  Then after fun with that I dropped in the B16A1 motor and had a great time with that....

Then, for some reason,  I sold that car....and never saw it again.  No clue where it is, or who even bought it back then.  

But I used what I learned from that car to build more and more over the years...but nothing was quite like that Civic Si.

- 1.6 Liter SOHC stock motor/trans:  12.1 second 1.4 mile times

• GUDE Performance ported and polished head
• GUDE Performance Gorilla cam (1 of 10 ever made)
• GUDE Performance header
• GUDE Performance .30 over pistons
• King Parts milled block
• Integra Type R Injectors
• 110 Octane Leaded racing fuel
• 4 puck race clutch
• 8lb flywheel
• Stock rods
• All custom assembled in house

- Thermal Dynamics catless high flow exhaust

- 1.6 L DOHC "ZC" motor from Japan

• 92-95 turbo kit, custom fitted
• custom intake w/blow off valve

-B16 swap: Stock w/trans

• Integra shift linkages
• Rebuilt internals

- JDM 88-91 Civic taillights

- JDM Civic SiR steering wheel

- H&R Spring kit

- Skunk2 control arms

- Mickey Thompson ET Drag slicks (front)