1997 Honda Civic CX Hatchback

In spite of the myriad of tunable sport compacts available to consumers these days, it's interesting that in the minds of many the paragon platform of our sub-culture is and has always been the Civic. Over the model's decades of existence, OE's have released countless offerings capable of demolishing the econobox performance-wise with far less modification. Still, the platform remains representative of arguably the most defining principle of our people: that a car designed to accomplish much, the least of which is performance, can be transformed into a machine capable of competing with, and besting, some of the most thorough examples of conventional sports cars.

We know how to do a little with a lot, and nowhere is this more evident than in the scores of built Civics across the globe.

While the Civic may have been the poster vehicle of the scene for a long time, the current general progression among tuners seems to be away from the once sought-after compact. It's true: most Hondas are a great platform on which to learn the proper way to wrench. And given the incredible amount of aftermarket support for the various possible chassis and engine combos, accomplishing great things with a Civic is an entirely feasible goal for most. But after having learned a thing or two about sport compacts and how to tune them, a lot of us are lured away from the big H by the bells and whistles offered by other manufacturers and makes.

The trend is a familiar one for Jeffrey Blumenfeld of Baltimore, Md. Despite starting out with a Honda, he chose to try his luck in other vehicles. In the end, though, he ultimately decided his tuning goals would be best accomplished by returning to his first love-kind of.

Honda Tuning: Was a Honda your first car?

Jeffrey Blumenfeld: Yes. Well, the first car I ever modded was a 1990 Integra, but close enough.

HT: What was done to that?

JB: Basic bolt-ons, suspension, a B16A swap, and nitrous. I actually wanted to build the engine specifically for nitrous, but was talked into boost by a friend.

HT: So that car was turbo'd?

JB: No. I never made it with that car, but I pulled the engine, had the block work done to prep it for boost, and eventually dropped it into this car.

HT: Wow, you've held onto that engine a long time. You owned other modified vehicles between the Integra and the Civic, though; what were they?

JB: Let's see ... I had a '96 Jeep Cherokee, '99 Civic coupe, '94 Civic coupe, '01 Lexus IS300, '99 Mazda RX-7...