1997 Honda Civic CX Hatchback

JB: Recently, the car was over-revved in a race and bent some valves, so that needed to be taken care of, but aside from that, nothing major. It seems everything is working well together.

HT: Ouch! How did that happen?

JB: I asked a friend to drive it in a race, and agreed that if anything happened to the car during the race, I would shoulder the blame. We won the race, but at the cost of a few valves. I'm not upset about it, though; it's an old head, and the stock valvetrain was prone to lift.

HT: At least it gave you some inspiration to rebuild the head.

JB: (laughs) Yeah. Then most recently, a friend and I were loading the car onto the trailer when my friend cut the power via the kill switch in the back bumper and forgot to remove the key, so it eventually fell out on the highway. And best of all, the company that made it is no longer in business. We molded the housing inside the bumper, so now it's kinda stuck there!

HT: So what did you do?

JB: Nothing, yet (laughs)... I still haven't decided what I'm gonna do.

HT: Did you do most of the work on the car yourself, or did you work through shops?

JB: A few close friends and I did almost everything ourselves. My best friend Kyle was there almost every step of the way. He recommended I go to Phil Denhardt for the paint and bodywork, which I'm glad I did, and other friends recommended shops or specialists for everything else we couldn't do, or thought someone could do better. I had John Spindler do my machine work-he's known as the best around, and for good reason. We saved a little money in the process, doing most of the work ourselves, but more importantly, gained a lot of experience that comes in handy when things don't go as planned.

HT: Which seems to happen a lot for anyone in this game. I noticed you drive the car regularly on the street. Any plans to make it track-only?

JB: (Laughs) That was the plan all along, but when you put as much work into a car like this, and only get to take it to the track on occasion, the temptation to drive it as much as possible kinda takes over. Eventually, I want to take it to that point, but I need to have a little fun with it as it is first.

HT: Future plans for the car?

JB: Tune it, shed a few pounds, prep it more for track duty, and race it!

HT: Good deal. We wish you the best of luck. Any departing advice for "noob" tuners?

JB: Do it right the first time. If it doesn't seem right, it probably isn't. If it costs more, it's probably worth it. Measure twice and cut once.