1996 Honda Civic Si

We often find ourselves spending countless hours on the Internet browsing through our favorite automotive forums looking for something that reminds us of our definition of "hard" or "clean". The two terms are used so often that they've basically lost their true meaning in the tuning world.

Deeming a car "hard" conjures up images of a vehicle with an extremely aggressive stance and an equally stout motor setup. When someone says that a car is "clean" you automatically think of a streamline body, minus the overly gaudy body kit of course, with enough intricate details and rare goodies to set it apart from the rest of the crowd. As much as we hate to admit it to ourselves, the scene has become a lot more watered-down the last couple years mainly due to the introduction of replicated parts, JDM-style modifications and painted stock wheels.

At one point or another, you've probably caught yourself telling someone that their ride was "clean" because you have 100 other terrible things you wanted to say about the car but decided to spare some hurt feelings. Once upon a time we could find a plethora of feature-worthy rides on the net at a glance. Nowadays, it's like looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or any other kind of cheesy clich you can think of. Finding that special car happens almost by pure chance. It's almost like finding that special someone in your life; some say it kind of just "happens." The moment we saw Cesar Ruiz's project while sifting through the few pictures that exist of it on the web, we said that this car embodied the very definition of a "clean" ride. And once we saw what was under the hood, well...damn...we knew that we had to have it.

Cesar Ruiz knew early on that he wanted to make an impact with his build. He had a specific game plan. As a previous owner of two other Hondas, one of which was a real '00 Civic Type-R from his stint in Japan, it was apparent that this Hollister, Calif., native knew exactly what he wanted out of his next project. His EJ8 coupe started its life in 1996 as a Canadian model Honda Civic Si. How it ended up in California we'll never know, but it ended up in Cesar's possession as a used car in April of '05.

A trip from Canada to the West Coast notwithstanding, Cesar knew right away that the stock motor was coming out in favor of a bigger, stronger K20A motor. Redzone Performance in Fremont, Calif., was contacted to source the K20 front clip as well as performing the actual swap and wire tuck. Before the motor was installed, Cesar and the guys over at Redzone decided to add a number of items that would give the potent K-motor even more power. Headwork would come in the form of Toda Racing N2 Spec camshafts, valve springs and Supertech titanium retainers. Once the head was opened up and allowed to breathe freely, the stock intake manifold was ditched in favor of TWM 2000 Series individual throttle bodies. The motor then found its way onto the EJ coupe thanks to newly acquired Hasport mounts. No swap is complete without the proper exhaust components so Cesar decided on an R Crew header to route the exhaust gases to the custom Redzone exhaust piping and an A'PEXi 2.5-inch muffler. Redzone was also able to do a lot of other little things that one might not notice at a glance, including the relocation of the battery, fuse box and DRL unit, as well as the complete removal of the ABS, power steering and air conditioning.