Cool Combos

Turbo D16 In A Third-Gen Civic
The Ultimate Sleeper Built For Street-Race Hustle.The third-gen Civic has been all but forgotten in the tuning world. With little-to-no aftermarket support, third and first-gen CRX enthusiasts are usually forced to take matters into their own hands when looking for power. These cars are different than what we're used to when building post-1988 Hondas. You'll find things like carburetors and vacuum-advance distributors under the hoods of these cars.

Why mess with antiquated technology inherent in these cars when you could follow Honda Tuning tradition by ripping it all out and replacing it with something better? The gut reaction for most people would be to swap in a K series, but K's and even B's are too obvious for us. We're looking for subtlety, something underestimated, something like a D16A in a third-gen chassis, a car that may get you clowned on when you roll up to the spot-until the clowns are left staring at your taillights.

But some caution: this swap is not a drop-in affair. It's easier to do a B-series swap in this chassis. But for the resourceful, all you need is a combination of first-gen Integra, EF Civic and native third-gen Civic parts.

Start with a good first-gen Integra donor car from which you'll take the transmission, front tranny mount, clutch, flywheel, pressure plate, shift linkage, starter, axles, intermediate shaft and front knuckles.

From the third-gen Civic, you'll want the front engine mount, rear tranny mount and Si wiring harness. Some of these parts need to be persuaded a little bit to get the whole thing to fit together.

Last, you'll have to decide on engine management. Going OBD-1 is a more difficult undertaking, but opens up the best tuning possibilities. OBD-0 is more limited, but closer to home in this chassis than OBD-1 and especially OBD-2. By the time you're done, your car will be a huge mess of various Honda parts, all the better to earn sleeper points on the street, and maybe even a little cash from the unsuspecting haters.

Mustang Killer
An Accord V6 To Blow Doors Off The New GT's We've Already Grown To Hate.Sometimes people mistake an import enthusiast's distaste for domestic guys as an aversion toward domestic cars. But it's not always like that. Even hardcore domestic haters don't badmouth a Cadillac 32-valve Northstar motor or a Mustang Cobra R's dual overhead cam V-8.

Nah, it's not the American iron that pisses us off, but rather, the tools at the other end of the throttle, the guys with an endless loop of phrases like "There's no replacement for displacement!" and "Your cute little VTEC wanna run against my Hem'eh?" And somehow, the Mustang driver tends to reign supreme as the top dog of domestic douche bags.

The Ford's V-8 puts down about 275 wheel hp in stock trim, which is right around the flywheel horsepower for an Acura CL-S. We got to thinking about an Accord V-6 chassis (to keep initial cost down) with an amalgamation of various J30, J32 and J35 parts to make a big displacement, boosted application that will run cute little VTEC circles around the GT's 4.6-liter mill.

The motor would start with a J35A1 bottom end from a '98-up Odyssey or MDX. This bottom end shares bore diameter (89mm) and spacing (98mm) with its smaller counterpart, the J32. The J32A2 should be considered one of Honda's masterpieces, the 270-hp, 3.2-liter V-6 is as worthy of praise as a B18C5 or K20A.

For this project, we'd use Type-S pistons in our J35 to bump up compression and make up for some of the power lost to lower revs on account of the longer stroke. The next obvious step would be to bolt on a set of Type-S heads, with their aggressive cams and high-flow port designs seeming only natural for a motor of this caliber. But we have and even more exciting idea.

The newer Accord V-6 (J30A4), the J32A3 in the current TL, and the J35's in the new Odyssey, Ridgeline, and RL all share an unusual exhaust port design. Instead of having four ports going into a header and eventually into a collector and out the exhaust tubing, these motors have simplified the process by eliminating the header altogether. The exhaust primaries are cast into the head and exit via a single exhaust port connected directly to a catalytic converter.

Originally, this sounded like a detriment to anyone planning on modifying these motors, until we realized that Honda basically gave us a turbo manifold built into these heads. A simple adapter plate, or at the most, a pair of flanges and a couple inches of tube, is all you need to bolt a turbo to either side of the J-series V-6's. The J35-S would already be in the mid-200 wheel hp range, but add a safe 8psi of boost to that and wave goodbye to mullet-wearing, Confederate flag-flying, Ted Nugent-worshipping toolboxes at stoplights. Drop sixth gear on your CL-S six-speed manual and you can say goodbye on the freeway, too.