This is the space we had to work in. No room to even walk on the side of the car. Lighting was even worse, but no complaints because during the first build-up it was done in -10 degree Canadian winter (you guys in Cali have nothing to complain about).

When Daniel and Arman first got there the first day, the bumper was already off and the wheels removed.

Front reinforcement bar, there to add rigidity between the front of the chassis.

Daniel; "We went ice skating around this time and the Canuck found new life and was working frantically. I had to drink a big can of Rockstar to keep up." This was the engine as we started taking it apart to take the head off.




DA with fender chassis reinforcement bars? You see 'em all the time! This is an important place to upgrade on the DA, especially after you upgrade the front brakes.

Notched and cut out for the Maxxine Works header, and to save a few ounces. The car brakes and corners so hard that it literally twists the crossmember and is starting to shear itself.




There is a good 1" clearance between the front of the header and the crossmember notch and there's still marks where the header rubs. Im hoping the new rear aluminum HASPORT mount aided with the engine damper have solved that issue.




More progress on taking the head off.

Voila. Head comes off.

That was the end of weekend 1, over the next week John got the head and proceeded to do the port clean-up and 3 angle valve job. The head was milled and reassembled with the new valvetrain components as well. Daniel took a few pictures of it but they were in the apartment in low light so they didn't come out very well, not even worth posting...except for these.

WEEKEND 2:

Week 2 didn't start so well, after I got the head back I started reassembling it on his living room coffee table, and as I was torquing down the Hondata intake manifold gasket it cracked. This happened at about 8-10 ft-lbs, while following the instructions exactly... so beware if you get one of these to be VERY careful! Luckily John was able to weld it on short notice and did a pretty good job fixing it up. My best guess is that since the Hondata gasket has a squish factor, and that bolt is so far out on its own relative to the rest, that it put enough stress on the material to cause it to crack.

OEM ITR goodness. Refreshed the bottom end with OE rod bearings and new rings. Looked to get 11.6:1 compression out of it with 0.015" milled off the head. We learned a ton about JDM vs. USDM Honda, as far as the differences in the engines and maintenance. Turns out the Japanese model and manual is much more precise than the US manual, and has tighter specs on clearances and tolerances. Daniel's rota hat from SEMA kept the bad luck at bay! and makes me laugh whenever I look at it....I'm gonna vent - F*%^$@K Rota- there that's done!

Gratuitous headlight shot, Daniel is getting to be a very good photographer. You knew there was going to be an artsy photo somewhere in this post!

Did a little front end hole sawing. Every little bit helps. I let the engineer measure and center punch the holes, cause he's an engineer and if I'd a done it, they would look crooked. The car ended up at 2189 lbs, about 100 lbs lighter with all of the changes from before.

I don't know how much time we spent down there, but it was a while! Bare block, before reassembly.

At this point it got dark and picture time was over. I spent pretty much the entire next week working day and night getting the car ready. We started it up the weekend before the event for the first time and broke it in, smoking the neighbors house out with fumes for the 40 minutes we sat there at 2500 rpm to seat the valvetrain and new bearings. I replaced the lower section of the header heat wrap since it was damaged when I unwrapped it to inspect the header for dents (which there was 1).

The car ran ratty the whole time, I adjusted timing and fuel a bit to see if it would "tune" out but no dice. I should mention that this entire 40 minutes was run off of Daniel's car that was parked next to the garage with jumper cables since mybattery wouldn't hold charge. I had electrical issues up the ying yang as well, all of which needed to be sorted out before the car could be driven on the street for loaded break in. It was a long and discouraging day of troubleshooting.

That next Monday morning, I found out my track tires didn't get in, my battery was dead, I received OBD0 injector plugs in the mail instead of the OBD1 plugs I had ordered, and I had no place to weld up the stainless exhaust (and probably 10 other things Im forgeting to mention).
I was ready to put the stock valvetrain back in, and call Redline and change my sign up to Saturday just to use up my track day.

Both me and Daniel had been trying to source out a lift and welder so that the exhaust could be fixed and a bunch of other various welding could be done since McKinney had flaked so horribly. At that moment, I had been working relentlessly for 2.5 weeks and was "running lean," and quite discouraged, and so was Daniel. He's girlfriend Leann kept asking when he'd have time to do something with her, he had tons of pictures sitting unedited on his hard drive, a December feature that he kept putting off, and work stuff that was getting done but taking twice as long because I was tired and distracted (Thanks Daniel for the extra effort on your part).

Daniel ended talking me into putting everything I had into solving the problem instead of giving up on it, and so I ended up finding a welder (Alex Phieffer) who hooked me up VERY well with no notice (but then again we sponsor him through Nardi). I sourced out some A048s (literally the last in that size in the US, I had Yokohama search ALL of their dealers to find a set), and I replaced the errant battery to finish up fixing the electrical issues. Alex also did a corner balance, and the dealer who originally had flaked on the tires mounted and balanced the ones I got for free on Thursday before the event (thanks Mike). Finally things started going our way!

Daniel had called up a friend to come over to my garage and check out the timing and fuel before I drove it to make sure it was safe, and after he gave the OK, everything ran fine except for one 2 hour breakdown incident where the car had to be pushed into a parking lot. One thing about this car, it ALWAYS has an issue on the streets, but runs great on the track. Thursday night Daniel came over and put all of the decals on (yes, the ricerCali boy lives on) and helped bleed the brakes. Friday was the big day, finish up putting everything back together and dyno tune at 2 p.m. I got the RC 310cc injectors installed at 1AM that morning, and picked up a spare set of BKR7 plugs at In Line4 just in time to get at Church Dyno.

My goal was 200 whp, reliable to 9000, and 2:06 lap times so both me and Daniel where a bit surprised to hit 222.9 whp and 154 ft-lb, but the real test was yet to come. (UPDATE: Ran a 2.06.61 on Sunday, so all is well and relieved the engine didnt blow up).

I slepped in Saturday, and met everyone at the track around 1PM. I got to have one shake down session after my friend Luis unfortunatly blew his engine near the end of Saturday. Daniel; "The sound of that car coming off the last turn as it hit VTEC for the first time onto the front straight, WOW. I've never enjoyed a moment more in the entire time I've been doing this. Great stuff." Thanks again Danny San!

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