I came across these photos of my last shop as I was cleaning out my office the other day. I know they’re not very exciting, but I took these on the very day I handed the keys back to my landlord and said goodbye to Holeshot Racing and running my own business for good. I know I’ve got some photos of the shop from its heyday—when it was packed full of cars, engines, welders, and a lift—but I’ll have to dig those up another time. Jon Spackman and I opened up Holeshot sometime around 1995 or 1996, when we began doing so much work for friends and “customers” at our homes that it proved more profitable to get ourselves an expensive shop and some helping hands. But, at $600 a month, our first shop wasn’t all that expensive, especially considering it was in the heart of Orange county and we could pack eight or so cars in it. That first shop didn’t have much. Besides our respective tool boxes, we made due with a MIG welder, two homemade workbenches, a couple of floor jacks, and an air compressor that never seemed to shut off. There was a pole holding up the roof right in the center of the shop, the ceilings were only eight or nine feet high, a really strange guy lived in his unit next door, and the “outhouse” bathroom that was retrofitted inside of our office used a K&N filter at the end of its exhaust fan, so whatever fumes came out of the john that the K&N couldn’t handle ended up right in the shop. Good times. The lack of equipment and crappy conditions didn’t matter though. We cranked out B-series swaps almost weekly as well as the occasional ZC or H-series swap and any type of maintenance or mechanical repair that you could imagine. We also performed hard-wired OBD conversions before the phrase “OBD conversion” was coined, chipped ECUs back when the Internet was considered a neat fad, and did a few non-Honda jobs when money was tight. At a time when few shops existed, business was good. Sometime around 1999 or 2000 we moved into the shop shown here. It was bigger, newer, nicer, and a whole lot more expensive. Unfortunately, this was also around the same time every kid with his first Craftsman tool set and the know-how to lower a car began opening their own shops. Prices were driven down, we eventually closed up, and such was the beginning of the end of the small Honda shop.
The first time I tried swapping a DOHC VTEC engine into an ’88-’91 Civic chassis was sometime shortly after the del Sol was released. The car was a base-model, ’89 Civic hatchback, and we’d planned on swapping a ZC into place, maybe even a B18A if we could find one but those weren’t all that abundant in 1994. I visited a couple of local engine yards but what I found at a wrecking yard in nearby Fontana changed everything. Perched up high on a rack was a nearly new and smashed-up Honda del Sol VTEC, complete with its B16A engine, ECU, and hydro transmission. We bought it all. Never mind the fact that the transmission wouldn’t work in the hatchback (nobody really knew that at the time) or the fact that the ECU wouldn’t plug in (nobody knew that either), we had ourselves a real-deal twin-cam VTEC engine, and we were going to make it fit.
Shortly after unloading it in the garage we realized that the engine would bolt in similarly to the B18A swap we’d just finished—our first one ever. But the transmission wasn’t happening. Although it’s obvious now, we failed to consider the fact that the del Sol transmission uses a hydraulic-operated clutch fork while the Civic’s uses a cable-operated one. Of course, the mounts are entirely different from one another too. We got lucky and found a repair shop that was “nice enough” to trade us straight across for the cable gearbox that we needed. Keep in mind though that in 1994, hydro gearboxes were a bit more valuable than the cable ones, but nowhere near as expensive as they are now since there wasn’t a demand for them yet. From there, the engine and transmission went in as you’d expect: we welded on a DA Integra chassis bracket to the transmission-side frame rail and used ’90-’93 Integra mounts and brackets to bolt it all into place. This was the swap that we started making front mounts for, which consisted of a DA front mount and two metal tabs welded to the front crossmember. It was crude, but it worked. Remember, early mount manufacturers like HCP, Place Racing, and Hasport were still a few years away from making anything, let alone even being in business, so if you didn’t have access to a MIG welder and some metal cutting tools, you weren’t doing a swap like this.
But the wiring is were we really got confused. The B18A/Civic Si swap we’d just completed was simple, but the del Sol/Civic swap we were looking at now was anything but. Today, you’d find yourself an OBD-0-to-OBD-1 adapter harness, reuse your old engine harness, wire VTEC, and call it a day, but we were under the impression that we had to use the del Sol ECU and engine wiring harness, no exceptions. And I don’t need to tell you that adapter harnesses were still several years away. As such, we went back to the wrecking yard to purchase the del Sol’s complete under-dash wiring harness and then proceeded to graft it into the Civic. The end result—after several weeks of wiring—was quite possibly the first OBD-1-converted ’88-’91 Civic ever.
Shortly after, we realized what fools we were for swapping the entire under-dash harness into place and began cutting and splicing in permanent OBD-0-to-OBD-1 ECU conversions for customers. Of course, this allowed them to keep their existing wiring harnesses but use the newer ECU. Who knew?
In a way, I’m glad adapter harnesses like these didn’t exist in the early days. There are few better ways to learn than by trial and error.
There are a couple of threads online right now where the creators ask others to share some of their “old school” memories. At first I thought this was a great idea, that is, until the threads became flooded with kids who think 2003, or the time they saw their first K-series swap, is old. I suppose it’s all relative, but I lost interest in those threads early on. It’s easy for anybody to say they were at the first Battle of the Imports, raced at Terminal Island, or frequented shops like Speed Garage, Speed Image, Speed Factory, or the original Dynamic but, I’ll say it again, I just don’t remember seeing that many toddlers running around the pits or at the shops. From time to time I’ll be posting up things that I consider from my day. I won’t say they’re necessarily old school, because I know more than a few guys who are older than me that wouldn’t consider it so, but I will say they’re things of the past. If you don’t remember these things, then simply sit back, stop posting on the old school forum threads, and enjoy the stories. Because we all know the number of eight-year-olds who tagged along with their “older brothers” to Ontario or Sylmar at night were few, if any.
Before there were forums, before www.craigslist.com, before eBay, there was the Recycler Classifieds. Notice there’s no www. preceding the title, no .com after it — that’s because the Recycler was a weekly newspaper that somehow became the leading trading post for SoCal Honda enthusiasts of the early-to-mid ’90s. Yes, the Recycler was made of paper, its words were printed with ink, on a printing press, and you actually had to leave the house to get a copy. Inconvenient? Maybe by today’s standards, but this is where all of the good finds came from. The Recycler had its own “performance” section, where you could find DC Sports headers, RS Akimoto intakes, PIAA fog lights, or just about anything else you could think of. You wouldn’t find the term “JDM” in there but you would find all sorts of parts that would fill that category by today’s standards. I made so many good finds from the Recycler. I bought and sold my Sparco NS-II Vipers there as well as my first set of Mugen RnRs, which I picked up brand new from a shop that advertised in there. I also picked up a set of Panasports, some Black Racing wheels, and so much more. I even started selling chipped ECUs on there shortly after we picked up our equipment but before we had the shop. Remembering the Recycler doesn’t automatically make you old school, but it’s a good memory for those of us who remember life before the Internet.
I was rummaging through some of my old photos the other day and found this. Yep, that’s one of my old DC2 Integras and, yep, that’s a D16Z6 in there. This was my only car at the time, so when I pulled the B18C out to rebuild it, I had to slap something else in there to drive it. Incidentally, I had just yanked this clean specimen of a SOHC D-series out of a customer’s car for an H22A swap, which gave me the idea to de-swap my GSR. Installing the drivetrain was really no different than if I were to put it in a Civic. Of course, I had to use a Civic tranny mount, a Civic rear mount, a Civic throttle cable and ECU, and so on. Since the Integra has larger radiator inlets and outlets I simply squished the hoses onto the engine’s water necks with worm-gear clamps. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I used a long enough one on the cylinder head’s outlet. Also, notice my custom, ultra-short intake that I found laying around the shop and the Crane ignition coil on the left. Oh, and yes, this thing was as slow as you’d expect. The timestamp says January of 2000, but I’m pretty sure this was sometime during ’97 or ’98. I ended up rocking the D for about two months.
Filed under: Old school stuff | Tags: Civic hatchback, Honda Tuning race car
It’s been a year since I sold my old race car and, I’ve gotta say, I still miss working on it – not driving it, working on it. I came to terms years back that I enjoy building cars more than I do racing them, but that’s beside the point. My car was sold to a friend of a friend who owns a small shop nearby, and I haven’t seen it since I let it go. One of the selling points of my car was that all it needed to hit the track was a fresh gallon of 118 octane and it was good to go. The engine was in top-notch condition, the chassis was straight, the slicks and skinnies were still fresh; even the turbo, the fuel pump, and the battery were in practically new condition. But I heard recently that the new owner decided to tear the whole thing apart, despite everything I told him about the car. I guess he didn’t believe me.
On a side note, this car took me about three years to build during my spare time back when I had my shop. I did everything in-house except for the tune. The car had a lot of fab work hours put into it. If I couldn’t buy it, I made it. Shoot, even if I could buy certain things, I still made them – the exhaust manifold, the fuel cell, the water tank, the window frames, everything. Only problem was that, once I was done, I was ready to cut something up just for the sake of getting to fabricate something new. It’s a sickness.
Not the one for sale, but an immaculate S600 I shot during my last visit to the Honda Collection Hall at Twin Ring Motegi racetrack.
There’s a guy on www.nwp4life.com who’s selling a ’64 Honda S600, which is arguably one of the coolest cars ever made. This guy’s S600 is pretty beat but it’s going for $4500 right now, not necessarily a bad deal considering it’s RHD, registered, and has a supposed clean title. Shoot, if I had an extra $25K to restore this thing, I’d buy it right now. I mean, forget the S2000, this thing is historical roadster bliss. Apparently his needs an engine still, but the gearbox and most of the other important things are still there.
The S600 was originally equipped with a little 606cc, DOHC four-cylinder engine that made less than 60 hp. This was all okay though since the thing only weighs about 1600 lbs or so, which means it’ll still clock at least 85 or 90- mph. The S600 even has independent suspension! Remember, we’re talking the mid-‘60s here. The S600 is a rare car, so rare in fact that even the not-so-common NSX platform outnumbers it by a good 7000 or so. Now that’s uber-rare.
I’ve always liked this photo because it makes my old ’95 GSR look a lot faster than what it was. See that car I’m passing? That’s the old Signal Auto chop-top Civic. In 2001, when this photo was taken, the chop-top was running mid-to-low 10s. My DC2 was good for low 11s in full street trim. I got lucky on this pass and got the Signal car out of the hole. To be fair, I think they had some traction problems on the launch.
My Integra was so simple and would make some of today’s online bedroom engineers cringe. My first turbo setup consisted of a partial DRAG turbo kit with RC Engineering 310cc/min fuel injectors, a Vortech boost-dependant fuel pressure regulator, a Bosch in-line fuel pump, a Turbonetics T3/T4 turbo (forgot the trim), a cast-iron log manifold, a small Spearco front-mount intercooler, a Turbonetics Deltagate wastegate, and an HKS blow-off valve. This setup eventually made a dangerous 410 whp on a Dynojet at some absurd fuel pressure to compensate for the tiny injectors. Oh, and that was with a completely stock, unopened P72 GSR ECU. Yeah, the setup would have been a joke by today’s standards, but we were still experimenting. I later swapped over to a DOS-based engine management system – ACCEL’s DFI 6.0, which was another joke altogether. This was probably sometime during 1998 or 1999. The DFI let me put in some “huge” 550cc/min injectors and later some “monstrous” 880cc/min ones that let the engine produce more than 550 whp. This was pretty good power for back in 2001. Of course, I did some other upgrades, like swapped in a Paxton fuel pump that fed right off of my gas tank sans the stock fuel pump, bolted on a different turbo, I think a 60-1, went with an HKS wastegate, and got rid of the Vortech FPR since I now had the standalone.
The cool thing about my GSR was that it was surprisingly simple and looked pretty much stock all the way around. The interior was stock except for some gauges in the dash – even the stock leather seats and seatbelts were left. Outside I had the RnRs, a custom exhaust, and the same Spearco intercooler, but that was about it unless you popped the hood. It was the ultimate sleeper and was enough to surprise more than a few – even chop-top Civics.
