photographer: Henry Z. DeKuyper
Some cars excel on many fronts; others aim at more precise targets. John Tran's DC2 Integra falls into the latter category, and the bull's-eye is the venerable quarter-mile dragstrip. The strip is a familiar landscape for John who has an all-motor EF9 that went 13.52 seconds between 1996 and 1997, and an EG6 that posted a best of 12.05 seconds also in all-natural trim. He owned the Civic until 2006 when he graduated to life under boost in this Integra.
In his Las Vegas hometown, John is a tech at LDL Speed Shop. He wasted little time yanking out the B18B in his personal car and sending the raw block to RS Machine in Norwalk, Calif., for closed-deck sleeving and prep for a Frankenstein transformation. Back at LDL the freshened and fortified block was filled with Arias forged, dish-style pistons that drop compression from 10.5:1 to a boost-friendly 9.3:1 and Eagle chromoly connecting rods. The lightweight rotating assembly was balanced and assembled in the LDL clean room, where most of the wrenching action went down.
For the Frankenstein effect, a VTEC head was filled with high-speed hardware and positioned atop the B18B shortblock. To spin high under boost John installed Ferrea stainless valves, Portflow double valvesprings, Portflow retainers and added Integra Type R cams to run the show. LDL performed a full port and polish, a race-spec valve job as well as other conversion mods to the B18C VTEC head prior to adding bronze valve guides and securing it to the B18B block with ARP fasteners.
As the fully prepped 1.8-liter was built for boost, John selected a Precision Turbo 67PDRB turbo as his trailblazer. The T4-based unit, which features a 67-trim compressor wheel, is secured on a custom turbo manifold fabricated by Virtual Works Racing. John kept the sparks flying at Virtual Works' welding stations, as a 4-inch downpipe and 4-inch exhaust were fabbed up to expel spent gasses from his B-Series hybrid. On the intake side Virtual crafted an artistic intake manifold that houses a 72mm RPM Service throttle body. A Spearco bar-and-plate FMIC, GReddy Type-R blow-off valve and custom LDL piping complete the turbo system between the compressor nozzle and throttle body.
On the fuel side the prerequisite Walbro 255lph fuel pump gets the juices flowing. The pump feeds 1,000cc RC Engineering injectors via an AEM rail while an Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator re-directs unused fuel back into the tank.
A Hondata S300 plug-and-play module handles tuning of the fuel and stock ignition systems. The S300 transforms the Honda ECU into a fully tunable entity that can run a positive pressure forced induction system, make quick changes to accommodate larger injectors, tune in real time, incorporate datalogging and can be ordered pre-programmed for some basic setups. Forced induction, however, due to its wide range of variables, demands a custom tune but the S300s use of many stock Honda maps in more docile driving situations translates into less time on the dyno that saves money and results in more precise off-boost performance, which means excellent overall driveability. Using Hondata's proprietary SManager Windows-based software and the S300's quick USB connectivity, LDL Speed Shop's Dennis Liongson pulled a stampeding 607 horses from the hybrid B-Series powerplant. Dennis related that the tuning session on LDL's Mustang chassis dyno was smooth and the big pull was made at 25 psi using 100-octane pump gas.
Hurtling down the track in pursuit of 10-second timeslips, the B18B/B18C puts the big twist on a 12-pound chromoly ATC flywheel and an ATC six-puck Extreme series clutch set. The drive axles are stock, which makes us wonder how hard John is shifting the car's B16 Y21 (LSD) gearbox. Tanabe Sustec Pro suspension, a DC Sports lower tie bar and a Virtual Works traction bar complete the package. The Acura rolls on old-school classic 15-inch Mugen RNR wheels wrapped with Yokohama ES-100 rubber.