This 200-plus mph Honda Civic is just the latest manifestation of John Romero's addiction. In fact, when he went to work as AEM's lead engineer back in 2002, he was already showing signs of being a speed junkie. Lusting after a car that could exceed 200mph but unable to afford one, he resorted to drastic measures and was in the early stages of building a B-series powered CRX to pilot past the mythical 200mph barrier. But, as cool as it would be to see an old CRX flying across the desert at 200-plus, the speed gods had other plans.
In 2004, this 2001 Civic landed in Romero's lap (or garage in this case). The car had served AEM bravely during its career as a showcar, but the life of a demo car is short, and apparently, one of the perks of working for AEM is getting free cars. Given the choice of using the '01 instead of the older CRX to get his 200mph fix, Romero made the obvious choice. With the '01 Civic as his new stash, this speed junkie went on a binge, building the car in an 18-month stint.
It takes a lot of horsepower to make a car go 200mph, and the heart of this 200mph car is obviously its engine. If you were expecting to see some type of bored and stroked Honda shortblock under the hood of this stallion, you'd be partially right. But it might not be what you think. Not only is the treatment the engine received unusual, the powerplant choice itself was unconventional.
While some people swap newer engines with more displacement (and power) into cars to go faster, Romero took a different approach and actually dropped in a de-bored (to an itty-bitty 1,479cc) B16A. Not only is this engine smaller than the original but it's older, too! Why would he make his engine SMALLER to go faster you ask? It's simple: he had no choice.
Romero built the car to compete in top speed contests and as such, the car was built to the constraints of the rules. But the venerable B16 was over the 1.5-liter limit for the class he was racing in; so Romero decided to de-bore it to meet the displacement limit. But like we said, it takes a lot of horsepower to go 200-plus mph, and in this case, Romero seems to have found a replacement for displacement: a huge turbo and a truly bulletproof bottom end.
Breathing down this mini-B16's throat is a Garrett GT37 turbo equipped with a 82mm compressor and 72.5 turbine. It may take a while to get the snail turning, but once the big Garrett is spooled up, the mini-terror of an engine unleashes hell on earth. With all that air being forced through the little engine, it puts down an impressive 543 wheel hp - enough to propel the slick Civic across the desert at over 200mph.
But even with that huge compressor compressing all that air, the baby B-series has to spin at over 10,000 rpm for extended periods to make that power. To withstand such abuse, the short block was given extraordinary attention. Golden Eagle Manufacturing in San Dimas, Calif., took care of the shortblock build up. To keep the mill under the 1500cc limit, Golden Eagle installed a set of 78mm Golden Eagle HD iron sleeves in place of the stock 81mm pistons and barrels. The crankshaft is a stock B16A piece that retains the stock 77.4mm stroke. The crank was polished and installed in the block with ACL main bearings, stock GSR main bolts and a Golden Eagle 3-main girdle. Swinging on the stock crank is a set of Crower 4340 billet rods and custom Arias 11.4:1 pistons and rings.
With the internals of the mini-B16 all in order, Golden Eagle turned to the oiling system. Because of the extreme conditions the engine sees, they opted to use a dry-sump oiling system to ensure the motor would receive enough oil to keep things lubricated down there at 10,000-plus rpm. The system sports a Z10 Engineering pump kit and a Moroso tank to hold the old dinosaur juice.
How much power you can make depends primarily on how much air you can squeeze into an engine. While the massive Garrett turbo does its part to cram huge amounts of air into the B16's bores, there are a few things that get in the way: namely the head and the valvetrain. To ensure minimal restriction of airflow in to the engine, the head was shipped off to R&D Dyno in Gardena California, where they massaged it into a better-flowing metering device.