It was the summer of 2006 when Felix Chan set out to discover what he was capable of. He wanted to build an Acura Integra that met his particular demands and specifications. And he was going to do as much of the work himself as he could. If that meant eight weeks of staying after work until two in the morning then punching the clock at 10 the next day, that's what he'd do.
The project began by purchasing just the shell of a '92 DA9. Chan was 18 at the time, working as a technician at N1 Concepts, a build shop in San Francisco. He's obviously a man who loves his work. His Integra has a JDM pedigree, with right-hand drive. 'Teg fans will be familiar with the B16A DOHC VTEC engine, displacing 1.6 liters and developing 158 hp at a high-revving 7,600 rpm, along with 111 lb-ft at seven grand dead.
Chan sure is. He used to own a '90 Integra and a '95 Honda Del Sol (as well as an '86 Toyota MR2 and an '04 BMW 330). He began working on cars at the tender age of 15, for the same reason most of us do: there was no other affordable option.
His naturally aspirated B16 was pulled from a Japanese racecar. Chan saw how clean the internals were, noted the ported and polished head, and decided that all he wanted to add was a set of HKS cam gears. It's the breathing where Chan got busier. At the start of the process, an Injen air intake feeds a Blox one-piece cast aluminum intake manifold that sports a larger plenum and longer runners than factory stock. It's also much lighter.
On the exhaust side, a Rage Tri Y Race Header (fashioned from brushed 304 stainless steel) flows into a Blox straight pipe and a stainless steel Tanabe G Power exhaust. Chan has a good relationship with R Crew Racing of Brisbane, Calif. (suppliers of JDM parts, among other things), so an R Crew intake manifold spacer and metallic blue oil filler cap can also be found gracing his powerplant.
Just ahead of this B-series is a Fluidyne aluminum radiator connected up with Spoon Sports heavy-duty silicone hoses (in trademark bright blue). To keep the lube from getting too hot, Chan puts his trust in a Trust six-row oil cooler. Spoon Sports also supplied the spark plug wires. They can be seen in the engine picture, just before they're tucked away beneath the spiffy chrome valve cover.
There's nothing much wrong with Honda's S1 B16 five-speed manual transmission, but Chan asked R Crew to augment his JDM gearbox with Spoon Sports shifter bushings and a B&M short shifter kit, then moved on to the next area for improvement.
Fitting height- and damping-adjustable TEIN SS coilovers at the front and Eibach Sportline springs over Koni Sport (yellow) shocks at the rear was carried out by our man. This setup lowers the nose by 3.5 inches and brings the tail down by three inches. He's kept the front anti-roll bar stock, but has replaced the rear with a stiffer '98 Integra Type R 23mm item. The bumpy Bay Area roads would make life with a super-stiff suspension miserable, so Chan tuned it to be mildly stiff, with just enough give.
Taking a good look around the chassis will uncover a set of Function7 rear lower control arms. A wise choice; these are made from strong, airframe-grade billet 7075 aluminum, yet are extremely light weight. Because the car now sits closer to the ground, the inclusion of a Blox camber kit also makes good sense. And just to be on the safe side, the rear tie-bars and anti-roll bar fixings have custom CNC-machined reinforcement.
The wheel hubs have been changed to Integra Type R five-lug items. R Crew lug nuts secure a set of cool white Sprint Hart CP-R wheels, sized 16x7, with a 43mm offset. The cool black contingent is represented by Toyo Proxes 4 205/45 all-season UHPs.