Tuning Honda Civics has come a long way in the 21st century. It almost seems as though there is a set formula that one must abide by in order to be deemed "cool" by Internet forum sticklers. It's all about getting the "rare" JDM parts, the context of rare is usually determined by the price someone pays for an item rather than the actual difficulty of attaining said part(s). For example, an EG Civic with a "rare" Spoon wing and some "rare" Regamaster Evos might earn you a "damn doggie that's tight :thumbup:" from a forum maven with over 20,000 posts (a :thumbup: gesture is one of highest approval). Anything less might engage what most fear more than death - an Internet hating frenzy that many refer to as a "flame war."
Lots have become lost in this "I'm a baller that has more money in my Civic than you do" mindset. So much so that it's hard to remember that it's not the only way to build a car. Sometimes I forget that there are people out there doing exactly what sucked me into the scene in the first place; building cars purely to enjoy them. Adam Jabaay's Civic isn't equipped with any parts from companies that you might see integrated into part of a JDM fanboi's screen name (as a matter of fact, half the damn car he fabricated himself, often with the help of his brother). Our "flamesuits" are on!
We don't need to tell you that this car isn't exactly a looker. And yes, those are steelies inside those marshmallow tires, not some uber-rare Mugen wheel you haven't heard of. But rather than mass appeal, this car was focused to please one critic - the owner. Rather than spending money on parts, Adam spent money on tools. Instead of wasting time on the web he perfected his fabrication skills. A closer look at this car will explain how it was built rather intelligently and is well-suited to many roles.
After wrapping his first EF around a tree (a result as the owner puts it of "driving like a jerkass thinking I was awesome"), Jabaay picked up this standard. He's now owned the car for over seven years, with a majority of the time used as a daily driver. It's seen its share of engine swaps over the years, eleven to be exact, before culminating in the unconventional transplant that is now at home in this EF's bay.
"I've had eleven engines in the car", Adam tells me. "The original engine was blown when I bought [the car], so I replaced it with the engine from my wrecked hatch. Then I put in a JDM DOHC ZC which I built up with cams/high-compression from a milled head, custom homemade ITBs and Exospeed cams. I blew vast amounts of headgaskets due to a warped head. Then we slapped in a D16A6, and built our first turbo setup. I ended up learning things about tuning by popping some engines at first."
Adam would go on to perfect a turbo setup on the D16 until one day it met it's demise some 25k miles later to a stuck injector. Feeling like it was time to try something new, Jabaay decided to go with the same power plant we used for the Castrol Syntec Top Shop Challenge - an Accord F series single cam. In order to fit this swap, Adam had to perform a few frame modifications and pick up a special adapter plate from Bisimoto that allows the F series block to be mated to a D series transmission.
A Bisimoto camshaft and valve springs are the only internal mods. The intake manifold and turbo manifold are both custom pieces fabricated by Adam and his brother Jeremy. Throw on a customized Arizona Turbo and Tractor supplies snail, a nice backdoor intercooler setup, some Deatschwerks 700cc injectors and a Walbro 255lph fuel pump and you have the necessities. Once tuned on Crome, this inexpensive setup lays down 344hp and 290lb-ft . In this lightweight chassis that equates to enough power to stomp on just about anything you want.