"It took me a while to find one that I liked. There were so many salvaged ITRs at the time and the only one with a clean title was sold minutes before I arrived to pick it up. I was so bummed that I began scouring Craigslist and strangely enough, I found the Integra that I own today. I cherished it even though it was a bit rough around the edges. There were some dents and it needed new paint but I took care of it. I was a youth minister at my local church then and they were kind enough to let me keep my car inside the church on weekdays."
"I slowly began the modification process and even had the car re-sprayed the OEM Flamenco Black. I began to get more comfortable within the Honda community and eventually I decided that I had to step my game up to see if I could take my build further."
Anh's rationale to go K-series was not without merit. A spun rod with his first motor and similar disaster with his second lead him to contemplate the K.
"It was nothing but problems with the two ITR engines I had before. The car just never received the treatment it deserved and needed," he says. It may be "divine intervention" or just a case of being at the right place at the right time, but another member of ATS Garage, Vee, just happened to have a JDM K20A for sale. Anh quickly jumped on it and began making calls to assemble a dream team to complete his rebuild.
"The plan was simple: to make this very complicated build top notch with no short cuts and quality parts. I was lucky enough to be able to lock down famed Honda-builder, Fred Chapman and wiring guru, Ryan "Rywire" Basseri to assist me throughout the build."
It took less than a day for Fred to get to work on the tear down. Chapman aka "ATS Fred" immediately pulled out the B18C to make room for the new heart. The dash and interior were also yanked to allow room for Ryan to mock-up custom brake lines and removal of unneeded wires. The battery and fuse box were eventually relocated while the heater, A/C and power steering were removed altogether. Fred then dropped the K20A into its new home and Ryan applied one of his signature Rywire mil/spec harnesses to make everything fully operational.
Along with the modified valvetrain stated earlier, this K20A also sees upgrades with an RBC intake manifold, DTR header, RCrew/RedZone custom exhaust and custom Griffin radiator set-up. The radiator is modified to use -16 AN fittings with lower and upper radiator hoses connecting to K-Tuned swivel water outlets. As if his engine bay wasn't unique enough, Anh sent his entire subframe, Karcepts intake pipe, oil catch can and other assorted goodies out to SIK Industries to have them powdercoated in candy teal. "I was honestly kind of iffy on the teal at first but Fred gave me reassurance that it would pop nicely against the glossy black."
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