AFTER MARKET ELECTRONICS
As the demand increased to make power in cars which were originally supposed to be plain commuters, the technology had to improve to continue to push this evolution.
Engines that were stroked, made to rev higher or boosted needed electronics to govern air, fuel, variable valve train timing or boost, respectively; some needed additional hardware with computer programming to further operate and fine-tune these functions. This is when we began to see the rise of the turbo timers, electronic boost controllers, and VTEC controllers (check A'PEXi's VAFC; www.apexi.com-all reasonably priced gear that helped street and track tuners tremendously. Pricey standalone engine management first took off during the rise of drag racing when Accel's DFI, used heavily in domestic tuning, was adapted to work in many Hondas. This was also partly responsible for some of the high horsepower produced during that time. The Japanese companies followed suit with products like GReddy's e-Manage and HKS' F-CON V Pro but for those with an even lower budget, Hondata produced a highly tunable ECU for the B and K-series engines www.hondata.com. A lot of computer savvy yet underground street guys also found ways to reprogram or mirror chips originally produced by Mugen or Spoon and sold them through various online avenues, including JDMHondaparts.com.
BOLT-ON EXHAUST
There's nothing more boring or aggravating than having to wake up early on a Saturday, roll over to the closest muffler shop to have them crush bend piping, cut and weld a make-do exhaust system with a universal muffler and a resonator to keep the sound down. That was pretty much the only way you could get that tin can whine until Japan's HKS and Trust (GReddy) started producing exhaust kits that were flanged, sectionalized to match your factory exhaust layout and a perfect replacement to add more power at a nominal cost-making the hard part easy. American companies soon caught on and began offering bolt-on kits of their own. In fact, Borla www.borla.com even has the trademark on the name "cat-back exhaust."
BOLT-ON TURBO KIT
When many Hondas started breaking past the 13- and 12-second barriers, the majority of these racers were piecing custom turbo kits together using hybrid T3/T4 turbos and intercooler cores from Mitsubishi Starions and fabricating all the piping to work. It would be hard to say that any two kits are alike when they were all pretty unique in their own ways. A company called DRAG www.dragturbokits.com out of Monterey Park, California started whipping up production bolt-on turbo kits for the second-gen Integra and third-gen Civic with an optional intercooler to boot. Myles Bautista, one of the early pioneers of Honda drag racing, also brought his knowledge of turbocharging to the game by releasing turbo manifolds and kits under the label of the Valley company Rev Hard www.revhard.com, supplying the likes of Lisa Kubo, Kenny Tran and JoJo Callos early in their careers. HKS did offer a bolt-on turbo kit for the first CRX, as did Cartech, but it wasn't until Hondas really took off in popularity that the bolt-on turbo kit start making waves.