Young Version — August 1999

The K Civic had just returned from a battle in America right before our shoot. It's so well known over there that it appeared on the cover of the tuning magazine Sport Compact Car last year. As you probably know, Civics and CR-Xs are the mainstay of American drag racing, with turbo Hondas running 10- and 9-second passes. JUN sent this EK over to challenge them with a Japanese-style tuning approach. As you can see in the photos, its standout feature as a front-wheel-drive drag car is the huge front tires, chosen to maximize traction: 10 inches wide (about 250 mm). By contrast, the rear tires are only 185 mm wide, which looks quite unbalanced. Of course, that's to reduce rear-tire rolling resistance as much as possible…

…which reduces rear-tire rolling resistance. It looks really unusual because they're doing the exact opposite of a rear-wheel-drive car. The engine is a Prelude H22A swap, a common approach among Honda drag racers in the U.S. JUN fitted a T88-34D turbo and set boost to 1.8. It makes about 700 horsepower and an incredible amount of torque. The engine is packed with JUN technology: the pistons, valve springs, connecting rods, and cams are all JUN originals, built to make the H22A deliver turbo power reliably. Last year's best time in the U.S. was 10.233 seconds; this year's goal is the 9-second range. America's quickest Honda has already done it. If America is the world's fastest, we want Japan to bring home the world-number-one title!

This car was built by… With a limited budget, they chose an ordinary-looking body as a starting point. The engine, however, is a fully built Integra B18C using original parts, paired with a TD06SH-25G turbo to produce 540 horsepower. The suspension is also carefully modified: the links were changed to EG parts to alter the geometry and reliably gain traction. Before delivery, it had already run 11.1 seconds. Maybe we'll see a battle between this car and JUN's EK in America someday!