The project started after speaking with Peter Tarach of Modified Magazine at the SEMA IAS show in Philadelphia, 2006. Modified Magazine was looking for a new project car since my Scion tC was getting wrapped up. I threw around the idea of building an Integra sedan, something I had personally wanted to do my entire life. At that time my intentions were mainly to throw on a JDM front end, K-series swap and your basic suspension/bolt-on mods and to make a fairly fun driver out of it. But once the project started it pretty much spiraled out of control becoming a huge money pit and ultimately a show car with hopes of hitting the track at some Time Attack events.


After browsing Honda-Tech for a few days, I found myself a fairly good condition GS-R sedan out in Riverside. The owner was having a tough time selling it because it had a first gen B16A swapped into it rather than the B18C you'd normally find. But I could care less what was underneath the hood. On April 26th, Mr. Carpenter and Ms. Gene Tjin drove me out to Riverside to pick up the new project. I was actually surprised to see how great condition the actual body and interior was, the engine bay was a bit messy but I didn't even care. It actually made me a little sad to strip out such a great condition interior, but most of it would have to go. The plan at that point was to get the cage going over at Unique Fabrication and lightening up the car prior to paint and body. As you can see in the above photos the car came with eBay brand coilovers, oddly tinted headlights and some Honda hubcaps I couldn't recognize. Oh yeah, amber side markers, Honda emblems and a DC Sports shift knob.


I started by stripping out the entire interior inside my garage while waiting for room over at Unique Fabrication. I must say it was pretty fun tearing everything out knowing that hardly any of it was going back in. During this time Adam and I also decided that we'd go ahead and do a right hand drive swap onto the car. After sitting on Honda-Tech for a few hours, I got a great deal on a front clip that was just sitting in some guy's backyard. Picked it up with the trailer for $50.00 bucks and the stripped out chassis and clip headed on over to Unique Fabrication for some extensive fab work. The above photos were taken on May 6th.


These photos were taken on June 11th over at Unique Fabrication. I started stripping everything off the front lip as well as the front end of the car knowing that a JDM front end would make its way onto it sooner or later. At this point still there was no deadline for completion on the car, so I was trying to pace it out as best as the budget would allow. It was also around this time that I placed my order for a set of 18x8 HRE C-20 wheels thanks to Neil Tjin. There was still a lot of work to be done in terms of stripping the car and getting it ready for the fabrication work.


A few days later, the windshields on the chassis were taken out along with whatever shards were left on the front clip. I was able to turn the clip over and remove everything else on it and at that point it was pretty bare. The metal also showed up on June 14th that would go towards the cage work.


On June 23rd, to combat the ridiculous heat of Southern California, I decided to pick up a few pounds of dry ice and have some fun with the project. First was to clear off all the crap from the clip since we weren't sure on where we were going to be making the cut for the right hand drive conversion. Needless to say it turned out those efforts were wasted but it was fun nonetheless.


Not too much to talk about here, the day after I got done with the clip I picked up more dry ice and went to town with the interior of the car getting as much crap as I could off the chassis. When it was all done though the car was pretty much ready to start getting tons of fabrication work by Mr. Lee Carpenter.


On June 27th, I was nearing death prior to my trip to San Francisco/Alaska. I was prescribed medication I was allergic to, despite telling the doctor I was allergic to it. But anyways, it was awesome. Gene, Adam and I stayed late at the shop to drop the subframe and the motor of the car. I was pretty much fighting the worst headaches in the world as well as having trouble breathing, but hey I was working on the car! Since I was leaving for a little over a week, I wanted to help out on as much as possible before leaving with the things I was capable of doing.


On July 1st, I was out of town for vacation but Gene was nice enough to take photos for me while I was gone so the tech article for Modified would have pics. Adam spent the day cutting out both firewalls on the chassis and the JDM clip and taking measurements and lining everything up getting ready for the firewall swap. He did quite an amazing job being his first conversion ever.


The next day was spent getting the new firewall situated on the chassis, making sure everything lined up and Adam began welding it altogether. At this time I was out in Alaska with family but was excited to see pictures being emailed me on the status of the car. Right hand drive, JDM front end, K-series Integra sedan was coming to life!


After I came back on July 12th, I headed over to the shop to see progress started on the cage as well as everything buttoned up on the right hand drive conversion. I snapped some photos of Adam in action working his magic with intricate welds on the beginnings of what would turn out to be a very excessive cage setup. But nonetheless, the car turned out to be a great platform to show a little bit of everything and just how important a good fabricator is on a project.


On July 18th I was treated with my new HRE C-20 wheels in complete raw form. I got them completely unfinished since they were going to be painted to match the exterior paint scheme of the car. More progress was made on the cage as it continued to take on a much more complex design than just your basic six point cage.


These photos were taken on the 21st of July, was bored so I pretended to put the wheels together to see how they'd look assembled. Adam continued working on the cage - you can see the door bars and harness bar taking form as it started to become more of a finished product. I was excited to take this thing off to paint and body.


This was the progress on the cage by July 24th. This is your basic (?!) six-point setup and we could have called it a day here but after some talking we decided that we'd go really crazy extending the cage into the trunk with a fuel cell mount and into the engine bay.


On July 26th, headed back to the shop to see the progress on the rear section of the cage. It was taking form and tabs would be cut and welded for the custom fuel cell mount. We also started prepping the engine bay for the Hasport mounts along with determining what all would be shaved in the bay.


During the day on the 29th of July, we shaved up the entire bay welding on metal bits and pieces everywhere we could. We also welded on one of the Hasport mounts since we would be incorporating the cage into the bay. The bay was looking very nice and smooth and at this point we also decided to shave the brake booster/master cylinder area in anticipation of a custom pedal setup (woops, what a mistake that would turn out to be!). The fuel cell also arrived and threw that into the trunk for test fitting purposes.


Later on that night after a fattening dinner, we headed back to the shop to work on the cage going into the engine bay. Adam as usual did his intricate measurements and went to town cutting up the car, metal and welding it all to perfection. This was one of the more exciting parts of the build - even though many people hate the idea of the cage going into the bay, we really wanted to be different and this would separate it apart from the crowd. It was also a great way to show off the workmanship of Unique Fabrication.


Big image here as on the 30th we started wrapping up a lot of the work on the car. Around this time I started tossing around the idea in my head that this car could potentially make its way to SEMA. It had always been a dream of mine to bring a project to SEMA and I figured this would probably be the best opportunity given how much money I was already dumping into the car. So we started working on a tighter deadline even though I hadn't gotten a commitment from anyone yet. We wanted to get the car off to paint by early August to give us enough time to do the rest of the mods to the car once it came back from paint and body. So we started wrapping up the cagework, stripping out the rest of the interior for paint and shaving every little thing we could inside to a nice smooth finish. It was another late night at the shop!


On the 2nd of August, Adam and I packed up the truck and drove out to Password JDM to pick up the front end. We then went back to the shop after hours to get the front end put on. We also shaved every little bit we could on the new front end and I was extremely excited to see it on the car. I still think by far a DC2/DB8 with a JDM front end is one of the cleanest and nicest looking mods on a car.


As it got late into the night on the 4th of August, pretty much everything was buttoned up on the car and it was going to be ready for paint and body. The fuel cell mount was completed and everything we could possibly touch to shave we did. Got a good night's sleep in anticipation of towing the car to the painters the next morning.


We pulled the car out of the shop for the first time in quite a while the very next day. I took some daytime photos prior to loading it up onto the trailer and off to paint and body it went. We made the decision of painting the car three different shades - one for the exterior, one for the interior/engine bay and one for the cage. I was a little weary on how it would all look and flow, but was excited to do something entirely different on a Honda for once.


On the 27th of August, I got a phone call from the painters saying that the car was painted and would be ready in the next few days after wet sanding and buffing. I was really excited to see how it all came together so I rushed on over there to take a few pictures.


September 1st is when we managed to get the car back completely done with paint and body. We loaded up the trailer, threw the Chargespeed kit into the car and towed it back to my house where it would sit until Plan B Motorsports freed up some room to bring it to their shop for the rest of the work. I was extremely happy with the way the color scheme came out as well as the paint and body work. The HRE C-20 wheels were also painted and ready to go, so up next was picking up some fresh Falken rubber and getting the wheels assembled by HRE. For those wondering about the paint scheme, the exterior was painted Desert Sage Metallic since I loved the color so much (it was on my IS250) and the interior/engine bay along with the cage is a blend from House of Kolors.


After working with Falken Tires on my Scion tC project, it was a no-brainer to go with them for the Integra project. I picked up a set of their FK-452s for my 18x8 HRE C-20 wheels. Once I got the wheels back from HRE fully assembled, I got the tires mounted on September 12th, and couldn't wait to get home to mount them on the car to see how the fitment came out (+38 et). After getting them on the car I couldn't wait to get the suspension onto it.


On October 7th, we were able to finally pack up the car back onto the trailer and brought it over to Plan B Motorsports where the suspension, brakes and motor swap would go in along with all the other stuff. Around this time I had confirmed with RJ de Vera with Versus Motorsports that the Integra would be used in their booth. So we finally had a deadline for the project, SEMA 2006 which was about a month away once the car made its way over to Plan B Motorsports. During the break of the car sitting at the shop and heading to Plan B, I took a trip to Northern California to visit family and friends as well as attending the HIN San Mateo show. While I was there, I picked up a bunch of toys from R Crew Racing for the K-series. I also contacted Skunk2 Racing, another company that I had dealt with extensively in the past and they were more than excited to work on the Integra project. They gave up every suspension good imaginable.


Once we got the car on the lift the same day, Mike Martinez and I went straight to work pulling apart the stock suspension and the wonderful eBay brand coilovers. It was now time to battle a ton of rusted nuts and bolts which turned out to cause quite the headache while working on the car. Guess after 10+ years the chassis had its fair share of wear and tear. By the end of the day we had managed to dismantle the front suspension and assemble the rear with all new Skunk2 goods!


A couple of days later on the 9th, I headed back over to Plan B Motorsports mostly to drop off the Skunk2 exhaust along with some brake rotors and buttoning up some more of the suspension install. Work time was limited that day, and I was still contacting companies to get parts as well as sourcing the K-series for the swap. Time was ticking and there was plenty to get done!


The next day, my steering wheel arrived from Florida. I had my brother stop by All Version to pick up just a random JDM steering wheel they had lying around. With Donny Mak's help I also got all the fuel system parts in. Aeromotive fuel pump, fuel filter, a ton of fittings all showed up from Summit. I was also going to run the R Crew Racing fuel rail, but that changed later on down the road. The front suspension also started to get buttoned up after ordering some new nuts and bolts from Honda.


October 11th the K-series arrived from Florida. Orlando Powerline worked late into the night to get me everything shipped so that we could get going right away on the motor install. The first thing we did once we got the motor at the shop was to make sure everything was there and to give it a nice wash down prior to sticking it into the shop. We anticipated the next day to be an exciting one as the car was finally coming together.


The next day Mike Martinez and I got cranking right away on getting the motor ready to get swapped in. Mike started off by working his magic and cleaning up all the wiring. We then get the shifter in place along with the rest of the mounts. Luckily for me, Mike had done plenty of swaps already so the motor went in with no hiccups and once again Mr. Carpenter showed how finesse his work was when the motor mount bolt barely cleared the cage. We were now a little less than three weeks away from SEMA but things felt somewhat comfortable.


13th of October was sort of a boring one. I was trying to hold out as long as I could for parts without coming out of pocket too much but time was ticking for SEMA so I started making some rounds to pick up some stuff as well as a collection of nuts and bolts to button some of the things up. I picked up some Project Mu brake pads from Mackin for the rear along with a generic set of rotors. We were also able to finish up all the rear suspension after having to get rid of a bunch of rusted up bolts.


On the 16th Mike started going through the nightmare of wiring. It was messy :)


The next day was a day packed with goodies. Greg Nakano hooked it up with a AEM intake for K-series hybrids and Wilwood came through with their big brake kit for the front of the car. I also dropped off the fuel cell at the shop. We did the brake install first which went pretty smoothly and the intake install was a breeze. Awesome fitment from AEM as was expected. In fact I would be giving Greg another call back for some more AEM goodies - they're always awesome to work with.


October 18th we started bolting on a bunch of the R Crew Racing goods including their header and axles. I started figuring out how the fuel system would be done and taking measurements for lines and making sure I wasn't missing any sort of fittings. As you can tell in the photos, I opted to use an Aeromotive fuel pump, filter and pressure regulator. Also 'hung' the Skunk2 exhaust system since they didn't have an application for a DB8 so the rest of the exhaust was going to have to be done back at Unique. Lastly I picked up a set of visors from someone locally for cheap so those got thrown on as well.


The next day a bunch of more parts showed up. I decided to swap out the stock valve cover for a oh-so-cool JDM red one and tossed the stock orange dipstick for a more subtle black one. I also decided to get rid of the rear cross-drilled rotors and picked up a set of slotted ones since the front Wilwoods were slotted. Also with the valve cover swap, topped it off with an oil cap and the Hondata ECU had come back.


At this point it was the 20th of October and I started feeling the deadline of SEMA looming every so closely. My stay at Plan B was coming towards an end and the car would go back to Unique Fabrication with still a ton of work to do. Needless to say at this point I was going to settle with the fact that the car would probably have to be pushed into the show rather than driven. It was most definitely going to be an unfinished product given the amount of work that was left and the lack of time and manpower to get it all done. At the very least it would have to be presentable and we were pretty happy with how far the car had gone in such a little time frame and on a budget. The last bit of the parts needed from Honda for the motor were finally here and the wiring was somewhat complete. We lowered the car off the lift with the suspension dialed all the way down to see how the car was going to look.


As I mentioned before, another call was made to AEM for some more of their goodies. I mostly just wanted their fuel rail and billet cover but Greg also threw in their air/fuel gauge. I also got the last bit I needed to put on the steering wheel and screwed on the Skunk2 shift knob. After swapping the fuel rail I was pretty satisfied with how the engine bay was looking. This was on October 24th. The car would be heading back to Unique Fabrication for same late night work.


These photos were taken really late at night on the 27th outside Unique Fabrication. With all the work that was left to be done I hardly kept up with documenting photos. We had to do all the fuel lines, drill holes in the trunk, get the front bumper, front lip, side skirts fitted on, make seat mounts for the Chargespeed seats, mounts for the C-West mirrors, the list went on. There was basically no time left as the car was heading off to Las Vegas in a mere couple of days. I could say I was really happy with how the entire car looked on the ground with the bumper and kit on!


10/28/2006 - The last night prior to heading off to SEMA. We were wrapping up the Tjin Edition cars (Solstice, Skyline) and my Integra. A bunch of people helped out including Gene, Fortune and Jordan. We also found out that the original trailer that would be taking all three of our cars had broken down so we were now then scrambling to find a trailer to get our cars out to Vegas. We decided at around 4am we would just go to U-Haul the second it opened up to pick up trailers. Thankfully for me I was able to borrow a 4-Runner from Tim to tow my car out there. These were the photos taken prior to me heading home to shower and pack. Fortune helped me finish up all the fuel lines, Gene and I did all the stickers while Jordan worked on the seat mounts. Hayley was there to cheer us on.


We were probably the last cars to load into SEMA. As if things couldn't get any worse for my luck, on the way there our trailer blew a flat. Yep, after our last minute scramble to find a trailer and leaving late, Fortune and I got stuck at a U-Haul place while they fixed a flat for us. We still somehow managed to catch up with the rest of the guys and loaded the car in. Despite not getting it done (pedals weren't complete) I was really happy with the exposure the car got and all the sponsors were loving it. It was pretty prime location at the Chargespeed booth. Fortune also threw it up as a feature car on Urbanracer.com and I did a video clip of it for Modified's online web coverage during SEMA.


Here's photos of the car on the cover of HCI Magazine and being loaded up on the trailer to its happy new owner.