Gen2 JDM Integra Hybrid Track Car

Gary Preston from Melbourne Australia wrote to me telling me about his "Two Integras Project" with great enthusiasm. Gary is a racing enthusiast and participate the amateur racing scene in Australia. I find his project very interesting indeed so I responded with an invitation to write an article about it. This article was easily written, the contents are simply edited from his emails !

I am an owner of two Integra's the first being a red DA9 with the B18A1 non vtec, the second blackcar is a DA6with B16A DOHC VTEC.

From here it gets a bit involved.I took the B18a engine outof my road (red) car and put it aside for a full race engine rebuild to be installed into the black Integra Race Car. The B16a engine was taken out of my black car and re-installed into my other road registeredred Integra. I needed to do a complete engine wiring loom and ecu swap to make this work and it does. I drive this car around as my every day run around.

The B18a1 engine was rebuilt from top to bottom. My engine builder used the B18a block and grafted a B16a head onto it. Not that simple but a few mods to the block to create an oil gallery for the Vtec controller and hey presto !

Other mods included are as follows:

• Autronic engine management system
• BLOCK
  • Hone bores to suit 81.5mm pistons
  • Modify block to supply oil to vtec solenoid
  • Mill dowels into opposite side of block to locate head
• CRANKSHAFT
  • Replaced pressed in gallery and replaced with threaded plugs
  • fully balance
  • heat treated
  • grind mains to achieve oil clearances
• CONRODS
  • Crower rods
  • checked all rod tunnel sizes
  • checked rod alignment
  
  
• PISTONS
  • Custom forged pistons 81.5mm with wire circlips and race ring set
• CYLINDER HEAD AND CAM GEAR
  • Cut better valve seat shape and flow head
  • std flow 225cfm @ 0.450" lift
  • After race port 248cfm @0.450" lift
  • machined inserts into head
  • race valves springs
  • modify spring locators and retainers
  • "K"line guides
  • Face valves
• CAMSHAFTS
  • Custom billet ground and treated
• INLET
  • 4 X 48MM Quad throttle bodies
• FUEL SYSTEM
  • Toyota fuel injectors ( 60 hp @ 85% )
  • Facet low pressure pump (340hp)
  • VL Commodore fuel pump
  • Alloy swirl pot
  • Bosche fuel filter
• MISC
  • Twin core radiator
  • 16 row cooler
  • Mazda RX7 4 Spot calipers
  • Honda Legend front rotors
  • Hawk blue race pads
  • Quaife LSD
  • American Racing Wheels
  • Full weld in cromolly rollcage

The race engine is running a 10.8.1 compression ratio so I can use the new Shell high octane fuel available at the pump. Also the headers are mandrel bent custom made by my engine builder and finished off with a ceramic coating.

Lots of other things as well helps to make this car a very quick one. The car dyno at 125kW at the wheels with bags of torque. (A scan of the actual dyno chart was sent to me but after some consideration, I thought I shouldn't include that in this article since Gary is racing his car and exposing the dyno chart may bring him some disadvantage.) 125kW translates to 170ps !

During the 2nd round of the Victorian State Motor Racing Championships recently, Gary's drove his Black Beast to the winning position in the Under 2 Litre Late Model Improved Production Class. At the time of writing this article, he is 7th in the overall points score (all engine capacities).

Gary ended his first email with a question : Do you know anyone who has done the same mods ?. Well, I have seen a few other project cars with the B18/B16A engine hybrid, though of course not to the exact same specifications. These engines variously dynoed between 160 to 170ps on a Dynojet so Gary's race-use project DA6 is very good indeed.

Gary can be contacted via his email address at: gbp@unite.com.au. He'll be very happy to talk about his project with anyone who's interested. Gary's engine builder is Simon Gardiner Engineering.

Wong K.N.
May 2001
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