Edison’s Invention

Edison Jacinto doesn’t regret buying his 1996 Integra SiR-G two years ago. On the contrary, looking at his modified Japanese market ‘Teggie, a dreamy RHD hatchback that started life as the GS-R’s overseas equivalent, you can’t deny that it’s been lavished with tons of attention. Someone clearly loves this car. It’s just that it wasn’t the DC2 that Jacinto was waiting for.

“I was holding out for a Phoenix yellow [Type-R], but I got tired of waiting,” he confesses.

Acutech Autos, the Thailand-based importer he was working with, informed him of the SiR-G one day in early 2003 and after some deliberation Jacinto jumped at it. He dropped nine grand and became the proud papa of his first JDM vehicle, not exactly a big deal when you work for an authorized Spoon and TODA Racing dealer (D2 Motorsports) and all of your friends are heavy on the JDM aesthetic.

The bigger deal was learning to operate his first right-hand-drive vehicle, which became a battle of defeating instinct.

“I was reaching for the turn signal [and] turning the windshield wipers on,” he recalls. “Shifting with my left hand, for a while I was punching the drivers side] door panel. My friends would joke that they needed to tape my hands to the [steering] wheel.”

After he came to grips with controlling the hatch, Jacinto had to decide whether or not to modify it. At the time, he also owned a ’98 USDM Integra Type R and his wife gave him the ultimatum that no enthusiast wants to hear: pick one or the other. Unable to trump the wife card, Jacinto sold the ITR, but not before he swapped the suspension and interior between both cars.

“I didn’t want to be stuck with a stock Integra,” reasons Jacinto. “At that point the [SiR-G] was half built, so I figured I better keep going.”

His goal was to build a car suitable for both daily driving and racing. He later picked up both a Spoon-built 1.8-liter motor/transmission combo and a blown Spoon B18C3 stroked to two liters (note: the unconventional block code is from the ’95-’97 JDM ITR). The damaged unit came from Jacinto’s friend Kurt Lee, who kept the block after he blew it up on the dyno. Apparently, the motor seized at 9800 rpm and although Lee didn’t want to sell the block at first, Jacinto explains that he changed his tune “after a few Coronas.”

Jacinto sent the block and head separately to LDL Auto & Speed Shop in Las Vegas, where the Sin City speed junkies put together a bulletproof top and bottom end (see Bolts & Washers). After the engine came back from LDL, Jacinto–aided by his five-year-old son and budding crew chief–used winter downtime to join the head and block, drop the engine in the car and attend to details in the engine compartment.

There were obstacles. At one point Jacinto needed to replace the clutch master cylinder and learned the U.S. version was not compatible. USDM batteries are another problem, he says. Their posts are too big. In both instances Japanese versions had to be ordered.

When they were done, they took the car to DNR Performance in nearby Hayward for tuning. Jacinto claims to have pulled off 10,000-rpm shifts on the dyno. “I have always loved to hear a motor at that rpm, so the engine was built with 10,000 rpm in mind.”

After the mechanical aspects came together, the look of the car began to gel in about three months, mostly because Jacinto reused parts from his previous car. Several other parts he wanted were readily available through D2. He was also sourcing parts from Acutech, helping them unload the massive shipping containers and getting first dibs on a fair amount of JDM minutiae. Jacinto’s wife jokes that her husband is a junkyard shopper, only that his junkyard is in Japan.

The running total for this unique DC2: $15,000 and nine months of blood, sweat and tears. Jacinto admits the SiR-G is now semi-daily driven and may fulfill his track aspirations in time attack (although at the moment he doesn’t plan to cage the car). “Time will tell,” Jacinto says. He’s talking track times, not time in the abstract sense.

Bolts & Washers

Edison Jacinto’s ’96 JDM Integra SiR-G

Propulsion

The rare B18C3 in the SiR-G was originally a bored and stroked, blown-up Japanese Spoon Sports-built motor. It was rescued by Jacinto and rebuilt by LDL Auto & Speed Shop in Las Vegas, who resleeved the 2-liter block with Darton liners. The shop went full tilt with the rotating assembly, balancing an Integra Type-R crank and employing Eagle connecting rods secured by ARP bolts, 13:1-compression Arias pistons, and a baffled Spoon oil pan. The VTEC head received LDL’s street/strip port and a new valvetrain comprised of re-ground Type-R valves, bronze guides, Toda springs, Jun retainers, and Toda Spec C camshafts mated to Toda sprockets. A stock-thickness TODA head gasket bored to 85mm sits between the top and bottom ends.

Before dropping the long block into the car, Jacinto stiffened the motor mounts with urethane inserts. The engine bay looks bare bones and it belies the effort poured into the power unit. The intake system, for example, while essentially stock, is goosed with a Spoon drop-in filter, a Spoon throttle bored to 70mm, and an OE manifold ported by DNR Performance.

Fuel is atomized for the mix via RC Engineering 440cc injectors, pushed by a Walbro 255-lph pump and monitored with a B&M pressure regulator. The catalysts for the explosive brew are Denso iridium plugs juiced by Spoon wires. A Hondata piggyback engine management system, tuned by Ryan and Kurt Lee, keeps the combustion routine in time. On the exit side of the head spent gases are sent through a DTR (Danny Tran Racing) Fabrication header, past a JDM ITR cat, and out an unspecified race exhaust.

Power is transferred from a TODA flywheel to an Exedy Cerametallic clutch spinning the main shaft of a five-speed ’98-spec JDM ITR gearbox. It carries a final drive ratio of 4.78:1 and is equipped with a limited-slip differential. Jacinto even outfitted the case with stainless-steel Spoon clutch lines.

Evidence

The Integra hooks up for 220 hp, 137 lb-ft of torque, and runs the quarter mile in 13.6 seconds at 104 mph on Falken Azenis rubber.

Stance

Spoon strut tower bars front and rear and a forward lower bar brace the chassis. Further stabilization is ensured by a Ground Control 25mm adjustable rear anti-sway bar and wheel hop-killing Z10 Motorsports traction kit. Jacinto dropped the car with JIC Magic coil-overs.

Resistance

A stock Type-R master cylinder, outfitted with a Cusco brace and reservoir re-locater, pumps Motul fluid to the stainless steel Goodridge lines in each wheel well. Spoon four-piston calipers armed with Spoon pads bite on the stock rotors in the front wells.

Rims & Rubber

Torqued to each hub with Spoon lugs are 15-inch Spoon SW388 wheels shod in 205/50-15 Bridgestone Potenza S-03s. The featherweight SW388s weigh at eight pounds each.

Fashion

Outside: Adorned in its original frost white color, the body of the Integra is left unmolested save for a ’98-spec HID headlight upgrade.

Inside: ITR Recaro seats, shift knob, and Type RX pedals make a JDM statement in the cabin. The aesthetic extends to the Spoon gauge cluster and Momo steering wheel with aluminum quick release.