The new Civic Si is proof positive that Honda hasn't completely forgotten about the American enthusiast market. In fact, for the first time in history, it's the Japanese who are awash in jealousy, wishing for a product that can only be had on the other side of the ocean.
The streamlined Civic Si comes fitted with Honda's screaming K20 and a 6-speed gearbox, mated with a downright plush interior. At just under $20,000, the new Si cramps the RSX-S' style more than a little bit, and certainly puts the Civic name back into the vocabulary of small-car enthusiasts.
As good as the new Si feels though, to drive one is to see it as a great jumping-off point for something better. The handling of the stock car is certainly confidence inspiring, but keep pushing around the corners and understeer will eventually rear its ugly head.
And while it's certainly no slouch, the competent chassis of the Si could easily handle a syringe full of torque. Around the US, there are already numerous Civics that fill the aftermarket doctor's orders.
There was an age when enthusiasts had to wait months before seeing extensively modified versions of brand-new cars. But those days are long gone. Honda is one of a few manufacturers that are beginning to see the sense in giving pre-production cars to select tuners, so that the buying public can see the aftermarket potential when the cars are introduced.
Hasport and Temple of VTEC/Church Automotive are two of the tuners Honda deemed competent enough to be given pre-production cars, and their solutions to injecting the Civic Si with enough performance to make us cringe couldn't be more different.
As the two cars idle into pit lane, adhesive R-compound rubber tears chunks from the asphalt, showering the wheel wells and creating a familiar sound only an addict could refer to as music to the ears. The sharp smell of race gas permeates the crisp morning air as throats are cleared on the two K-series engines. It's go time.
A full-force burnout through the first three gears isn't something typically ascribed to a car with the Honda moniker planted on the hood. But then neither is an instant surge of torque that begins to squish you into the seat at about 2000rpm. Or, for that matter, neither is the high-pitched whine that suddenly erupts from under the hood when the loud pedal is depressed.
In Hasport's insane take on Honda's Si, even gummy Toyo RA-1's struggle to find grip in anything less than fourth gear. Before there is time think "holy shit, I'm going to die", the Pi Technologies digital dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree, indicating that if the car isn't shifted soon, the whole boosted contraption will be catapulted through a time/space continuum. The RIGHT NOW torque delivery of the seasoned K24 is utterly addicting, and moreover, hugely usable on a daily basis.
This is what happens when a 2.4-liter TSX engine is shoehorned into the Civic engine bay, then supercharged with a roots-type blower, courtesy of Jackson Racing. More exactly, it's what happens when the above is coupled with the stock, short-ratio transmission, intended for the high-strung K20.
The Hasport car got going, fast. It generated so much torque that the fastest way down the 1320 was to forget about first gear altogether and launch in second. Doing so eliminated the need for an additional shift, which net a few 10ths of a second by the end of the strip, for a 13.6 second run at 108mph.