Cars are a wonderful thing. There are so many makes, models, engines, engine types - any kind of car freak simply has to pick his poison. Yet even with so many options available, some people pick something they like and stay loyal across the board. Stephan Bonny is one of these guys; he loves the Honda F-series motor, and for good reason. Back in 2002, Stephan picked up a Suzuka Blue AP1 S2000 and immediately fell in love with the high-revving four-banger, but that's not where the story ends. Over the next several years, his S2000 went through a massive transformation from a mild-mannered street car to the fire-breathing beast you see before you. Oh, and during that time Stephan also built a S2000-powered RWD Civic, including a fully custom driveline and suspension. Intrigued?
"As I started to build the S2000, the nickname 'Nightmare' was dubbed (for the car) because no one had answers to any of my questions. No one had made more than 1,000 whp with a F-series at the time, so I was breaking new ground," Stephen says. The motor in the S2000 is an AP2 swap, a 2.2-liter inline-4, which is longer in stroke than the AP1 motor, increasing the displacement and adding torque. The entire engine has been rebuilt, balanced and blueprinted to ensure safe operation under the extremely high boost pressure of 47 psi for the 1,000+ tune. Custom parts are the name of the game here, but details are hazy. Stephan is secretive about the specific details of his build, but we know he has replaced every part of the motor with strengthened aftermarket pieces, yet the car remains fairly stealthy from the outside. After all, as the saying goes, speak softly but carry a big turbo (or something like that). Sporting a fresh coat and paint-matched Work VSS wheels, you might slip past Stephan's S2 without looking twice, aside form the Spoon hardtop and CR front lip, the car is stock from the outside. A deceiving front, Stephen won't hesitate to burn you if you catch him rolling on the streets of South Florida.
And if you think getting burned by a stock-looking S2000 is bad, imagine how it must feel to get ripped in half by a 400+ whp Civic. A Civic, powered by the wrong wheels (or right wheels, depending how you look at it) nonetheless! "The RWD Civic project came to me from a friend of mine, Donald Douglas. Donald can't fit in a Honda S2000 because of his height and the small pedal area of the car, and because of his love for the clean look of the '99-00 Civic body, he wanted the best of both worlds," Stephan says. "With some parts that we had around the shop and a spare motor and transmission, we embarked on the long journey."
As we all know, the Honda Civic is a FF layout. Because of this design, the task of converting to FR is a long, grueling custom job; there are no "bolt-on" kits to make yourself a F-powered Civic. Stephan is again quiet about the details of this car, and for good reason. When your business is making street sleepers, you don't want to run around telling everyone your secrets. What we do know is that he used the factory transmission and a custom driveshaft, and the underside of the Civic has been completely custom engineered to not only effectively and safely house the transmission and driveline but actually increase the structural rigidity of the chassis.
"The biggest challenge was the re-engineering of the front steering and suspension due to the Civic's stock steering rack location against the firewall," Stephan says. "The new rack we made sits way up in front of the engine, and after two months of hard work we had our rolling chassis. The diamond finally began to shine."
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