There are many incentives for running your own business: better opportunities to make filthy loads of moolah, the satisfaction of watching your labors directly impact your life, and the ability to tell your boss what a knob he is without fear of retribution. And if you've ever considered opening a tuning/parts business, there may be no better incentive than this example from Loi Song: the "shop" car.
Not just any shop car, but a purpose-built track-ready, right-hand-drive Civic Type-R. Loi Song, owner of Sportcar Motion in Vista, Calif. (not far from San Diego), is a serial Honda owner. His current garage houses an '04 S2000, '95 turbo del Sol (drag car), '94 turbo hatch and a '95 Integra GS-R, which he's just digging into.
More than a year ago, Song asked a friend at KMC, a So. Cal. J-car importer, to track down a Civic Type-R from Japan. Song intended to build the car strictly for road-race and track use. The car KMC found for him was a score. Clean everything. Even the Championship White paint job is original. Only the windows had been busted out, which Song replaced with USDM issue.
Why a CTR?
"It's something different," Song tells us. "Something to catch more attention. We take it out to any track day we can make it out to. It's a [road] race car, so it had to be a little different to get people to look."
Well, no question there. If the right-hand drive and CTR decals don't clue you in, than the OEM body kit and rear wing spoiler should. But it's what's underhood that gets most conversations started.
Song's CTR arrived with its B16B packaged separately, a common way to skirt U.S. Customs' rules. Song originally considered using the 1.6-liter, but hit a snag with race regulations. He'd planned to compete in the H2 Class of NASA's Honda Challenge, but later learned that H2 allows only U.S. production cars. The CTR got bumped to the H1 class, running against cars with more horsepower. The only way to compete was to ratchet up the pain, in this case a 2.0-liter B18C, sleeved by Benson and balanced/blueprinted by Laskey Racing, and trimmed with a full complement of Toda Racing parts, one of Song's flagship lines at Sportcar.
Asked what wise words he would impart to aspiring circuit-car builders and Song quickly advises to "read the rulebook first! Be careful not to get bumped into a different class where you're not competitive."
After sorting out the engine bay, Song dialed in the suspension with JIC Magic 15-way adjustable coil-overs and Skunk2 camber kit, another area he advises road racers to pay close attention to. "You want adjustability for different tracks, because some tracks need up to three or four degrees [camber difference]."
To further dial in the car, Song put the car on Sportcar's corner scales. He explains they've achieved a near-perfect 50/50 balance ("within just a couple of pounds") and have managed to shed weight to an impressive 2,200 pounds with a 10-point roll cage and full fuel tank.
Now look closely at the photos of the CTR and you'll notice the hood slightly raised, not sitting flush with the fenders. It's not an example of poor fitment, but rather an intentional design that directs more airflow into the Toda individual throttle bodies. And while Song admits he doesn't know how competitive the car is because they haven't really run it yet in anger, the numbers bear good potential.
In current trim, the EK makes 246 hp and 178 lb-ft torque. Song pulled every bang possible out of it up to 8100 rpm, but plans to retune with 440cc injectors and A'PEXi Power FC, enabling the motor to run somewhere between 9-10K rpm.