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.