SpeedFactory Honda Civic Si – The Conversion

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Cole Marmon isn’t apologetic of his being raised among a muscle car family, of owning eight Ford Mustangs, of, until 4 years ago, having never owned a Honda. He needn’t be. An accumulation of turbocharged and supercharged ponycars and a family heritage amuck with drag racing and quality time in the pits in a ripe age makes sure of that. But transitioning from all of that-from a life of blown eight-cylinders or even ain to the 8s.

I used to be absolutely amazed by the reliability and simplicity of these [Hondas],. That may be The honest-to-God truth, Cole says, . I needed to know what these people were all about. Unfamiliar territory they weren’t necessarily to Cole, though. He’d already designed a relationship with Tacoma, Washington’s SpeedFactory along with with several of the region’s Honda loyalists. After I originally brought up the idea to the guys at SpeedFactory, I honestly don’t think they thought I was serious simply [because] all I’d owned was Mustangs, Cole tells of the Civic drag car’s beginnings. [That] earned me plenty of grief, especially when there was a handful of 500-700hp Honda street cars [the people who own which] were all really good friends of mine. The transition played out much like you’d expect, though, undoubtedly not at the expense of at least one predictably derogatory punch line aimed right at Detroit, but when all of that settled down, the work began.

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Lucky for Cole, he already had close ties with SpeedFactory, whose reputation for racing and assembling some of the globe’s quickest Hondas precedes them. Cole could’ve spent the subsequent 10 years forgetting everything they know about Ford’s modular engine family and 9-inch rearends in hopes of mastering B Series engines and double-wishbone suspensions, but he didn’t. Instead, he commissioned SpeedFactory to come along for the ride. His Honda Civic is better for doing it, clocking a 9-second pass at its second outing, as it appears. , even though generating single-digit times wasn’t as uneventful when you think it had been While debuting the car in a local tune and test-which was, incidentally, Cole’s first-time driving the Civic Si-a preexisting hoodpin failed, launching the Civic’s carbon-fiber bonnet into a wide range of carnage that cracked the sunroof and windshield and mutilated the roof skin, a door, and a mirror. After the 9-second pass just two weeks later, a rod decided to poke its head out of the 2.0L engine block. All I wanted to accomplish is drive a front-wheel-drive car the very first timeis exactly what prompted the Washington state native to not list the Honda Civic Si coupe on Craigslist in 2012 but to find consistency and in many cases quicker timeslips. A new three-piece front end complemented the freshly painted exterior and heavy-duty axles combined with a dog box transmission generated a 9.16-second pass early in the season-the second quickest of the True Street class Cole’s Civic was classified within. Despite what others probably have you believe, though the entire package was uncannily simple. Below the hood, a totally stock B16A cylinder head sat on the top of a block that Cole says was only a run-of-the-mill combo. By season’s end Cole was determined to return the following year with something even better. Racing got serious in 2013 as did the relationship among him as well as the team at SpeedFactory as well as the car’s new title sponsor, Vibrant Performance. An overhaul of the entire car generated regular 8.7-second passes and a Sport Compact Fall Nationals victory later in the year along with a trio of world records set during the same weekend. Cole: [It] was incredible. Following Fall Cole, Nationals and company set out for the World Cup Finals where he and SpeedFactory would really make history. Within the car’s first qualifying pass of the weekend Cole broke the world record, posting an 8.50-second pass. Three subsequently quicker passes finally culminated in to aInspite of the Honda Civic victories along with the records, the transition from American cubic inches to high-rpm forced induction wasn’t as easy as you imagine. I must say, one of the more difficult things for me to understand was to keep my foot on the floor, Cole says, talking about that moment when a front-wheel-drive car actually starts to lose traction on the dragstrip. Drag racing nothing but rear-wheel-drive [cars] my whole life, my body was 100 percent wired to pedal it as soon as the [tires] spun too hard, which yielded some funny passes [from the Civic] at first. Funny or not, the fact is, without SpeedFactory’s help Cole likely would never have accomplished all they have. SpeedFactory coached me through some of the basics, and before we knew it, we had been cookin’.

I found myself hooked at this moment and there was no denying it, Cole says of how he felt following the car’s first 9-second pass. I like the feeling of Third and Fourth gears when the track is definitely there and you may straight-up just plant the power. It’s unreal, he says. And about that muscle car heritage and long list of Mustangs, despite however fast the Civic could get or whatever sort of notoriety it may have afforded him, Cole’s still proud to call a trio of which his.