There is an old saying in motorsports: “all show, no go.” Today that saying no longer holds up by any means, and Brandon Dietz’s 1994 Acura Integra is a perfect example of proving this statement false. Brandon is a Boise, Idaho native and is far from new to the Honda scene. Having a father who is a 30-year master Honda Tech mechanic, and now owning a Honda/Acura only repair service shop, Brandon has Honda in his blood. Starting out with his first car being a 1983 Honda Civic S which he purchased for $200, Brandon already had the bug to modify the car putting not only a stereo in it, but slamming it on a set of Del Sol rims, all before he could legally drive. From there, Brandon not only got the itch to make cars show stopping, but also the itch to make them fast, very fast.
Brandon puts a lot of close detail and care into his cars, habits he gets from his personal life. During the day, Brandon’s job consists of being a CNC programmer for an OEM semiconductor manufacturer, but when night comes, Brandon’s newest job is that of a dad to a four year old son and his three month old daughter along with being a loving husband. With family supporting him, the projects he works on just keep getting better and better, plus the help he gets from his son wanting to know everything about the car helps this Dad move along with the projects. Before taking on the Integra project, Brandon had a 1993 Honda Civic sedan (w/kids four doors are a must!) that he massaged to create a mass amount of power out of the tiny 1.6L SOHC – 405whp to be exact! With this car Brandon also got the boot from the local track for going too fast without a roll bar in the car. Hitting an 11.43 @ 127mph would impress just about anyone.
So with his previous car being known for its brute power and speed, Brandon knew the next project would have to be equally as nice if not better than the last. So now began the search to find the perfect car to build next, knowing it had to be a sedan but something different, he immediately fell in love with a JDM front end swapped Integra sedan. Sure enough two weeks after selling his Civic, Brandon found the car he was searching for, a 1994 Acura Integra GSR Sedan in stock form besides the JDM front end. Soon after the discovery he was on a plane to sunny So-Cal to bring his new gem back to Idaho. Shortly thereafter, Brandon and his wife found out they were expecting a new baby girl, so the car was put on the back burner for a bit. That gave Brandon a chance to outline what he wanted to do with the car, and it was well worth the wait.
So now it was time to start the build, and get this project underway. He took the stock B18C1, bored it out to 81.5mm, installed all the Honda essentials, and started to fill it will all kinds of goodies. Wiseco Pistons and Eagle Rods help strengthen up the bottom of the car while Golden Eagle headstuds made sure it would hold together. The head on the car also got some love, taking parts from other Hondas to make for a more potent setup. Leaving the port job on the head stock, Brandon put in some Integra Type-R cams, Integra Type-R retainers, and Portflow valve springs. With the motor ready to go back into the car it was time to really get cranking on the build. Brandon wanted to try out some new things with this car that he has never tried on any of his other cars. He started with doing a mild wire tuck in the engine bay, making sure majority of the wires were hidden and not to take an on-looker’s attention away from his turbo goodies. Another new trick for Brandon was doing a mild shave on the car while doing the wire tuck, filling in pretty much ever unneeded hole in the engine bay.
Not before too long, all the go-fast parts were showing up and this project was starting to get some power to it. Some of the items consisted of the Edelbrock Victor X Manifold, that was separated from the head by a Hondata Intake Manifold Gasket. To go along with the Victor X, Brandon also purchased a STR 68mm throttle body. To cool the air flowing the front of the car was fitted with an intercooler capable of 600hp and 3″ aluminum intercooler piping fitted with a 50mm blow off valve. Now came time for the turbo; Brandon had many options at this point on what turbo to get and found the perfect one to fulfill his needs. A T70 turbo (.70/.84 a/r) was fitted onto a Twisted Ram stainless steel manifold that was also accompanied with a 38mm wastegate stuffed with a 15psi spring.
To finish the circle of air, Brandon fabricated a 3″ v-band down pipe connecting to the 3″ exhaust all the way back. Now the power was there, Brandon just needed to make it sing with some tuning. To get the job done, CromePro is utilized along with an Ostrich and chipped P28 ecu. To make sure there was enough fuel to go around, an STR Competition fuel rail was added along with, 750cc PTE injectors, Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator, with -8an feed lines, -6an return lines. Feeding all this fuel is a Walbro 255 in tank fuel pump.
Brandon was now getting into the final steps of this project, all that was needed to happen now was get the power to the ground. Brandon took the GS-R transmission and equipped it with a 4.7 final drive and a Type R limited slip in order to overcome the single tire fryer. Next round of modifications to come would happen on the exterior of the Integra. JDM Integra Type-R doors and glass replace the stockers, and a rear bumper from a 98 Integra would cap off the rear. 17-inch ADR Ricochets wrapped in 205/40/17 Kumho Ecstas fill the fender wells on the street. For the track, Brandon does have a pair of slicks in the trunk ready to rock as well. Now the car just needed to be lowered in order to finish the look. Brandon loves to tuck tire, so with some tricks and tweaking, the suspension was dropped to the pavement by adding some coilovers along with KYB AGX struts.
The car was 90% complete it was time to test it out. With the project being finished towards the end of the racing season here in Idaho, Brandon didn’t have a lot of time to really fine tune the car and get all the bugs worked out. Brandon was set on his goal of getting the car down the track in 2007 so he took it out on a pretty safe tune and managed to muster a time of 12.52 at 121mph. Now he knows where he finished in ’07, and has been using this winter to finally work out the bugs and get the car prepped for the upcoming ’08 season in hopes of knocking down that 10 second time slip with over 550hp. Also this winter, Brandon will be adding all the required safety equipment required by most drag racing events. Parts consisting of roll cage, safety harness, and all the catch pans and scatter shields. Brandon also plans to strengthen the fuel system and tune the car on e85 fuel for next year and might possibly see a turbo and manifold upgrade.
All because fast is never fast enough. In all, Brandon feels he built the car he blueprinted out: “to create a car that looks hot, and runs even hotter.” as he stated. Brandon would like to take the time to thank his wife and kids for being supportive and patient over the years and putting up with his late nights/weekends in the garage. Also he would like to thank all his friends that kept pushing him to go faster and to stay creative. We can’t wait to see what this Integra sedan has in store for next season, you can bet we’ll be keeping our eyes on it!
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