Feature: K20aR: The Inspiration Behind Bad Luck

Sometimes in life bad luck is actually just what we need. Case in point, you miss your flight, it crashes 20 minutes after taking off. Your girlfriend/boyfriend breaks up with you, turns into a zombie and eats the brain of their new lover. The car of your dream is sold to some putz, but you purchase another vehicle on a whim, and it turns out to be the best car you've ever owned.

Welcome to the story of Josh. He was having a pretty bad week about five years years ago. Okay, so maybe he didn't almost die from a plane crash or have his brain eaten, but after his Mitsubishi Eclipse was left for dead, he found the car of his dreams on Craigslist, a 2002 Subaru WRX. “I fell in love with it,” says Josh. He then rushed to the bank, laid out the best story he could to the loan officer, collected the money, rushed out the door, and headed down to the sellers house to complete the deal. On his way, he called up the seller to ask them to hold it until he got there. That's when he heard the words that anyone who has ever dealt with Craigslist, dreads, “It's already been sold.”

What? Josh practically went berserk. He now had a big wad of cash burning a hole in his pocket, and every auto trader magazine he looked through did not have one single Suby for sale. So he did the next best thing. He found a friend who was selling a car for around the same price, laid out his sizzling dough on the table, grabbed the keys, and headed home with his... Wait, what the hell did I just buy? Oh yeah, a 2000 Honda Civic Si. “Yeah, it was a decision made out of anger,” says Josh.

The Honda may not have been exactly what Josh was after, but he was about to make a margarita with the lime wedge and “half full” tequila bottle he'd just dug out of the sand. Don't get me wrong, the Civic Si is a great car, but when you've got your heart set on something else, nothing quite quenches the thirst in the same way. So, he started to slowly fix her up. A few interior parts here, a K-engine swap there, and before he knew it, he was becoming smitten all over again. “I still love this car to today,” says Josh. “It was a good rash decision.”

This would not the last time Josh would run into a bout of bad luck with a car. Several months ago Josh was traveling down the interstate, listening to his K20 motor purr, when all of a sudden, Ka-changa, it threw a rod. Not to worry, he pulled together some funds and replaced it with a K20 Type R motor this time. “I wanted to go with something a little more reliable,” says Josh. The new motor was dynoed at 227, and Josh's frown was turned completely upside down. It's too bad the bad luck was only getting warmed up. A few months after that, Josh was cruising merrily along the very same spot of the highway, when he came upon a drunk driver going in the opposite direction.

The drunk driver lost control of her vehicle and rammed directly into the median separating traffic. It hit so hard, it flipped over the median, landing directly on top of Josh's Civic, which screeched to a halt. “The Civic has all the harnesses and safety equipment, so I got out of that with only a rash,” says Josh. Within a couple of months the Civic was back on the road with a new and improved paint job by SIK Creations. Josh, himself, was a bit shaken, but none-the-less wiser. “That one spot of the highway just doesn't seem to like me, so I try to stay off it now,” explains Josh. “That is why I am not into racing anymore, because anything can and will happen.”

For those of you who haven't experienced a Civic with a Type R K-swap, it is truly a smooth operating piece of machinery. The only problem you might have is the sudden urge to douse yourself in an ice cube bath anytime you are forced to drive on a really hot day with no air-conditioning. Josh lives in Jacksonville, Florida, so heat is an understatement during the summertime. The problem is, in order to fit the engine into the bay, it has to be swung around with the headers facing the opposite direction as they would normally. With no factory heat shield in that area, the end result is an oven effect to the interior. Josh has clocked interior temperatures as high as 110 Fahrenheit on a typical day. However, he ensures us that this is a small price to pay for the experience. We'll take your word for it, Josh.

What else you need to know:

Openclutch: When did you first become interested in cars?
Josh: “ I was 12 or 13 years old Watching the Cinemax free weekend preview, and Fast and Furious was on. That was the best movie I'd ever seen. That lime green eclipse was just amazing to me.”

OC: Who has been your greatest inspiration?
J: “My biggest inspiration is my teammate, Nathan, from Team Faction R. He brought me on the team, and is the reason my car looks the way it does.”

OC: What's the car like to drive?
J: “Flying an airplane... smooth, responsive, takes corners wonderfully. The 2.0-liter gets up and goes. For the money that you spend on a K-20 swap, it is the future Honda, and will just blow your mind.”

OC: Do you have plans for a future project?
J: “I would love to play with a 240. I want to drift. I've done track racing, I've done autocross, but drifting is something I'd like to experience next.”

OC: What advice would you give to others thinking about starting a Honda project?
J: “I went the route of doing things halfway. I never followed through. I've learned over the years that if you are going to do something, make it worth doing. Do your research. Get on Honda Tech, get on all your local forums, talk to people, go to meets, look at people who are older and have been doing it for years, and learn from them. And most of all, be prepared to spend ungodly amounts of money.”

OC: Do you have a favorite story you could share?
J: “When I was younger, I had my girlfriend in the car, and we had set up a race with a Prelude. We lined up, revved, and he shot off. I kind of hesitated because I thought I saw a cop, and it turned out, I did. He turned on his lights, and me being young and stupid, I dropped it—He came after me, which by that time I was going 70 or 80 mph in a 45, looking for a place to turn off. I looked in the rear view mirror and he is coming up on me like I was doing nothing. He got me and I pull over. He pulls up next to me and starts cussing me out. That feeling of how I had just put my girlfriends safety at risk, the look on her face, made me never want to street race again. You've got to be a role model when you're at this stage of the game. If you're going to run, do it on the track!”

- Amen Josh, and good luck to you and all the members of Team Faction R!