One-thousand and fifty horsepower and 723 lb-ft of torque. No, we’re not talking about some super exotic, or perhaps a big-block component of American Iron. All of the aforementioned power and lightning quick, low 9-second quarter-mile passes result from this 21-year-old Civic sporting a built and boosted H2B mill backed by smart purchases and a bunch ofDone Correctly
Carlos Santana isn’t some professional race car builder or a silver spoon-chewing millionaire. He works a normal 9-to-5 job like anyone else, has a family to tend to, and also in the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, I just wanna go fast. The H2B beast you can see pictured started off as nothing more than an automated Honda Civic hatchback rusting under a tree that somehow caught Carlos’ eye while he was driving home. He offered the property owner $500, got the vehicle home, and told his family he planned to transform the hatchback into a full-blown drag car. You can imagine their faces while they heard the language race car while staring at a weathered Honda Civic. He recalls, From on that day forward I worked on the automobile every chance I got. With help from many friends within the first year, I got the car to work with minimal modifications. The first order of economic was the energy equation. He knew a B or K Series just wouldn’t do, and instead, he opted for an H Series. A lot of people don’t run H-Series cars, especially the H2B, there aren’t any up by me. After some error and trial, Carlos ended up with a custom sleeved H22 block filled with CP pistons and one-off connecting rods. Carlos port-matched the pinnacle to his homebuilt intake manifold, then stuffed the top of the the engine with bits from Supertech and Skunk2. The huge Garrett GtX4202R wouldn’t fit in the Civic’s bay on an off-the-shelf manifold, so a custom built version was needed as well as a matching turbo-back exhaust system. Helping to keep things cool is a 90mm air-to-water intercooler and a custom-built intake for your turbocharger. Carlos knew his way around an engine and built his initial setups in their garage, but he was lacking in one very important component: tuning. That’s where his tuner, Rick Fedas and the crew at Racetek (formerly Kinetic Motor Works) came in. Carlos simply didn’t hold the dollars to back that up, so he opted for the very affordable Hondata S300, an underdog in the big kid arena of competitive drag racing, though carlos adds, I build everything I have got-engines, heads, everything-however i don’t know anything about tuning. The big-budget guys run Motec and custom engine management.With the new Civic engine now worth a lot more than the car it had been housed in, Carlos had to address the Honda rot that is persistent in the northeast. Gutting the inside and stripping the exterior as a result of only its necessary components helped Carlos kill two birds with one stone. He eliminated any superfluous weight on the inside, and exposed any invasive rust hiding underneath the carpets or exterior paint. Even when the OEM Honda Civic body panels were in good shape, these were tossed for lightweight variants. Thetrunk and hood, and doors were all substituted with carbon-fiber counterparts from Seibon, and Carlos got his hands dirty designing and installing a one-off carbon-fiber replacement roof panel. To maintain the shiny side up, Carlos designed and machined a custom-made carbon drag wing and full under-body diffuser. Through this point, if anyone questioned the intentions on this Honda Civic, a single piece, widened, carbon-fiber frontend by Jojo Callos was bolted up plus a parachute to assist anchor the beast.
Addressing the interior of your CIvic is really a Kirkey Racing seat and bracing the now barren cabin is actually a custom multi-point rollcage that Carlos designed. Getting all that four-figure horsepower to the pavement are Omni Power drag coilovers at all four corners and all of the tired bushings have been upgraded as well. Stock hubcaps and steel wheels wouldn’t do much with almost 10 times the factory horsepower, so a set of 26-inch M&H slicks wrapped around 15-inch Exospeed wheels cover Wilwood calipers and custom-made brake pads.
After a fresh coat of some across the top, eye-searing green paint and a custom wrap sporting his sponsor’s logo, Carlos hit the New England Dragway, his local track. After having a drag racing few test and tunes, he was able to blast a 9.2-second quarter-mile at over 150 mph! Carlos’ Honda Civic garnered a bit of attention regarding his super quick runs, which means that this season he’ll be taking the car nationwide to put the strength down. He hints which he might be planning for a complete rebuild and a possible color change, just keep the eyes out for the H2B Civic breaking necks and you’ll know it’s him!
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