We’ve known about Lance Howard’s stunning turbo Honda Civic for a long while, yet the car has never been featured in this magazine. There’s a very good reason for that: it’s taken him a hell of a long time to finish it. “The problem was, the more we developed the car in the workshop, the more we drank, so the more development we had to put back into the car in order to counteract the ‘bourbon belly’ — you know… for the ladies,” the Wellingtonian divulged, not entirely joking.

Clearly the sort of guy who doesn’t take life too seriously, Lance has been casually building this awesome carbon-clad ’91 SiR for a good four years now. Over these years the car has seen many different paint jobs, body kits and motor setups as Lance and his friends got deeper and deeper into the build. Was it all worth it? “Of course it was,” he says. “I’ve met a lot of people building this car and I’ve learnt heaps. Unfortunately, it’s all been learnt the hard way, by making mistakes, buying the wrong parts and starting all over again.”

From where we are standing, the end result of all that hard work seems very much worth it, as Lance now owns one of the most heavily modified and well-presented street cars in the land.

Originally factory fitted with a B16A 1600cc DOHC VTEC motor, the little hatch has slowly evolved into the monster it is today, packed full with aftermarket goodness. Up front under the unique bulging carbon bonnet, this Civic now rocks a fully forged 2.0-litre B20B engine, which, with help from a Garrett GT2535 turbocharger, puts a massive 294 kilowatts down to the tarmac. Why did Lance go down the turbocharged Honda route? “I really liked the Civic back when I was 18. I like the idea of VTEC, but when you are that age a blow-off valve sounds pretty cool, too, so I decided to combine them,” he says. “We turbocharged the original B16A motor using a Mitsubishi TD05 and popped it; from that point on things got more and more out of control.”

Although its power is very impressive for any type of car, let alone a Honda Civic, Lance’s EG6 is no dedicated race car but a highly polished, perfected and detailed street machine, more than deserving of the various show trophies that currently hang from its belt.

Many of those awards are thanks to this Civic’s one-off appearance, and much of the bodywork carried out on the car will never be repeated. That’s just as well, because it wasn’t an easy look to achieve. “The custom bodywork on the car wasby far the hardest part of the build,” Lance admits. “The carbon bonnet alone took two weeks of solid work from Zac at Carboglass to create.

Everything else was just as hard. The bumper, for example, started out as a Buddy Club front bar, but if you look at it now, barely any of the original fibreglass is still there.”

Although it seems that Lance has taken the hard option wherever possible when putting together this monster Civic, the appeal is very obvious. If you were given the choice between a cookie-cutter modified car stacked with off-the-shelf parts, or a completely custom, unmatchable crowd pleaser, which would you choose? Put that way, the decision seems fairly easy. 

Engine Bay

As a show car of sorts, Lance knew the engine bay of his Civic needed to look Honda Civic SiR PC43 eng detevery bit as good as the exterior. This has been achieved by stitching and plating, then completely smoothing the panels underneath the hood, and hiding all unsightly wiring.

Suspension

To suspend his EG6, Lance uses adjustable coil-overs from Maxspeed. Having a Civic this low tends to put all the geometry out, so camber adjustment arms from Blox and D2 have been installed to correct that.

Spark

A popular mod with hardcore Honda tuners, installing a wasted spark-style system from a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 4G63T engine helps immensely with boosted motor applications. A Link two-channel igniter sends spark down large Top Gun leads.

Head

Lance’s DOHC VTEC head was originally found on the top of a 1600cc B16A motor. It has found a new home above this B20B, but only after receiving a full Honda Civic SiR PC43 eng det1rebuild and custom valve grind. Lance retained the factory VTEC cams, although these now spin off adjustable Buddy Club cam gears.

Block

Sourced from a Honda CR-V, the 2.0-litre B20B block is essentially a larger version of the original, factory-fitted B16A VTEC mill. This means that although no CR-V or Orthia was ever built new with a DOHC VTEC motor, any B-series head can be bolted straight on, giving a high-revving, 2000cc twin cam VTEC powerplant. Because Lance was planning to run large amounts of boost in the new setup, the factory internals were scrapped in favour of Wiseco forged pistons and Eagle rods. A Golden Eagle block guard also strengthens the factory sleeves and prevents them from the dreaded ‘sleeve walk’, a common Honda condition that sees the head gasket meet an untimely death. Lastly, the block received a custom-made crank girdle, which stabilises the crank at high RPM.