![]() ![]() No wonder they were getting full sticker-price for these cars, and I was stuck waiting for the next shipment. I asked the salesman if it was supposed to be like that and he said, "No, we take the lid off so it makes more noise when VTEC turns on." My head clocks from the filter back to him, and there's his wide smile. Later on, at the dealership, as I was looking under the hood, drooling at the sight of the engine, I noticed that the air filter was exposed. Despite the years of screwing around with cars, up to this moment, there had been nothing like it. Twice on the way back, I deliberately slowed down just to hear it kick in again … the sound, the pull, the way it would go to 8,000 rpm so easily. Up through third and far beyond the speed limit, there was just no way I was going to buy anything else. ![]() I almost lifted, but I kept getting the "go-go" hand signal from the passenger seat. Bam! It came again and then, seemingly a mere half-second later, once again. "Come on, go again, but don't lift off, it's supposed to do that." There was no use hiding the embarrassment I just obeyed, this time using second gear since we'd slowed so much. "About one-third of my business is from, the rest is the Formula car stuff and miscellaneous junk," he says. Despite the piracy, John says that without VTEC and Honda's popularity, he'd basically be out of work. Though many recognize the value of a HyTech-style header, only a select few pay for the real thing. Today, HyTech's Honda-specific headers work so well that they've been copied time and again, despite the company's best efforts to keep its designs exclusive. I didn't even know what VTEC was or how it worked then, but it piqued my interest for sure. "It was 1998 and Dan Paramore took me for a ride in an ITR and I was blown away with the performance of it. Up until the release of the '99 Si, John Grudynski, owner of HyTech Exhaust, had only manufactured his custom-made headers for race cars, Formula Fords, Indy cars, and other spec classes. The VTEC experience was so strong for one old-school gearhead that he went so far as to purchase a brand new Si just for development purposes. The GS-R was selling in large numbers and Honda finally got wise and released the B16A-equipped Civic Si. The late '90s was an explosive time for Honda enthusiasts. Sure, many would modify Hondas were VTEC to have never existed, but it'd be like swimming in the kiddie pool. It's possible that VTEC even turned the sport compact molehill into the mountain that it is now today, there are whole companies that exist because of it. The sport compact juggernaut as we know it was just getting started, and Honda's timing couldn't have been better. Combine that with the attention that the second-generation CRX and '88-current Civics had garnered for themselves and the company soon had the makings for a new super-drug. The company released three powerhouses practically at once: the redesigned Integra GS-R's B18C, the Prelude Si VTEC's H22A, and the Del Sol Si's B16A. By 1994, Honda had its pieces in place and was poised to put its competition in checkmate. Yes, the D16Z6 was released around the same time, but SOHC VTEC powerplants simply didn't excite anyone back then. However, because of the NSX's supercar personality-in terms of price and availability-the '92 Integra GS-R is often credited as being the U.S. The rest, as they say, is history.Īmerica's first exposure to VTEC came in the form of the '91 Acura NSX. Today is different you're reading an article from a magazine devoted entirely to the brand. It's likely that in Japan there were smiles, but the reality was that Honda was a much smaller player in its homeland, so even there, such an event fell short in terms of hype, and would have paled in comparison to things like the introduction of the new GT-R. No one knew the impact that VTEC would have. "We were very near the point of overdoing it." Building a VTEC pin-engagement system that could endure 400,000 cycles is arguably a masochistic endeavor. "That's why we so thoroughly carried out our malicious tests," Kajitani said. Gearboxes, crankshafts, and many other Honda components have become legendary for the abuse they can handle. This is perhaps where Kajitani's team did its greatest work. Even the exhaust valves were made of nickel-based, heat-resistant steel combined with molybdenum, titanium, and tungsten-not your average mid-'80s economy car technology. ![]()
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