A Battered Honda Civic Si Grows Into a Formidable Type R

What began as a neglected Honda Civic Si sedan quickly turned into an ambitious JDM Type R clone build. The 2008 FA5 had seen better days—rusted underneath, damaged panels and a mismatched FD2 front end. But the guys from Speed Academy saw potential its potential, and their full video shows off the process.

The team stripped it down and sent it off for a full respray in championship white. The engine came out to make room for serious upgrades, including a Kraftwerk supercharger, Exedy Stage 2 clutch and custom oiling solutions from Unit 2 Fabrication. Supporting mods like a K-Tuned dipstick, fuel system and hardened rubber engine mounts were added to handle the power. The result? A dyno-proven 384 wheel horsepower on a K24 bottom end.

Handling and braking were upgraded with Annex coilovers, a K-Tuned six-piston brake kit and reinforced bushings. Rusty suspension parts were replaced or refurbished, while sound deadening and rust protection were applied under the car. Final touches included Enkei NT03 wheels, Buddy Club P1 seats and authentic Type R body parts.

It wasn’t without challenges—clearance issues with the blower, mismatched exhaust flanges and seized bolts tested patience—but in the end, the car emerged as a proper Type R tribute.

Speed Academy is a website and YouTube channel based on making things go fast and enjoying cars. Peter Tarach and Dave Pratte are the forces behind Speed Academy.

The TTAC Creators Series tells stories and amplifies creators from all corners of the car world, including culture, dealerships, collections, modified builds and more.

How to Rebuild a Neglected Honda Civic Si into a Type R Clone

Tools & Materials Needed

• Socket set & impact tools
• Seal puller & torque wrench
• Engine hoist & lift
• Kraftwerk supercharger kit
• K-Tuned engine accessories
• Exedy Stage 2 clutch & lightweight flywheel
• Vibrant catch can & exhaust parts
• DEI Boom Mat & rust prevention tools
• Buddy Club seats, Enkei NT03 wheels
• Full Race exhaust & coil radiator
• Annex coilovers, K-Tuned big brake kit

Step 1: Starting with a Rough Honda Civic Si

We picked up an FA5 2008 Honda Civic Si Sedan that had seen better days. With rust underneath and mismatched bodywork including an FD2 Type R front end needing paint, it was clear this wasn't going to be a weekend refresh. First order of business: strip it all down and get the body panels over to the paint shop.

Step 2: Painting the Body Championship White

Initially, we were just going to respray the FD2 parts, but our painter convinced us otherwise. A full paint job in Championship White would ensure a flawless finish and match. The car came back looking like a proper JDM Type R.

Step 3: Dropping the Engine

To make room for some much-needed upgrades, we pulled the engine. This allowed us to replace the crank pulley, clutch, and oil pump setup. We also resurfaced the Exedy flywheel and upgraded to a Stage 2 Cerametallic clutch rated for 290 ft-lbs of torque.

Step 4: Installing the Kraftwerk Supercharger

The highlight of this build: the Kraftwerk supercharger kit. The kit promised up to 380whp, and we pushed it to over 384whp with a K24 bottom end. We also fitted supporting upgrades like a new fuel pump, injectors, K-Tuned dipstick, filler cap, and coil pack cover to finish the engine bay.

Step 5: Upgrading Engine Bay Components

With the engine still out, we swapped in K-Tuned shifter cables and hardened rubber mounts. These gave the car a much more precise and livable driving experience without increasing NVH.

Step 6: Handling Cooling and Clearance Issues

The Coil Rad aluminum radiator dropped right in, but the K24 block height caused belt clearance issues with the supercharger. We had to modify the hood to fit the blower properly, and upgraded to a seven-rib belt for better grip.

Step 7: Tuning and First Fire-Up

Using a base map from Tuning by Nick, the Honda Civic fired up and ran smoothly after sorting out the idle. We bled the cooling system by raising the front and monitored temperatures until it stabilized.

Step 8: Suspension and Braking Overhaul

Rusty suspension components were removed and replaced with Annex Club Spec Pro coilovers and K-Tuned six-piston front brakes with 330mm rotors. We also used DEI Boom Mat to protect and deaden the undercarriage.

Step 9: Finishing the Chassis and Exterior

We installed Type R side skirts, a JDM rear bumper, and tail lights. To accommodate the Full Race exhaust, we addressed flange compatibility and trimmed the bumper where needed. Final touches included Buddy Club P1 seats, Enkei NT03 wheels, and a Mugen steering wheel.

Step 10: Final Dyno and Drive

Dyno numbers were solid: 384whp and 270 ft-lbs of torque. Road testing confirmed the NVH was dramatically improved and the car pulled hard all the way to redline. The Honda Civic Si had become a legitimate Type R clone, delivering both in performance and aesthetics.

Final Thoughts on the Honda Civic Type R Clone Build

Rebuilding this Honda Civic Si into a Type R clone was no small task. From bodywork to tuning, the project pushed us in every direction—mechanically, financially, and emotionally. But the result is a car that delivers JDM authenticity, supercharged performance, and the kind of street cred that only a well-built Civic can. Whether you're a Honda Civic diehard or just love DIY car projects, we hope this inspires your next build.

What do you think of our Type R clone? Drop a comment below and let us know your favorite part of the build.

This article was co-written using AI and was then edited and optimized by our editorial team.

FULL BUILD - REBUILDING A NEGLECTED HONDA CIVIC SI INTO A TYPE R

0:00:00  Speaker 2

Welcome to our FA5 2008 Honda Civic Si Sedan JDM Type R Civic clone build, equipped with a Kraftwerk supercharger for some extra spice. 

00:00:17  Speaker 2

The Civic didn't start out looking all that pretty. No, it was a bit of a hot mess when we got it The rear bumper was basically falling off The trunk was completely hammered The FD2 type R front end was in dire need of paint and the underside of the car was what we like to call Ontario mint meaning a rusty mess Just feel like I have a mountain to climb here fellas But we're just gonna dive into this build start by stripping it down and getting the bodywork off to body and paint 

00:01:06  Speaker 2

Thank you for watching! 

00:01:14  Speaker 2

There you go FD2 type R front end removed time to strip the rear end and before we do that We want to just quickly explain one thing. We're gonna do it back that we weren't necessarily sure we were gonna do and that is because Race car is this this is a CSX trunk lid with a Jays racing style wing on it And this is our replacement bumper It's also a genuine type R unit and it's got it You know a little bit of scuffing on the paint here a little bit of a crack here But it's much much better condition than that one. So this one is with a fresh paint job a little bit of a touch up from Richie will be a direct bolt on and good to go. Well things have escalated here Pete dropped all the body parts off to Richie our body and paint guy and he called us this weekend and said you know what these cars are so simple he's painted a million of them he's like the only way you're going to get a perfect paint match is if i just paint the whole car i'm only going to charge you a little bit more because we've 

00:02:02  Speaker 2

already brought him so much of the car for paint anyway he's like just bring it to me three days later and just like that the car is back at our shop in championship white and man does it ever look good it's giving me so much legit jdm type -r vibes and now we've got we're going to go ahead and make the executive decision to drop the engine because we've got some work to do that's going to make it just so much easier with the engine out of the car so let's get it on the lift and get that motor out of there For those of you wondering there is an in -depth nine episode build series on this project So if you want all the nitty -gritty details as well as lots of rust related and k2 for deck height related suffering Go check that out 

00:03:38  Speaker 2

This, as you can see, is a lightweight, presumably Exedy flywheel, because it did have a brand new Exedy Stage 1 clutch on it. And the reason we're taking that off is, well, we're going to put a whole bunch more power through this motor, so we need a clutch that can handle that power. Switching over to the other side of the motor here, we are going to pull off the crank pulley, and that's for two reasons. One is, if you watched the very first video on this car, when the motor's running, there is a lot of wobble happening in this pulley. Wow, that worked great The weighted socket that Pete bought what brand are these OEM tool? These weighted sockets seem to work great in this kind of application when you need extra punch There's your key. Thankfully not inside the motor now. No Wow. Yeah, look at that oil seal She's a leaker Gonna give her a Lyle seal puller a try here as you can see It's got this little hook on the end of it that I love this tool BP. Yeah, it looks good except when your 

00:04:36  Speaker 2

seal is this old and crusty. Oh, look, the seal is falling apart. Why would this seal be falling apart, DP? Well, the - Oh my goodness. Wasn't this motor just put together by somebody? Listen, even Honda can't make everything perfect. Oh, yes. Time for the new crank pulley. According to the factory service manual, you torque it to 34 foot pounds and then an extra 90 degrees. What? Which, I know, just give me a number, Honda. 

00:05:09  Speaker 2

I just had a heart attack, but I got it to 90 people. As you can see, we've dropped the factory oil pan and this motor actually already had the type S oil pump installed. So if you're running an eighth gen oil pan like we are, because this oil pan bolts to the subframe for the eighth gen the clearance between the bottom of the pickup and the bottom of the pan is too large. To solve that problem, Unit 2 Fabrications, some local boys in Kitchener, take this pump and they weld on this adapter here, which is about 10 mil thick. and that puts this into the correct depth of an 8th gen oil pan. What Unitube fabrication does is take an 8th gen pan and install their baffle system here, which you can see is really nicely done. It's got a bunch of trap doors in here, it adds capacity and it prevents any kind of oil starvation. Well our Unitube oil pan is in place, torqued down and lovingly bonded on there with Honda Bond, the greatest sealant ever invented by man. And now it's time for the You can 

00:06:06  Speaker 2

see that the Exedy flywheel has been resurfaced. As for the clutch, we have gone with Exedy again, but this time with their Stage 2 Cerametallic 3 -puck. This is rated for 290 foot -pounds of torque. It's also lighter, by the way, so just much like lightening the flywheel, lightening the clutch also does give you like a bit snappier response. 

00:06:42  Speaker 2

As you guys just saw, we bolted on the transmission and we stripped off the intake manifold for reasons you're gonna learn soon. And matter of fact, my phone is buzzing here. It's a notification from Turn 14 Distribution. A package is coming to my door to fill this very void. So what do you say I run and grab it right now? 

00:07:59  Speaker 2

That was more running than I've done in 20 years but it was worth every step because wow, I am so stoked to put this supercharger kit on this motor. This, my friends, is what the supercharger kit from Craftworks looks like. It is very complete including an intake manifold. As for power, they advertise on their website that it makes around 380 wheel and with this K24 bottom end, we make Crest 400 wheel horsepower. We're obviously, you're gonna have to stay tuned to find out. Just dropping in the K -Tune dipstick. You can see we also went with their oil filler cap and their coil pack cover. So this thing is fully decked out and all the good stuff from K -Tune and man, it looks super sweet. It's like a new engine all of a sudden. It does. I now believe that this is a 400 horsepower engine even without the blower bolted up yet. We do have to upgrade the fuel pump. This is the Kraftwerk supplied fuel pump and that's it. We are officially done with the injectors, the fuel rail, and this. That's 

00:08:50  Speaker 2

it for the fuel system. Engine's pretty much ready to go back in, but before we do that, we have some work we want to do in the engine bay, including replacing these worn out old shifter cables. And here are the K -Tune cables. As you can see, they've gone to a spherical bearing on the transmission side. It's going to be a much more positive feel. And on the shifter side too, they've gone to these little billet cups. The OEM ones are plastic. Moving on to the next engine bay job here, and that is replacing the factory engine mounts. In our experience, it is really the best solution for any serious street performance car where you want to reduce deflection, and these OE bushings generally have a lot of deflection and they wear out over time. The hardened rubber ones reduce deflection dramatically, but they don't add the NVH or the harshness, the vibration and all that that you get from polyurethane. Last upgrade before we put the engine back in, and that is a coil rad. It's 48 mil thick, 

00:09:42  Speaker 2

quite a bit thicker than the factory unit, but it does have factory direct fitment. So it will just drop in there using all the factory mounting brackets and locations. What is wrong with this car? 

00:10:00  Speaker 2

How do you fix this? I have no idea. Yeah, that's good there. So I'm in, so keep raising it up. 

00:11:08  Speaker 2

Well, guys, we're going to stop right here. And first off, it's just been a frustrating experience with this. And that is not necessarily because of the supercharger kit, but because this is a K24, not a K20. So we do have a height variance, which has caused us all sorts of problems. The first one you'll notice, we do not have a belt on here because the belt Kraftwerk supplies is too short and that is because once again the deck is taller. The other huge issue that we have here you can see this blower is sitting way above the hood line like we are going to be having to cut the hood to make this work. 

00:12:07  Speaker 2

Do -do -do -do -do -do -do -do -do 

00:12:32  Speaker 2

Moving on to the exhaust system. We are doing away with that two and a half inch spoon system Which is very loud and isn't really gonna flow as well as we need in a boosted application and to do that We have gone to full race who make this beautiful 304 stainless polished exhaust system. This is just a muffler section It also has a large resonator It's not only the right diameter for our application But we also think it's gonna be quite a bit quieter than the spoon because of the dual Resonator and muffler combo and I also think it looks great got the exhaust system hanging here and it fits beautifully it looks great but we do have a compatibility issue where the skunk header has a two bolt flange and the full race has a three bolt and this is what the previous exhaust system had as sort of an adapter between the header and the spoon system this however will not work here 

00:13:37  Speaker 2

That certainly worked out in our favor. You can see that vibrant two and a half inch flange here made it up perfectly to the full race one. It almost looks like it was meant to be there. We got the clocking right. Everything's tucked up nicely here. So we are good under here. If you know K -series Hondas, they like to push oil at high RPM on the racetrack. So we are going with a catch can setup. This is the Gen 3 model from Vibrant Performance. As you can see, I am using what is a bracket that was for the intake box and it mounts the transmission. We've got one of the lines, this one with the 120 degree fitting going down, breathing to atmosphere. 

00:14:21  Speaker 2

the valve cover, and now I'm going to do the other one here to finish this off. All right, that is our belt in place. The humorous part of all this is we looked at the Kraftwerks belt after installing this one and realized they went with a six rib. And it's because you can see here the belt, the seven rib is very, very close to the bracket that the Rotrex mounts on. However, I went online. search the forums and there are guys running seven rib belts on this exact setup and they do claim that they have a less belt squeal and less belt slip. All right so we have our map loaded in from tuning by Nick. This should technically get us fired up right now. Key in. Oh let's go. 

00:15:19  Speaker 2

Well, there's certainly a Opportunity well tuning by Nick has jumped on the computer and has sorted out the idle so it is running much better now and As you can see we've got the front end jacked up as high as we can go get the rear on the ground And that is because getting air out of the coolant system on these k -series motors is always a struggle Hoping that by creating a very high point in the cooling system that the air wants to travel up to this high point 

00:15:47  Speaker 2

As you can see, our water temp is 196, so it's fully warmed up. We're not seeing any bubbles or any action in the little reservoir with the coolant in it, so we think it's fully bled now. I think we're good to go. All right, steaming ahead, moving on to suspension, and look at these beauties, everybody. You're not keeping those? Those are going, as they say in Australia, in the bin. In their place, we're putting these Annex Club Spec Pro Coilovers. These are obviously a fully adjustable setup 

00:16:16  Speaker 2

a swift spring, which we do find gives you better ride quality. 

00:17:06  Speaker 2

Well fellas, we're going big up here as you can see we have a 330 mil Slotted rotor from K tuned as part of their six pot big brake kit This is their six pot caliper stock brakes on these cars are kind of marginal even at stock power levels And we are basically doubling stock power level so we know we need a lot more front brake if we want to avoid brake fade Feast your eyes on that everybody that is some sexy stuff 

00:17:58  Speaker 2

Wow, it is looking like a whole different car under here. As you just saw, we removed all of the suspension, not without some struggles. You would have seen the bolt buster coming out there to heat up a lot of bolts because everything was quite rusty, but it did all come apart. Once that was all stripped off, we then prepped all this area for this boom mat from DEI. This is like a rocker guard, you know, texturized, rubberized, a thick coating that goes on there that, you know, will not only prevent rust from spreading, but also does offer some dampening too. So it'll sort of like deaden the sound back here. You can see, this is like a notorious Honda problem. What happens is the corrosion and rust get in between the bushing and the bolt and it seizes in the bushing. And then what you have here now is a bolt that will not come out. 

00:19:00  Speaker 2

It's safe to say we will not be reusing this bowl. And now we are moving on to another fun task, removing the bushings because we are upgrading those. So here is our bushing removal tool. You can see that mangled end. Now we've put this cup on this side, which is smaller than the diameter of the opening there. And then we just push it through. 

00:20:02  Speaker 2

We also replaced the factory arm with a brand new one from Dorman. This is going to look so much better. It's going to be fresher. And then we just refresh the bushings with the hard race stuff. So if you're going to be doing this, just be prepared for a lot of time and effort to replace these bushings. 

00:20:43  Speaker 2

B -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b -b 

00:20:59  Speaker 2

Man that is a lot of rust off this car, but the upside is amongst my racing buddies. We call this organic lightning That's right. Everyone this car just got about Three four pounds lighter headlights in and wow, what a difference it makes putting a set of eyes on a car It's like it's come to life. Well, it's got a nose It's got a mouth, but it does not have clearance to the bottom corners of the intercooler 

00:21:28  Speaker 2

It's still really tight in here, but the bumper fits up. And that's really all we needed to do was to take enough off for the bumper to fit properly. And wow, what a difference it makes to put a bumper on this car. It now has a face. It needs a chin still, but it has a face and it's a beauty. I think it just looks amazing. 

00:22:01  Speaker 2

And here we have our genuine Type R side skirts. And you can see, there would have been a lot of plastic clips hanging off of right here, all these mounting points that would pop this whole side skirt onto an authentic car. There is no way we are drilling like eight holes in this vehicle to get them in. So what I've done is I took the clips, cut the top off on them. And you can see we are using some 3M double -sided tape. This apparently is the Super Strength Molding Tape. Ooh. Oh yes, greatness is happening here. Tail lights are in and now it's time for another genuine Taybar part. This is of course the rear bumper that Pete picked up from a JDM importer. Well, the bumper is on, but we have a bit of a problem here. The exhaust tip is hitting on the center section here and that's because the full race exhaust is designed for an FA5 Civic SI sedan. And guess what? It's rear bumper design is completely different. 

00:23:08  Speaker 2

You 

00:24:23  Speaker 2

Rear end is complete and as you just saw we we replaced the arms because the tension rods were missing on the old trunk setup so now we have something that will hold the trunk open but to get at that we take the parcel shelf off and then we noticed whoever detented this car did a terrible job getting rid of all the glue that was left behind on the glass. It's time to put the hood on and as we've told you before we know the supercharger is going to hit the hood hard so much so we might have to cut a fairly large hole in the hood to clear. 

00:24:57  Speaker 2

It's not hitting anywhere now. Now for everyone's favorite part of the build, the wheel and tire package. And for that, as you can see, we've gone with the Enkei NT03s, a classic, dare I say, timeless Japanese wheel. For specs, we went with an 18 by 9 1⁄2 plus 40 offset. And part of the reason we had to go to the long wheel studs here and a 20 mil spacer was to get this wheel package out. and it'll flush to the fender lip. Look back, you can see we have the same 18 by 9 1⁄2 plus 40 wheel, and the reason we went with that is so that both the front and rear have the same face, the same amount of dish in the wheel. We think that gives the car a more balanced appearance, even though we are running on a staggered tire setup. So these are a 225, 40, 18 in the rear. And you can see that this actually is very flush, maybe even slightly beyond flush. 

00:25:53  Speaker 2

There it is what is almost a finished project and then it is looking so so good I just love the way this car looks in championship white and I think you think he's really do look great on it Because type our wheels that pop up on the market genuine fd2 type our wheels cannot be resisted Pete actually has a buddy that had these kicking around sold them to him very inexpensively. They did need refinishing It really does sell the type our miss of this conversion having a Type -R wheel on it. It is racing bucket time and that is because those SI seats are kind of broken down in the bolster. So we've gone with these Buddy Club P1 limited edition seats for a lapping day, you know, track car that doesn't have to meet FIA specs. I think it's a really nice seat. Man it feels good in here. It feels like a race car. Like I am quite low still but I've got excellent visibility of both gauge clusters and Mugen wheel just looks and feels so 

00:26:48  Speaker 2

and is the right size for me in their large size. 

00:27:55  Speaker 2

Alright fellas, we have settled on our final numbers here and the red line here that goes to just shy of 7 ,800 or 7 ,900 let's call it. That was with the smaller K20Z3 crank pulley and it made a peak number of 361 ,248. torque and then we went to the larger k24 pulley trying to see if we could get more boost out of it because we only had seven pounds of boost pounds of boost on that red line right so then on the blue line with the larger k24 pulley we saw eight pounds eight pounds revving to about 70 70 yeah you can see just a hair over 74 and we picked up 10 wheel and a lot of torque and then we spun it up to what we think is the limit of the supercharger at 7800 with this combination and that got us up to 384 and 270 foot -pounds. At an absolute peak of nine pounds, right at Redland. All right, Peter, I guess the first thing we should talk about is the NVH or noise vibration and harshness Which was so bad before that the audio in the car was destroyed I'm in the same gear that I was 

00:29:02  Speaker 2

At both the same engine speed as I was where the audio was wrecked before Yeah, and I'm pretty confident you guys will be able to hear us better now Because the NVH is much lower. It's amazing. All right, like what a set of motor mounts can do rubber for the win oh oh my goodness dp wow 

00:29:27  Speaker 2

that's hectic bro that is hectic it's like rev for a second it's just all rev limiter just spinning the tire it's incredible how hard it pulls up top when it obviously starts making 

00:29:44  Speaker 2

Oh man, it just instantly has to really roll into the power. 

00:29:55  Speaker 2

It's just like, right away, man. God, like. Dude, that's fun. Up top, up top, it just rips. So good. It's remarkable. Well, guys, you've seen how much power it makes, you've seen how well it drives on the street, and wow, what a rocket ship this is. Putting a supercharger on a K2 -4, literally the best idea in the world. This car is so much fun to drive, and it really is alive in a way that I didn't expect. So good. I've always liked this chassis, but I think I like it even more in FD2 style. I mean, this thing looks incredible. Really, I think it turned out much nicer than we expected. If you rewind and think about how ratty this car looked when we first got it compared to how it looks now, it's a pretty mind -blowing transformation. However, that did not come without a cost. We definitely got deeper financially into this build than we imagined we would, but man, even if I did go over budget, I think you'll agree, It was worth every penny because this thing is incredible. It really is 

00:30:55  Speaker 2

a dream Honda build for so many of us Honda heads out there who just really appreciate this sort of like I think the best modern Honda chassis that there is, at least civic chassis that there is. So there you have it, fellas. That is a wrap on this build and what a build it's been. And I want to thank you all for watching.