Feature: Southern Steeze

As a Honda guy, it’s only natural to feel linked to the Honda scene. I first saw Sam’s 1998 Integra in the slammed picture thread on Honda-tech and I fell in love with his low lifestyle. I added Sam, who’s from Oregon, on Facebook and contacted him about doing a feature, and like most car enthusiasts, he was eager to tell me all about the struggles of building one of the lowest — if not the lowest — Integra I’ve ever seen.

Sam tells me he got the car bone-stock from an old lady when he was 16 and it’s been a love-hate relationship with the car ever since. There’s been multiple times when he tried to sell the car for a lifted truck, but as you can tell that never came to fruition, so she’s here to stay.

The car has had many exterior changes like the ’94 front-end conversion, and once the engine blew he went ahead and built up a new one with a few more horses. The engine went from an ls to lsv, with a b16 head, 12:1 compression, with a list of internal work done as well. He also just recently bolted on his favorite exhaust, the Buddy club spec 2.

Sam said from day 1 his goal was to get super low. I would say he reached his goal… in one piece. The car is on Koni yellow struts, with ground control coilovers and top hats, no shock towers, small tires and some custom hammer jobs inside the wheel wells.  All of you reading are probably wondering, “How the hell does he drive a car that low?” He told me the roads in Oregon are pretty dumped friendly. However, when he travels to shows in the Washington area, it gets to be a game of cat and mouse with pot holes, crowns in the road and road reflectors. In the end, it’s his daily, and like Sam said: “shits gunna happen”.

As far as future plans for 2011 go, he hopes to get it repainted and the interior swapped. He also hopes to get some new shoes, because he’s never owned a set less than +40 offset and it would be nice to get something not hellasunk.

The car has caused him a lot of stress, but so far he still loves it and likes where it’s going. Sam really doesn’t see the car ever being raised, because he doesn’t have any alignment issues and it goes everywhere he wants to go… or close to it. He finishes the conversation with some insightful words: “The car isn’t too low, the ground is too high. “

Mod list

Interior
-Recaro Evo4 driver seat
-C pillar bar
-wink mirror
-Mugen shift knob

Exterior
– 94 front 98 rear
– si-vtec lip
– mud flaps
– rear visor

Suspension
-Koni yellow struts
-Ground Control coilovers
-top hats
-blox lca’s
-Skunk 2 front camber kit

wheels
-Te’s 15×6.5 +45
195/45’s
Muteki lugs

Motor
– jdm b16 head
– b16 pistons
– Skunk 2 dual valve springs and retainers
– gsr cams
– hot tanked and honed
– valve job
– 450cc injectors
– b16 tranny
– launch control
– Buddy Club spec 2 exhaust
– Golden Eagle conversion kit
– APR head studs

If you like what you see,  you can take a look at www.that-steez.com or www.dumpedstars.com