Running cams that were almost all lift caused the stock, two-piece welded valves to constantly snap, a malady solved with custom stainless steel one-piece units.
As for oiling, Bob III notes that behind the plugs on both sides of the engine girdle are nipples that regulate oil flow. Grinding down the nipples increased flow enough to stop starving the number four rod. After that, the engines were always reliable. "We could run it at 10,500 rpm all day long," he says.
Braking also required some creativity. Boileau replaced the front brakes with a bigger set from a 1975 Civic wagon, but the rear drum brakes were prone to self-destruction in races, not at all designed for slicks or hard corner loading.
He took an old broken drum to a machine shop, told them what kind of offset he needed, and came back with a billet stainless steel piece that held the stock rear drum bearing and included a bracket to hold the stock front discs. Voila, quite possibly the first four-wheel big-brake kit on a US Honda.
"The car was just so much absolute experimentation," Bob III says. Boileau raced the car regularly from 1974 until 1986, then only occasionally until 1990. Honda's involvement with amateur and pro racing is vast these days. Back then, there weren't the resources to back its privateers. But Boileau did make an important connection with one serious motorsport fan within the company.
Tom Elliott, recently retired as American Honda's executive vice-president, was also in on the ground floor of the company's rise. Elliott and Boileau knew each other well and, before his death, Boileau arranged with Elliott to transfer the car to Honda's care. Tokyo Joe (aka TOJO) now sits under the watchful eye of Honda personnel in a private collection.
Bob III, meanwhile, has picked up the mantle of his father's racing enthusiasm. He runs the reconditioning department at Pikes Peak Acura in Colorado, supervising the road-worthiness of used TLs and NSXs. He races a 2006 Civic Si, done in a blue-and-white variation of TOJO's paint scheme, in SCCA's Showroom Stock B class. He proudly recalls doing his driver's school certification in the Civic 1200.
Honda Bob passed away two years ago, but one of his final requests to his son was to take him out on a few last laps, before the car was cleaned up and sent off to Honda. He made Bob III promise to position him so he could see the track. Bob III did, and he has the proof. "I've got this photo of me driving TOJO, with my Dad's ashes in a box on a modified camera mount so that he could see out the window."
Claiming firsts in anything is a dicey proposition, and Bob III will only claim that his father was "one of the first guys" out there racing a Honda, and he's got the log books, dating back to early '74, to prove it. And though the tuning scene would have likely happened with or without Honda Bob, when the history of compact car tuning is written, the man deserves his spot well up front.
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