Where are they now: Sport compact performance parts edition

I was going through some boxes and found a copy of an S-A design book from 2000: Sport Compact Bolt On Performance.

When I first got the book, I was disappointed - it was little more than a glorified parts catalog. Now, it's a glorified parts catalog time capsule showing what was available in 2000, and it's interesting to compare it to what's out there now. (Anyone want this book for a nostalgia build for when the original The Fast and the Furious hit theaters? It's yours for the cost of shipping.) Looking through its list of sources, it's interesting to see what big names have survived and what haev disappeared. Some, I was able to find interesting stories on. Others, well, anyone know and care to share? These are just ones from the index of the book.

American Products Company (APC): Got slapped with a massive fine for falsely advertising their knock-off Altezza taillights as street legal when they weren't. The brand was sold to Pilot Automotive, who is no longer doing anything with it and focusing on repair parts.

Iceman Intakes / Knight Engineering: Their business caught fire shortly after the book was published. Near as I can tell, they never recovered from the loss.

Jackson Racing: Oscar Jackson sold his business to Moss Motors, but now he's back under the original Jackson Racing name.

Jacobs Electronics: Bought up by Prestolite Performance. Prestolite tried to keep the name around for a while, although they completely tossed Chris Jacobs' designs and marketed their own products. Then Holley bought out the Prestolite Performance line, ending up with Mallory, MSD, Accel, and Jacobs in one brand. Having that many ignition lines didn't really make sense, and given Jacobs' reputation, I'm not surprised they didn't make the cut. (Personally, I would have cut Accel's line, too, although they didn't have as many detractors as Jacobs.)

RS Akimoto: This is one I tried to track down and couldn't find an answer... but found a lot of interesting clues.  Several older Honda forum posts said things along the lines of "Yes, they're gone, and good ridance!" But exactly what brought down a name that used to be plastered across Civics everywhere remains a mystery.

Jacobs had a bad reputation?

The FD guys LOVED whatever magic was in the Jacobs knock sensing unit.

That is so cool. 

Would you mind posting pictures of the index?

Slippery said:

That is so cool. 

Yes ! This is very interesting. 

I was into minitrucks and all of those companies (well most of them) went away. Reading the old minitruckin magazines is a like a history lesson.

What a challenge it would be to build a car, Civic, Neon, Eclipse, whatever, with period 2000 parts. At a show, it would stop certain people in their tracks.

The back page advertising sections of old Grams are GREAT for this. Pro tip, if an old website is dead, but they have a phone number or email address, reach out to them, I've found that several old small vendors have long since moved on, but they still receive and respond to email and several still have limited inventory from yesteryear. 

In reply to Appleseed :

The other day on the way to work, after it got cold but before they started laying salt down, I saw an EK (I think?) Civic hatch that looked like it came right out of a late 90s SCC. Right ride height, not stock but not slammed, tasteful 15" wheels, nice paint, no gaudy body kit (thankfully) and it had a sporty but not obnoxious exhaust.  I was astonished.

I still love all of this era.  I'm currently hunting for the Autotech aluminum adjustable rear strut tie bar for the rabbit.  A cool period correct piece to match the perfect front setup I found a couple years back.  Still hunting cool period correct wheels to add to the stable. 

My early teen magazine memories involved VW Porsche Magazine and Sport Compact Car.  Glad we still have a great magazine and forum like GRM to wax nostalgic.

I was the "sport compact and performance specialist" at a local auto parts and graphics store in Vermont back in the day. So much stuff no longer around. Worst part of the job was some younger kid coming in after seeing FnF and needing "noss." Whenever they asked how to make their car faster I'd tell them to get driving lessons! Then sell them brakes and tires. I kinda miss those days. 

I do have a set of Momo Quasars and Borbet type Es for my 87 Scirocco that are period correct.

In reply to 84FSP :

Do you have any pictures? Does it looks like the Neuspeed one for the MK2?

I think Belltech took up the most advertising space back in my mini truck days.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Jacobs had a bad reputation?

The FD guys LOVED whatever magic was in the Jacobs knock sensing unit.

Jacobs seems to have had rabbid fans and rabbid haters. It's possible that this may have depended on the product. For example, one of their products was allegedly an off the shelf chip used for OEM ignition work in a fancy package with inflated claims. Heard this from one of Jacob's suppliers, who figured he could spill the beans now that Jacobs was no longer in business, but I don't know what product that was.

It is quite possible that Jacobs may have put together some good designs that built his reputation and phoned in others. Or many of the products were repackaged off the shelf items but some were better chosen or better tested.

This is amazing. I love stuff like this. Period correct builds really resonate with me. Sadly all my 80s-00's books and mags were mustang books, so I've been resorting to forums and google for my integra. 

That was a fun time to be young and starting to get excited about cars.

I tried many times to convince my dad his SVT Focus needed the Jackson Racing supercharger kit that I'd read about.

BlueInGreen - Jon said:

That was a fun time to be young and starting to get excited about cars.

I tried many times to convince my dad his SVT Focus needed the Jackson Racing supercharger kit that I'd read about.

I had a customer with one, in 2006ish. It was a-verrry-nice.

Cooper_Tired said:

This is amazing. I love stuff like this. Period correct builds really resonate with me. Sadly all my 80s-00's books and mags were mustang books, so I've been resorting to forums and google for my integra. 

I'll have to dig through my remaining copies of SCC and look for Integra articles/ads sometime.

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

If you're ever looking to rehome those Quasars, let me know. :) 

Here's a thread I made on MR2OC

https://www.mr2oc.com/threads/blast-from-the-past-re-reading-old-car-mags.688949/

I have been buying old issues of Sport Compact Car and Super Street (and just the other day I ordered some Max Power issues from UK, I'll get them next month when my friend living in Scotland comes back for Christmas)

It's fun to look through the old ads and such.
It's also interesting to look for some of those old parts...like the Greddy shift knob that I eneded up with two of. Now, on ebay, they are about 5x as much as new! WILD.

And above it was mentioned the altezza style lights. Back then you could find those cheap 100 dollar lights for the MR2. Now there's NOTHING like that on the market.

APC, Toucan, Ractive...terrible companies just exploiting the F&F craze and now, NOTHING.

But, man, I love this stuff, it takes me back to when I first got into cars in the late 90s

Back when I was in college (2000-05) I worked as a parts-slinger at the local Autozone. At that time, we started getting into selling "speed parts" through catalogs, and I'm pretty sure we sold this book! We had access to order most of the big import tuner brands. Aside from selling awful APC garbage all the time, I don't think we actually sold any of the other parts from those other brands. 

This was also the age where I transformed from solely liking American V8 stuff to liking imports and buying a WRX, mainly because of Gran Turismo, so I have mega nostalgia for this stuff. 

In reply to hybridmomentspass :

Thanks for that nostalgia trip, from figuring out what my mr2oc password was, to the Options Auto Salon ad ... I spent a boatload of money with them 

I have a tote full of European Car from high school or so and they are full of CEC and Performance Products ads which equate to the same thing. I put an ad up a while back looking for all of that stuff for an E36 but hot very few responses, I absolutely want to build a street version of one of the saloon racers.

84FSP said:

I still love all of this era.  I'm currently hunting for the Autotech aluminum adjustable rear strut tie bar for the rabbit.  A cool period correct piece to match the perfect front setup I found a couple years back.  Still hunting cool period correct wheels to add to the stable. 

My early teen magazine memories involved VW Porsche Magazine and Sport Compact Car.  Glad we still have a great magazine and forum like GRM to wax nostalgic.

They don't really have strut tie bars in the back, since they don't have struts in the back, but one of these things but in Autotech flavor? I don't know that I have seen adjustable rear, only adjustable front.

I saw you were mounting a larger throttle body. Do you want want one of the Weber units? I stole this picture, but I should have one of these:

The circumference is the same as the stock unit, so a little massaging of the CIS snorkel and it fits (supposedly). What are you using for brakes and brake lines?

In reply to hybridmomentspass :

As a 14-15yr old boy I loved rifling through the new issues of Max Power at Borders. I didn't dig many of the cars, but there were, uh, reasons to still enjoy. 

Appleseed said:

What a challenge it would be to build a car, Civic, Neon, Eclipse, whatever, with period 2000 parts. At a show, it would stop certain people in their tracks.

Cars I have on my bucket list- a daily driver trophy truck.

A hearse on hydraulics (no bags here)

A suicide doort continental. (that one can be bagged)

And a f&f era sport compact (preferably the b squad - so no civics, wrxes, etc. Neon, maybe early focus, j-body all rank) with the full erebuni catalog and a modern drive line making some sort of stupid power for maximum lulz. Imagine ja rule's Integra k swapped. The throtl channel on YouTube has done the eclipse and the supra already. 

In reply to Cooper_Tired :

Max power did have an exceptional variety of body parts.