im thinking about buying a honda civic, im new to the civic (used to hate the civic because of all ricers but i learned)
its a black 96' honda civic exmanual 5 speed with stock engine (d16y8 i believe?) its already got a cold air intake and its been lowered and has air ride suspension. its got brand new wheels with charcoal rims (looks amazing) and other than that its pretty much stock. the only thing that i am not sure about is its spedometer is in km/hr so i dont know if its from canada (has a d16y7 engine?) but what im asking is would this be a good civic to upgrade for racing? i think its getting around 132 hp (engine+cai) and i hear bolt on's work better with a manual. but im still not sure if it could be a good racer with low cost.

as you can see ive been doing my research but i need a little more information (ive tried googling but cant find much). i plan on just adding a new exhaust system and getting headers

what do you guys think?

 

well since its d16y7 and you plan on doing a couple bolt ons id say racing against other na Fwd cars you should do okay but Fwd cars with swap like b16 or b20 will give you a run for your money
Rwdisanother story though ..

 

well if your getting "headers" then its not a civic.

but any way. i dont like air ride suspension..im not saying they wont be good for the track. i just dont like them, they add to much weight. also, for the cluster, it could be a GSR swap, which is common for civic owners to swap clusters with ones from integreas, better civics, etc. bolt ons dont work any better with one transmission than another...but if you plan on racing...vote auto's out unless its for drag...and even there i prefer a manual.

as for the question at hand. "would it be a good civic to upgrade for racing?"

what kind of racing?

how involved do you want to get?

how much time/money do you have to upgrade?

if you want to get serious with racing, the civic can be a good platform as far as FF cars go. its light, pretty much any honda motor can be swapped into it relatively easily, there are a ton of after market parts available, and honda made a TON of civics...so shells can be found for decent prices.

now, a couple more questions:

How fast is fast?

Turbo or NA?

hopefully this helped answer your question and gives you some more things to think about...

 

how does getting headers make it a "civic" or not a "civic"?

just street, maybe going to the tack (mostly a hobby)

not too much time(not enough to get real serious {just a hobby}) and for now under $1000 but in a year or two when i get more money it will be different.

if i could get it to 160+ i would be happy

as of now no (maybe later)

 

Civics have I4 engines... so they only have one header (with the exception of Civette... if you don't know what Civette is, it's time to hit up youtube).

Anyway, so you're basically looking at drag racing? $1000 and not much time is enough for basic bolt ons, but don't expect anything spectacular... you'll be gaining 15hp at the very most (and 15 is really pushing it) with an intake, header, and exhaust. Also, 160+ mph is rediculous for a close-to-stock or mildly modified civic. Actually, I'd say it's literally impossible without somehow changing the gearing (and even then you still have to make enough power to overcome the car's drag). And if you plan on turboing anytime in the future, I wouldn't even touch the intake or header, since they'll both be replaced by a turbo kit.

 

I think he meant 160 horsepower. (at least i hope he did)

 

i did mean hp not mph srry about that.

ok so i get the header thing (as you can see im still new to this) and the cai has already been installed so i probably wont touch those, and the turbo is probably not going to be a factor until mabye 2-3 years from know all im doing is just finding options of what i can do to the car so far nothing is set in stone.

and i just found out that the car is from canada so does that makes it a d16y7 engine?? so how will that affect the car?

 

the best thing to do that is cheep is to go to the junck yard and find a LS or get a B series motor, that would be your best thing to do.