So I just got my girlfriend a civic for her dd. Id say i got a good deal on it considering the milage and condition. Its a 97 dx 5 speed with only 81k and we paid $2400. The interior and extirior are both an 8/10 id say. It came with 17'' adr wheels (havent looked up the exact type) as well as the tires are almost brand new. Also it has some aftermarket projector headlights with hids installed. Other than that everything is stock and it runs like a champ.


Anyway long story short im looking to fix it up a bit more for her and wanted some advice on parts to steer away from and such.

As of now this is all im thinking. Not looking to turn it into a turbo beast or anything..

-lowering springs: (some that will put it at a nice stance but wont blow the struts super fast)

-intake: (i know the good and bad brands, but just dont know honda to well)

-exhaust: (would there really be a point in gettng anything more than a cat back or really just a nice muffler welded on? and would headers and a test pipe really do all that much with it being an n/a car?)

-exterior: want to put a clean looking front lip on it as well as maybe a trunk lip spoiler. Ive seen cheap stuff on ebay, but you get what you pay for most the time

So yeah all advice will be appreciated. As far install on everything it would a breeze for me. My old car was a base 03 lancer that i pretty much turned into a fwd evo 16g and all. and now i drive an 04 stage 2 wrx.

thanks in advance

 

first of all you only have 1 header. 2nd nice buy you should post some pics. 3rd lowering springs- eibach and tein are 2 that id recommend, as far as an intake go with an aem cai, exhaust if you just want noise then get a muffler, if you want slight gains and an ok sound then catback, if you want mild gains and a great sound then get a header, high-flow cat, and a cat back kapiesh? o yeah welcome to the forum

 

sounds like you know what ur doing. I'd like to see some pics of ur ride

Anyways...

I'd recommend Tein High Tech or Eibach prokits if ur gonna use stock struts.

For the intake, I'd just find anything used and put on a new K&N filter.

I'd say forget about the exhaust. Its not really worth it. Although, I've always liked the Greddy Evo2 on civics.

the oem sir lip looks sick on 96-98 civics imo ...if you can find one!

 

thanks for the input guys!

ha and yeah i know i have a bad habbit of saying every car has header(s). its what i get for growing up with a dad who talks about nothing but old v8's.


i had tein's ss's on my lancer and the struts went with in a few months. but i know they are great springs, just dont konw about the strength of the stock struts. And ive herd nothing but good stuff about eibach so those are deff my first two picks as well.

as far as exhaust goes i just dont want it to sound like ***.. so ill prolly dish out the extra chash and go for the full exhaust. i just want the deepest sounding set up possible.. i had a dc sports cat back on my lancer also, can anyone vouch for it sounding good on the dx?


oh and ill get some pics up asap.

 

if your doing a full exhaust on a dx you have 2 choices a buy a magnaflow exhaust manifold/high-flow cat and a dx cat back (im pretty sure im the only guy on the forum with one) or you can switch to the ex exhaust with a header, high-flow cat and then the ex catback

 

ah ok nice nice. thats some info i deffinatly needed. nice to know that the other sub-moddles parts are pretty much enterchangable with eachother. if i read that right

 

as long as you do the entire exhaust then yes and almost all other parts are interchangeable

 

awsome. thanks again.

oh btw could prolly look it up in like 2 sec... but can anyone tell me how to set the clock on the oem radio? im putting a new head unit in asap cuz the volume *** doesnt work right, but would still be nice to atleast use the clock for now

 

bleh... sooo car ran great for about two day, then i started having some over heating problems. the guy i got it off of said he experienced this too but it was just a bad radiator and he replaced that and it had been fine since then..

wellll it was deff more than just that.. i flushed everything and put in new coolant. then i replaced the thermostat.

the thermostat seemed to help, so i took it out for a spin. got about 3 miles away and it over heated again. i popped the hood and the res cap hade poped off and was bubbling and steaming..

got it back home in one piece and checked everything out again.. i drained the coolant again and it was black.... then i checked the oil and it was watered down..


so came to the conclusion that it was a blown head gasket... i picked one up at honda for 40 bux and im in the process of breaking everything down right now.

so i hope the head isnt warped and this fixes the overheating problem.


i also just noticed the stock exhaust mani has a huge crack in it, so i figgured i would go ahead and get a new mani as well.

are the ebay ones really all that crappy?

and if i get that and an highflow cat will the stock dx cat back still line up?

 

that sucks, yes they are crappy from what ive heard they don't match up good and sometimes are warped. good question i don't think so...