I'm the proud owner of a 92 Honda Civic Lx, so far my is stock, however, i would like to start customizing it. As many of you know this hobby can quite expensive. Since i'm enrolled as a Mechanical Engineering student i was wondering if it would be a good idea to design my own parts. As a first project i want to design my own air intake. It is a simple design and it is feasible. I have the proper design software for this task. I just wanted to gain some insight into some other people's experiences with designing and creating their own parts, since it is a very good way to save some money.
Thanks

well if you have the time and money then do it. you never know, you might make a better intake than aem or injen.

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a vtec a day will keep the doctor away

Yeah, by all means, you should try to design your own stuff. A header and exhaust should be pretty simple to design, but to actually make it could be a bigger hassle, since there will be a lot of welding required. As far as designing the intake, you don't need any special knowledge or software. All you need is to take correct measurements for the pipes. I made my own intake before on my older car, and it turned out pretty well, besides the fact that it looks crappy (gray aluminum)

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BUY MY '00 Jetta!

Thanks for the advice, but i'm not actually gonna build it myself i just wanna design it and send the plans to a company to get the aluminum bent. If you actually sand aluminum you can achieve a very nice and shiny finish. It looks very similar to chrome. What do you guys think of coating the inside of the pipe with a very smooth metal finish for better flow.

I heard that it helps. I don't know if it is true or not but I have intake which I am going to repaing and coat inside with ceramic pain.

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