to 97civiccruiser:

i am the only one out of my friends that works on my car. i consider myself fairly knowledgeable about cars, at least mine. but thats compared to the people i know. i am my friend's mechanic.

one of em has a 05 or 06 solara V6 and got into fixing it up cuz of me .

my other friend has a bone stock s2k, and he loves cars even more than me. he plans on working on his car sometime soon.

another one has a mazda6 6 cyl, and probably wont touch it(likes the idea of a modified car but nevers wants to do it on his, lol)

OH and the funny thing is most of my high school buddies and work buddies have all hondas, some fixed up almost as much as my car, some even more.

but overall i am usually the one who gets called if a car doesnt start or if there is an idleing problem or theres a check engine light..... and i sorta like it!!!


and thanks again for the kind words 97civiccruiser

 

Well first off, I'm pretty much required to say: at least consider a turbo or an engine swap. If you're not sure on the whole turbo thing, get a pre-made kit that has all the tubing and everything already bent for you (and comes with instructions lol). And even stock, the H22 is a great motor. They're relatively cheap (about $2200 for the full swap, so probably $3000-ish all said and done), and they have 200hp at the crank stock. That's, what, 160, 170 horsepower at the wheels? That'll definitely make your civic a little quicker.

But if you must keep the D16, I'd say the absolute first thing you should do is start looking for the stuff you need to do a transmission swap. If you do the work yourself, it's usually $700 or under for a tranny swap, and I promise you that it'll be the most cost-effiecient thing you can do right now to make your car quicker/more fun to drive. After that's done, maybe look into a stage II (I've heard stage I's are a waste of money) cam and an upgraded valve train? The cam and valvetrain will probably be about $1000 all said and done.