I have a 97 LX with the stock, non-VTEC engine. I'm looking at doing i/h/e, and I want to race here and there. First off, is this engine good enough to, with upgrades, compete? And second, if its not, what would a good engine to swap to be? Thanks for the help.

 

i got the same engine bro im getting ready to do a swap but it jst all depends on how much you love your ride and who and what you will plan on racing i/h/e will probably get you max 40-50 more hp but thats about it

 

pfff i/h/e will get u tops 25 hp on d16y7... only way to go on a d16 is mini me and turbo to get a decent power gain (mini me givs about 20//and on a stock engine you can get about 80 hp off a turbo), but other than that ya you will have to do an engine swap if you want real power...

 

MHSBaseball, what engine are you thinking of swapping for?

EDIT: What companies make good turbos for the 97 LX? And (kind of off topic) if I were to switch to a manual transmission, whats a company that carries quality parts for that?

 

you could do a mini me swap and put in a set of piston out of like a 90 crx withthe 1.5 (PM3 piston) and that would raiseyour compression upto around 11 to 1 or soo then you could cam in it and it wouldnt have as much power out of a turbobut it will be a lot let too

 

When doing a auto to manual conversion, you can just use oem civic parts, such as the transmission, shift linkage, tranny mount, etc...

As for turbos, you can just piece your own kit together for cheaper than most companies out there sell their's for.

 

So for building my own turbo kit, what parts would I need?

 

look over this and i suggest you doing some research.

https://www.hondacivicforum.com/m_400322/tm.htm

 

Like the one user said, do a mini me conversion...This means that you are going to replace your y7 head with a y8, which is a Vtec head, and making it into a d16y8 which your generation of EX's have...This gives you about 20 hp, and really isn't that hard.

There's a mini-me conversion DIY in the DIY portion of the forum...

 

Alright, thanks guys.