dude i just put a short throw shifter on my civic... Amazing, cost about 17$ on ebay. great makes it funner to drive and makes a big difference from the stock shifter( on my 2000 ex anyway) and you can do it in like an hour.

 

Find yourself a Factory Service Manual for your car. It's much better than Chiltons or Haynes and will pay for itself quickly.

I'd first do projects that make the car safer and more reliable, like good tires and brakes, up-to-date servicing, etc. If you live in a high-theft area, put in a decent alarm and other security items too.

I'd suggest adjustable coilovers for a suspension if you see deep snow and/or heavily-rutted roads. Fog lights may be helpful in harsh weather too.

If you upgrade rims, keep your stock steelies to mount skinny snow-treads on.

Herculine the underbody, the rockers, and the floorboards. Pull out the interior if you have to.

 

Thanks man, all wise advice...Im really enjoying the car so far, just learning a 5sp and driving it around is great...

I better look around for the Factory Service Manual, youre right...I found some other literature over the net, but nothingwhich wasas good as I hoped it would be...

The alarm is a good idea, we have a single garage but I have to park in the driveway, so Im getting more and more worried someone may try to steal it...it came with the factory alarm, I should look into maybe getting something better...funny I never worried about my other cars at all , this Civic I really love...

 

Im inOttawaso its probably about the same as yourself in Rochester...sometimes its freezing, several feet of snow, this week its like supposed to be very mild...I find the roads are very poorly maintained, at least in my area...lots of potholes and cracks...

...I wish I lived in Florida or somewhere nice like that...worst thing is that here it gets pitch black at 4:30pm during the winter...

 

^^Maybe you should jack it up instead of lower it

That would make more sense for you, and that would be pretty cool. I can only think of one person on this forum that did a lift on his civic, forget his name tho... He painted his car green with cracks and orange peel on purpose to give it like a reptile sorta skin lol.

Then you could put big ol rims on it and good tread for the winters and bad roads.

 

ok I don't consider Ottawa the "arctic tundra," LOL. You actually have a real summer there. [8D]
I would suggest not wasting a whole lot of energy on trying to make the car fast. You're on the right track with making it more fun to drive, the short shifter is a good start. Suspension mods are also a good idea but coilovers are probably overkill, I'd get some good shocks and some decent springs, slightly stiffer with a little bit of a drop. Maybe a sound system if you're into that. And good tires of course.

You don't want big wheels for snow tires, generally you want to go as small and narrow as possible.

 

First mod? Choose from:

- New Pedals
- New induction kit
- Strut bar
- Valve cover painting
- New gear ****

 

Well my 14's suck even in2 inches of snow and they have good tread [:'(]

Wouldn't the more surface area touching the ground result in better grip? You got to explain this to me cause my last car with bigger tires did a whole lot better in snow.... it was a 91accord

 

You want narrow snow tires because the car has to slice through the light snow to get down to the thicker-packed stuff... if you have wide tires the weight of the car is spread out more and it will just float on top of the snow.

 

Talking tires...I'd just run regular-diameter, 205-width, UHP all-seasons until skinny snow-tires on the stock 14s are also in the budget. Just make sure they have good winter siping. The 195-width HP all-season treads that I currently run actually do better in the snow than my previous 185-width treads, simply because they have better siping. The 10.5"-wide tires on my Jeep blast through drifts and hold the road in RWD just fine, but they are super-aggressive, siped, treads.

Keep the overall diameter of your tires close to stock no matter what width you run, so your speedo/odo are fairly accurate, you don't LOSE clearance, and you can fit chains for really nasty snowfalls.

Narrow tires are great for gaining and maintaining traction in shallow snow, but good siped tread is probably more important, especially when things get deeper or icy. I prefer tall-as-possible tires for snow, whether narrow or wide, just to help with clearance...but that's more applicable to deep snow that will swallow even a 4x4.