Thank you fo taking th time to look at this post and hopefully help me on my decision. I am a family man with a wife and 2 kids that love cars. My foot has become heavier and heavier over the years and really like the idea of building a tuner. Here is my situation:

I have a 1995 civic LX non- V-Tec sedan that has been a short trip commuter car all of it's life. I am now commuting a lot farther into the concrete jungle of downtown Phoenix Arizona. I have realized that that my little 1.5l (105hp) is just not cutting it anymore and need a lot more horsepower under to hood to keep up with the frigin' retards that think there are in NASCAR on the downtown interchanges. I have had my civic for 8 years and really don't want to part ways with it. With my new job I am going to put a lot of miles in.Getting a new car is just like throwing money awaybecuase ofdepreciation due to the high amout of miles I am going to put on it. With all those miles makes it hard for me to drop dough into a really nice car when I am going to drive into the ground. Here is where everyone on this forum comes in. I am trying to figure out what is the most cost effecient/ best bang for the buckway to go. Please give me your opinion and ideas of which ofthe following 3 scenarios I should do.

1) Do I keep my current (paid off) civic and do a bunch of upgrades to it? i.e engine swap, suspention, turbo etc... Give me a list of parts/setups to use and the ball park cost of those upgrades(but please be realistic. I am not dropping 15k into a 12 year old car).

2) Do I upgrade to a newer civic, say on 02',and do a moderate amount of upgrades? I have the bigger V-Tec engine and some extra juice with the upgrades.

3) Or do I say to hell with both those ideas, give in and buy the CTS that I have had my eye on for awhile?

So do I drop $8,000 into it and do a bunch of upgrades? Or do I drop $7000 on a newer model and do a few upgrades? Or do I get a car payment that I have not had in a very long time and drive in luxury. So please peope of the forum give me opinions, ideas and or rants. I want to knowwhat you think I should do and how to go about doing it. Thank you for the time in reading this and any ideas/help

 

I say none of the above. If you're looking for power, power, and more power, then go for a LS1 camaro. There's nothing wrong with a big block v8, other than the horrible fuel economy... lol. But if you're also looking at fuel economy, go for a Civic Si, and put in a turbo, a performance exhaust, header, and an intake. They should let u take on a bunch of high powered cars on the interstate while still getting decent mileage. Sorry, I don't know the cost of the upgrades, but theres my 2 cents.

 

how fast are u planning on going?? well looks if u want some power go with the ls b18b motor, or swap in a b18c1 if u have the money, if the body is in decent condition, i dont see the need to buy a newer car
good luck

 

"putting in a turbo" requires a lot of work, not that simple, jus want u 2 be aware u can runacross many problems, and thats the last thing u want if ur going 80+ in the middle of nowhere down a highway

 

I don't plan to do any street racing(but the capability might be nice), butI would like it when I pushed the gas pedal it doesn't take along time to get movng. Teh body is in great shape. Just one minor dent in the quater... Would just going to a B18Cengine be good enough? What does it take to do that?

 

I'd just upgrade to a slightly newer VTEC EX sedan with a manual tranny. Put some lightweight 16s with grippy UHP 205/45-16s and strut/anti-swaybarson it, so you can take merging ramps at a good clip.

If you want to have serious power, you're not going to get the gas mileage. If you maintain a good speed through corners, you don't have to mash the accelerator and wait to get up to speed. You're already up to speed.

 

Subaru WRX. You can find yourself a nice used '02-'03 sedan or wagon for ~14K used. Man I miss that car.

 

just slap on a turbo with a nice tune and you should be fine, i'm guessing a good job will be like 3000

it doesn't seem like you really want an engine swap, just because you said that you don't want to go all out