Alright, so in the pursuit for more power and a higher miles per gallon mods, the three ones i'm looking at are new headers, cold air intake, and different cat converter. (i have a 2005 Civic EX)

I have been trying to get someone to explain the different between cheap brands on ebay piping/intakes/headers and the good brands like aem/dc etc. Maybe you guys can help.

The intakes i'm looking at: got cheap/k&n/aem in that order:
http://carpart4u.com/honda-civic-ex-...h-pr-6166.html
http://www.ilovebodykits.com/product...2002-2005.html
http://www.ilovebodykits.com/product...loveBODYK.html
These are all for my car, all aluminum, and as mentioned in a previous thread, no matter what piping i get, i'll get an AEM filter.

For headers, i have DC and cheap one...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/DC-SP...ayphotohosting
http://store.racer-union.com/Shop/Co...141/rid/126363
I looked at DC, it was ceramic, so i looked for a cheap ceramic header that looks the same... i can't tell a difference...

For exhaust, i want to stay emissions legal. I was going with magnaflow... since they seem like the only epa certified stuff out there. But, i found 2 different kinds, the second one looks just like a test pipe, says it basically runs like one, but it's epa certified... sounds cool.
http://www.procivic.com/pages-produc...converter.html
http://www.procivic.com/pages-produc...916/index.html
Both OBDII compliant...

Help me out if you can guys, i just don't see why people would spend the extra money if it's the same material(alum/ceramic) and they are basically the same thing, it's just piping.

 

i have an 04 and i have aem v2, megan header, and magnaflow exhaust. its actually a pretty good sounding combo. i say the v2 because its not the same piping

 

Yeah but what i was mainly trying to ask was that is the AEM intake, any different than the cheap intake i have posted above? They are both aluminum piping, not much difference can be made in piping, or atleast i think. Trying to get someone to prove otherwise... or agreement. lol

As well as the headers, if both the 39$ and the 285$ (DC) are ceramic, and look the same... what's the difference? why pay 246$ more for name?

For the exhaust... that's just swapping the cat converters, i want to stay OBDII accepted, and not sure if anyone heard of the second, looks like a straight through test pipe, but still says OBDII certified, and would be higher HP increase than the other.

 

just remember you get what you pay for. fitment issues, bad welding etc... might be an issue, you never know. aem and dc are good products for a reason. as far as intake, just make sure you have a good filter, that WILL make a difference in quality.

 

and would a VAFC be helping in tuning these?

I think i'm going with just AEM v2, DC headers, magnaflow cat, but convert to a 2.5" exhaust, someone is now mentioning a VAFC for tuning purposes? Anyone disagree?

 

don't use a VAFC
they're gay

you don't need to tune for intake/header/exhaust... it would help a little, but it's not worth the money unless you have a lot of money to spend. VAFC's are piggybacks anyway and I wouldn't recommend using one.

 

Alright thanks trust, the few people i know in person that work on cars were pushing for a VAFC but i didn't know what use it was really.

 

there not bad, if you can find one for cheap you might be able to get 10-15 hp out of a tune on the 7th gens. Looks on 7th gen.com and read up on it if you don't believe it.

 

Alright will do, i tend to trust trust, because he's got a del sol too! (First car i did anything with was a '93 del sol... working on the '05 now lol)

 

I completely forgot we were talking about a 7th gen when I said not to use a VAFC. I don't know anything at all about tuning 01-05 Civics (as far as what hardware to use). You may be forced to use a piggyback unit.

Ideally, you would want to use a chipped ECU. But, on 7th gens i'm pretty sure this isn't an option.