have you beaten a ford lately?
 

Hi, I dont have a civic yet. but at 3 this afternoon i will. Im dotting the i's and crossing the t's and forking over the cash for a 98 4-door. it has been lowered and has a aem short ram intake and a muffler on it. the badging has been shaved so im not 100% what trim level it is but it has a 1.3lt under the hood. Thats quite a drop from the 5.7 i had in my truck. A little about my history, i just blew the trans in my truck and i figured it was time for something new hence the car. My truck was a 92 silverado with a 350. before that I had a 87 accord. I learned quite a bit from that car. So I understand a little about honda 4cyl's and I know a ton about american V8's. they are both air pumps but derive the bulk of their power in different ways. I have a bunch of questions that will seem elementary to most of you but my old honda was twice as old as my new(er) one so the engines are quite different and while i am a whiz under the hood of a chevy a lot of the things i did there to gain power would be useless to perform on a civic. So to start out I would like to say hello and I like your forum, seems like I will learn a lot. As for questions
1. Where can I find out what my vin says about my vehicle?
2. other than exhaust/intake what can I do to gain power, either gained or parasidic?
3. what about ignition components? what works well with these cars? I ran accell cap/rotor, msd wires, ac delco plugs in my truck and stock cap/rotor, ngk wires and plugs in my accord
4. Are there any recalls or areas of concern where the 98 civics usually had a problem?
5. does anyone else live in amarillo? I swear it feels like its just me and the tumbleweeds out here.

In advance, thanks guys. Im glad to be here

ahh,now that the forums fixed,i should be able to post. I can answer your first question,use carfax.com. You will most likely need to make an account,unless someone is advertising their services to you.

yeah carfax is what you would need to use. altho alot of people on this site have accounts and you could probly give someone the VIN and have them look it up and show you the report.

The real way to get power out of a Honda engine is forced induction, trying to builb a NA Honda with stuff like I/H/E, cam(s), port&polish, and other techniques that would make power on bigger engines may make performance smoother but will result in a small power increase only

Ignition components I dont know alot about, I just run NGK plugs and wires according to what the manual recommends

There are no major concerns or recalls I know of for a 98 civic but I do not own one so I will let someone who does tell you for sure (I have the same generation tho and have had only very minor issues like windows not rolling up and such)

And sorry, I do not live in amarillo, maybe it really IS just you and the tumble weeds :D

thanks guys, if anyone does have a carfax account please let me know. it would be appreciated. I kinda figured that i wouldnt be able to make power out of my civic like i did my silverado. I have heard of a mini me trick where you swap the head. Does anybody have any info on this or a link to a thread? Also if I do have to go with forced induction, is there a turbo out there that will work with a 1.3lt? I figure a small amount of boost will work for now but i have stock internals and do not want to push them past their limits before I can build/but a better motor.

1. never tried it, but this site might work http://www.decodethis.com/
2. turbo or some other FI
3. stick to stock, they work just fine and you won't see any gains with anything else unless you have a monster turbo setup or huge N/A build
4. not that i know of
5. where? lol

Do you have any pics of your new whip?

i believe the smallest engine for a 6th gen (96-00) is a 1.6 non-VTEC. someone back this up as i don't know about hx/cx. but yea go to the I/H/E forum to learn about those, although you said you already had an SRI so you won't need to worry about that. after a few bolt-ons the only logical thing to do with any engine <2.0 litres is forced induction. don't skimp on anything though. you will most likely either get a crappy part or the wrong part. if you don't have VTEC, see if you can find a motor at your local junkyard with it and either take the head or take the whole motor. have fun and stay legal, welcome to the forum.

well, USDM, yes... kinda (all the USDM 6th gen engines are 1.6L). i think there's a 1.3L in europe. he said he's in Amarillo, TX, so yea it's gotta be 1.6L.

don't change the oem ignition system, it's far superior than the crappy stock ignition you had in your truck.

I appreciate it guys, thanks for the info. No pics yet but there will be some shortly. Yes I have the 1.6 and Im hoping to get lucky and find a small enough turbo setup to be able to run some boost without destroying the engine. I look forward to recieving and occaisionally giving advice on the forum. Until then, having four cylinders beats having no cylinders