Hey everybody,

Brad here, I recently bought a 1980 Civic 1300DX Hatch from a relative of mine.

It's a great little car; runs really well, low miles for an '80: 137K, and its easy as hell to work on. I've replaced a couple crumpled panels, changed all the fluids, new plugs n wires, tasteful small aftermarket tach, nice Clarion deck with Infinity speakers, etc etc.

Now to get to the fun parts! I want more power of course! Trouble is, there doesn't seem to be much on the net to do with Civics that old. Exhaust mods will be easy with this car, since it has no cat, and the system is pretty much a long pipe with a couple bends and a muffler at the end. I want to know what I can do with the intake. Also my tiny rims (12") and tires need to go. I don't want anything too huge, 14x6's should be fine, but I don't know what tires will fit.

Any help/experience with these old school civics would be much appreciated!

-Brad

 

Welcome to HCF!!!, looks like u have a nice project car, post pics!

 

good luck on finding help with it. its hard to come by for old civics. but super street did a few articles on vintage civics so you could look into the back issues

 

Back again with pics:

Thanx for the quick replies. I figured projects like this were rare...

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I'm jealous of rust-free quarter panels.

 

Heh, yea. These pics were taken after I replaced the crumpled and rusted driver's side front quarter, but before some douchebag scraped his steel bumper along my driver's side rear panel from the bumper to about 3/4 of the way up my wheel arch while I was at a party. Bastard didn't even say anything, and I have no idea who it was. Luckily the damage isn't that bad. A little work with a hammer and some paint will make it presentable again. I wish I could just replace the panel, but that rear panel is pretty much the whole rear portion of the body on the sides, with no signs of being removable without a cutting torch. No thanks!

I did have some rust issues with the car before that though: Had to fill a gaping 2x3 rust hole in the roof assciated with the front part of the passenger side roof rail. Thank you Bondo Co. for inventing adhesive aluminum mesh for just such an occasion. The other problem is the rusted out battery hold down. As of right now, the battery is held in place with a bungee cord! haha I'm working on a solution for that one. Other than that, there are a few minor rust dots here and there that I'm in the process of fixing. The only problem is I can't find paint that matches the original color, so I think sometime down the road a paint job will be in order.

In other news, I got the car kit for my XM radio in the mail today! Going out to install it as soon as it cools down a bit.

-Brad

 

welcome there