Hi everybody,
New guy here. So please be gentle. My son 16, he wants to do a tuner project for his first car. We have been involved in shifter kart racing for years, have our own shop, and have done 5 full of chassis restorations on late 60’s muscle cars. So technically it will be a new area, but we are certainly not new to wrenches and laptops.
My son has estimated that doing a pretty significant tune on a civic should cost about 20 -25 thousand dollars including the cost of the untouched civic.
My question is that a realistic number or are we kidding ourselves. Of course I understand you can blow 15K on supercharged Dart VTEC and another 4K on seats and wheels.
My real question is approximately how much have you spent on your mods, including the original car. At least to the point where you were happy with the car and it was a safe, respectable, tuner.
Thanks for your feed back
#72

 

well u could get a 92-95 coupe or hatch (Those are usually best years for tuner cars).........if u can find one with a blown motor it would be really cheap......or get one with a crappo motor like a non vtec......that should cost say......2,000 for the car itself. Get a b16 motor for about 2,500, and u can turbo it for another 2,000........so at that point ud have a car with a really fast motor for 6,500. Then when u look into wheels and stuff jsut look for the best prices. 10K can build one helluva civic. Pretty sleek lookin and fast as crap.

 

Around 18k for an 11 second slip and the car.

 

yeah but se7en ur also runnin the most recent generation with a 8000 turbo'd engine hunderhood . about 10k (not including the car) u will b runnin with se7en, he was (up until the point when his friend blew his engine) the fastest on the forum.

pcupo's estimate is good. but if your budgeting more than 7-8k then u shud consider internal stuff (racing rods, pistons, resleving the engine, cams, other good stuff like that). u'll have a super hott tuner car if u get an engine swap, put racing internals in it, and turbo it. something like that will cost around 10k (not including car, but like he said u can get a good civic chassis with the price of a turbo).

 

20-25k with you doing the labor will make a great car. for simplicities sake, get a base car between 88-00, and the 92-00 will be a little easier than the 88-91, but the 88-91 is lighter, so its a trade off you have to make. start out with a B18c1 (gsr) if you are planning on boost, or if you are planning on an NA car, go with the B18c5 (Integra Type R) as it has the best parts from the factory, and you can sell the stock parts to make up some of the cost of the aftermarket parts.

 

hm i might have to do that instead of getting the boosted B18C1

 

yo but say u look around a lot.......u can find a hatch with a blown motor.....and get it for 700$......swap a new motor and build it for boost.......bro if u drop 10,000 on a new motor......and beefing its internals up AND turbo.......ud have a quick *** car.....gs-r motor is what 3200$??>>>then even if u buy car with a blown motor for 800 ud be at a total of 4,000 so far.so ud have a SICK *** motor and a car to put it in........then if u spend 5,000 on a top of the line turbo setup and top of the line fuel system....and im sure 5,000 on engine internals would beef it up nicely.......thats 14,000$ but i bet with some suspension work that car could potentially run 10's.

 

this is what ive done, but i had no plans, so far with an '88 civic hatch. car, police auction $500.00, and it passed smog first time. b16a motor weith tranny, axels, ecu, distributor, pgm-fi, starter, alternater,also had 4-2-1 header when purchased, everything complete $1,600.00, engine mods to b16...springs, valves, retainers, cams, oil/water pumps, hondata im gasket, thin head gasket, new gasket set, oil seals, lightweight flywheel(segmented) , clutch, total for stage two upgrades ran about $2,800.00 with a few more upgrades still to happen. lightweight racing wheels (enkie's) cost me 800.00 (i guess normal cost around 1200, but i got lucky deal) all this has me a lightweight car with about i'm guessing, 220 hp dohc vtec . i installed honda prelude seats for 400.00, suspension was about 600.00. all these prices are self install. as you can plainly see i am nowhere in the ballpark in the numbers you are budgeting yourself with. and im not guessing or pulling numbers out of my a$$ just to see my name on a thread, i only post what i know im talking about, so you can build a car with your budget most definately, yes!!! it will on steroids.. ill wagewr you could even get in two stage paint and roll cage in your budget.. one question,, are you by any chance looking to adopt another son?wanna see my ride click the sig