I'm looking to buy a turbo kit. I have a few questions.
Can I run a cold air intake and a intercooler?
Is there anyway that you can tune your ECU yourself or a cheapier way.
Is it possible to run a turbo without and ECU and be efficient?

 

1. no
2. you can but you have to know how to tune
3. no

 

Thanks.
Oh someone told me I need to get an exhaust, but they said stay away from a cat. converter and have it a custom exhaust.

 

You can keep stock exhaust technically, but being so narrow it makes it much harder to achieve any power goals you might have.

You can use a catalytic converter still... it just needs to be either really good condition stock or a high flow one. (ebay "high flow" doesn't count, it's not really a catalytic converter)

 

I have two more questions then I will be done.
1. Would a catback exhaust be good for high flow or just decent for the turbo.
2. I have a stock VTECH in a '01 civic, is there like a few cheap things I can do to prepare my engine for the turbo?

 

1. not sure what you are asking
2. I didn't know you had an 01-05 Civic... I think they might be kind of hard to turbo. You'd have to get information from someone else who knows more about modifying 01-05 Civic engines

 

I've tried looking for sites that talk about 2001 civic turbos for you but i can't find anything as they aren't a very common model to turbo.

 

^^It's mostly due to the returnless fuel system on the D17.

It CAN be done, but I wouldn't recommend it, especially to someone as new to the game as you are.

Save your pennies and maybe pick up a project car down the road, or start with something Factory Turboed and add upgrades to that.

 

If you want to take the time to research, feel free. The d17 is pretty crappy as far as doing any mods to it. I believe someone fully built a d17 and only made 500ishwhp which is great, but if you consider how much money was spent on that motor and use the same amount on a d16y8 or a d16z6, the latter two will make more power. And tony, the k series have a returnless fuel system as well and respond great to boost. FYI, a stock exhaust is not recommended because they constrict the exhaust flow and choke the motor up. You want to get the exhaust gasses out as quick as possible. Finally, I ran a stock cat on my first turbo'd civic and then on my second I ran a test pipe (2.5") and made 23whp and 18wtq more at the same psi. Granted, this motor was in slightly better shape. A bit of advice, if you decide to boost, make sure that as you go back from the downpipe, your exhaust doesnt get smaller. EX. if your dp is 2.5", dont run a 2" testpipe/exhaust. Run 2.5" or higher.

 

I own an 02 civic and it's turbo'd. I just recently built up my engine internals and turned the boost up to 12 PSI. Car is in the low 200's for horse power to the wheels. It's a really fun car. Even when I had the boost on 7 PSI with stock internals it was still fun.

All I had back when I first turbo'd the car was the turbo kit, exhaust, bigger fuel injectors, and the AEM fuel ignition controller for tuning.

I agree its tough as hell to find parts for these cars, but when you do it's worth it IMO.