My friend has an '00 Civic DX that he swapped a B16a2 (USDM Si engine) into a few years back. For the past couple of months he's been working on a massive N/A buildup of the engine, and it's finally close to done.
Before I tell you how much he's spent so far, I'll try and remember all of the **** he's bought for it.
Bolt-ons:
- CAI
- Catback
- Header
^^ All were done previous to his actual buildup began ^^
- Skunk2 Intake manifold
- Spoon sports throttle body bored to 70mm
- UDP
- Cam gears
Not-so bolt ons:
- complete forged internals (except for the crank), balanced and blueprinted, currently 12.5cr
- some stage 2 cam
- PNP head, 5-angle valve job
- ACT (I think) stage 2 clutch
- Hondata ECU
- SAFC
- Some fancy expensive-ass injectors
I think I'm missing quite a few things, but you get the point. Big freaking buildup, and expensive as hell. He can now rev it to 9k, and vtec engages at 7k (they moved it up to smooth out the power curve).
You can't even feel vtec engage, but holy god can you ever hear it. It's so ****ing loud, it sounds like someone is grinding a steel pipe right next to your ear. The exhaust itself isn't that loud, but once you get to vtec it's ALL you can hear. I honestly can't tell if the car is any faster or not because I'm too worried about my ears falling off my head to pay attetion.
Now for the reason I feel bad. He's put in about $6k to the car, excluding any labor charges and it only put down 170fwhp. The tuner he took it to said that with a better header (apparently the primaries on this one are too small) and a hi-flow cat he'll see 200whp. But still. That sucks.
I'm not busting on honda's at all, they have unreal potential... But how do you say to your friend that he just wasted $6k? He didn't get anything dynoed before he did all the mods, but I'd expect him to have had about 125-130whp. That's an expensive gain of 40whp! He should have just turboed it for $5k and been putting down about 250whp, instead.
Before I tell you how much he's spent so far, I'll try and remember all of the **** he's bought for it.
Bolt-ons:
- CAI
- Catback
- Header
^^ All were done previous to his actual buildup began ^^
- Skunk2 Intake manifold
- Spoon sports throttle body bored to 70mm
- UDP
- Cam gears
Not-so bolt ons:
- complete forged internals (except for the crank), balanced and blueprinted, currently 12.5cr
- some stage 2 cam
- PNP head, 5-angle valve job
- ACT (I think) stage 2 clutch
- Hondata ECU
- SAFC
- Some fancy expensive-ass injectors
I think I'm missing quite a few things, but you get the point. Big freaking buildup, and expensive as hell. He can now rev it to 9k, and vtec engages at 7k (they moved it up to smooth out the power curve).
You can't even feel vtec engage, but holy god can you ever hear it. It's so ****ing loud, it sounds like someone is grinding a steel pipe right next to your ear. The exhaust itself isn't that loud, but once you get to vtec it's ALL you can hear. I honestly can't tell if the car is any faster or not because I'm too worried about my ears falling off my head to pay attetion.
Now for the reason I feel bad. He's put in about $6k to the car, excluding any labor charges and it only put down 170fwhp. The tuner he took it to said that with a better header (apparently the primaries on this one are too small) and a hi-flow cat he'll see 200whp. But still. That sucks.
I'm not busting on honda's at all, they have unreal potential... But how do you say to your friend that he just wasted $6k? He didn't get anything dynoed before he did all the mods, but I'd expect him to have had about 125-130whp. That's an expensive gain of 40whp! He should have just turboed it for $5k and been putting down about 250whp, instead.
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