euclid

ok i am having some personal dillemas here(car related of course), and i need suggestions/experiences from my h-t family. i like LOOOONG posts so here goes.

i have a 94 civic ex coupe that i have had for about 3 years. i have basically finished everything upto the engine... but my engine is still original with stock exhaust, but has had a hard life to say the least... basically when my car gets upto speed it is awesome, but it takes awhile to get there.

so here is the problem, i was originally planning on keeping this as my daily driver but i am secong guessing myself and i am considering making this my weekend car...

well this changes some things, i wanted to build up a gsr or itr engine NA and not have a really fast car, but one i can drive( my goal was a 13.5). now i am thinking about completely selling my coupe(somehow , maybe trade it in or something) and getting a hatch, swapping all my susp and performance parts over, full weld in cage ect. so i can auto-x and take it out on the weekends. no stereo or interior.

but now i am thinking about a turbo (gasp) my thinking is that if i am designating this car for speed, then why not get 300whp and get some speed. i was inspired by cheesefrogs set-up hanging with a 10 second viper but i will obviously not be going so big.

so i need some opinions, i found a hatch with a stock gsr swap and otherwise stock suspension for a good deal, all it needs is paint (and my coupes parts), and i'm thinking about turbo kit, but i have become attatched to my car over 3 years and i am having trouble making the choice about selling it.
do turbo kits on stock b18c1's make good power while staying reliable or should i stay NA with jun3 head and itr tranny? will i have horrible gas millege with 10lbs of boost? does anyone else have strictly weekend cars, is insurance lower? i am just looking for reassurance before i start the steps to make this happen and make any final choices i might regret.

and after i decide about this car, i need to start crunching some numbers about financing a used daily driver, b/c the hatch will be paid for in cash. i dont know what i would even want to drive all the time, maybe a golf. has anyone ever tried to trade in a 94 coupe to a dealer for a daily driver volkswagon or something, how much is it worth?

and i'm sorry for ranting i just dont have any friends that truly understand hybrids and can help me with this sort of thing. most of my friends think im retarded for wanting a honda in the first place.

Nine

If you still have all the stock parts for ur coupe, why don't you just slap those back on the ex and use that as a daily driver. When the motor starts going bad, you know enough about hondas im sure to fix up a dying engine, even if that means replacing some parts. You'd save some money in the long run that you could put into that b18c1 hatch. I'd say that if you build up the c1's bottom end and tune it properly, there is no reason you couldn't reliably make 300 or so hp. Little things will go wrong along the way but you have to expect that when you are doubling the whp that the engine is used to making.

Ricey McRicerton

My advice to you is to do what you can afford. The idea of finacing a second car when your car is payed for, just so you can play with it and make it faster sounds kind of stupid to me (and hell...im an 18 year old kid myself ) I would keep the civic and maybe buy the hatch now and use that as a track car (if you can pay for it in cash) and build on that....or you could keep the coupe, but put it back to stock and put all the go fast and suspension stuff on the hatch...at least that way when one broke down you would have another. Believe me...most of us think about this kind of thing daily, I know I do. The one that plauges me is, "why did I buy an EK? I could have gotten an EG and made it WAYYY faster than my crappy EK by now on the same amount of money?" Then logic kicks in and I realize my car is only 5 years old instead of 12 and that I have a good car for what it does...drives me around every day. Id like to have a 12 second car myself, but I can't really afford it and wont go into debt to have that speed. Just make sure you have your priorities straight before you make a decision. Invest that extra money would be my suggestion, then later on you can get what you want!

kmf0211

ill buy ur coupe...

euclid

yeah, you see i was thinking about keeping my coupe as a daily driver. if i can get the hatch i can basically trade suspensions between the two, i would need to do some work to the d series to get it running smooth, it has a stuttierng ignition under 3krpms and the valve cover is leaking some oil, the car also needs to be painted and carpeted, then it would be stock again... but i am getting these signals all of a sudden that it is time to move on, i'm 21 and i feel like i need a nicer to drive daily, it sounds retarded b/c i never thought that before but now i am and i dont know if im tripping or i am seriously outgrowing the coupe as a daily driver.

vtecvoodoo

2nd car rules. I`d go that route if possible.

Ryan

euclid

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vtecvoodoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">2nd car rules. I`d go that route if possible.

Ryan</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah i am feeling the same way, i just need to figure out what my first car needs to be to meet my needs and $... my ex will need wheels/tires, paint, carpet, minor engine work. i am trying to rationalize spending the $ to get it running and looking decent with a certain level of comfort, or if i should just sell it to someone who would build it up custom anyway, then i can use the $ as a down payment on something else... theres no quick solution for me right now, but i do really appreiate evryones help.

piscorpio

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vtecvoodoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">2nd car rules. I`d go that route if possible.

Ryan</TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree, its alot less stressful when things go wrong during installs, etc.

RangerDan

Everyone has "The Dilema" The problem with a weekend car is its so fun you will want to drive it all the time. I think you can build your present car or the hatch to be a very reliable driver and track car (hey its a Honda) I just fired up my jdm b18c r motor for the first time tonight and damn.

I want to go faster than this motor alone will take me but I think I will juice it for the drag strip and run the courses with it the way it is now.

The ultimate goal for myself is to have a fast car that handles on rails with the niceitys like the moon roof and a/c. I also want the good gas mileage. If thats the type of car you want I think you just need one.

I do have a back-up truck and vette though does that count?

EX R8ED

its kind of weird that you bring this up because I'm in the same situation. I have a 94 EX as well that I want to build up but I'm turning 21 soon and I'm thinking that I need something a little more classy. I'm still into the whole go-fast thing so I'd want to just get a hatch and build that up for weekend racing or whatever but for my daily driver I want something with a little more class rather than having ricers rev on me at every light. I know what you're going through.