hc99

Hey,

I'm considering to spend some money on my car. I don't have in depth experience with modding cars, just doing general auto work on (fixing rusted body, timing belts, replacing gaskets, general stuff like that). That being said, I hope some of you more experienced can give me some advice or your opinion on where I want to go with my auto.

It's a 99 Civic sedan. AFAIK it's the DX edition. Don't think it's EX because it doesn't have power windows (I think EX is supposed to come with power windows? or how can you tell other than looking on the bill of sale). The reason I got the car was that it was a good deal (it's not the Si or HB but nevertheless a good car)... I've had a cuople people tell me "don't waste your money on upgrades since it's a sedan, and it's not Si" or "you should have bought _____ because then you could fly in the sky". Maybe that's true but I hope you can be a little more critical than that and put in you two bits to steer me the right way. Philosophically, I think that everything is pretty much a waste of money, just different things are better or worse ways to spend money (and that's my point here, I want to spend my money the better way).

What I'd like to do is give it a bit more power than it has but without having to swap the entire engine or spend $10k... keep it more/less stock but just add on a couple things to give it a kick. I always thought the first thing to do was put in a better intake/exhaust, but that's still pretty limited. A management system from Hondata might add some power as well but I was thinking to put a turbo on the car (it would probably give the biggest power increase). Clearly I don't have much knowledge on the subject so I'm not sure what else would be recommended to upgrade before or after installing a turbo. I checked out turbo-kits.com and they have some reasonable prices on a whole kit, as far as I can tell. I'd like to keep cost around $2500-3000 for the turbo, as I'm assuming there's probably others things I'd need to upgrade as well (though as I said, I'm not sure what ... other than the exhaust which isn't included in any of the turbo kits I've seen).

This is my first post here (and probably longest). I'm not sure if I'm getting my point across but I hope some of you will see what angle I'm coming from. I'm planning to buy another auto in 2-3 years, probably a newer, if not brand new Passat, Subaru, or Nissan -- however, I plan on keeping this Civic and I want it to be able to run good for at least another five years. It's mostly stop-go city driving, with some highway every couple days. The mod would have to be reliable obviously and I'm not sure if turbo is the way to go, or if it is at all a good idea to put money into the car (resale obviously might be a bit tougher because I know I'll never get all the money back but that's not what I'm concerned with).

Thanks to everyone for reading or helping out.

bambbrose

iTrader: (1)

turbo is the only real way to make it decent with that motor for a good price period.

YOu could easily swap that engine for a b18b, which would cost 2000 or so, about the same as a turbo kit. The b18b wouldn't be as fast as the turbo, but it would still be funner to drive and still be reliable as a factory honda is