Dailydriver92

Im 18, and I currently have a 2001 Jetta Manuel. Its pretty slow, expensive to maintain lol and I am planning on selling it by Christmas since I want to make some money before buying a car. I got offered 3000$ for the car, which is decent considering it has 200,000+ kilometres on the car. Im in Quebec, Canada BTW.

So the 3000$ that i get from selling the Jetta, I would immediately by a Honda Civic. I am looking from 95-00 coupe and Manuel. I do not have any jacks or stands or any tools besides hammer and drills. My friend however has all the tools id need because he works on his car alot. How hard would it be to convert the car from Automatic to Manuel?

I see alot of cars with 150,00 kms and up. Should I be worried by the amount of kms on the engine. I could always replace parts and upkeep the engine so should i be looking for the rust and interior? I do not want this to be a race car or a track car. This will be my DD, fuel effeciency but I would like to have close to 200HP if possible. So I would concentrate on looks such as outside and inside as well as minor improvements to the engine. I realize that if i do not swap that the only possibility to get close to 200HP is to turbo which will lower fuel effeciency a bit. I would first do Intake, Exhaust and possibly Header which is pretty general. Most of the work will be done by a mechanic since im friends with one or by my friends dad. Also I see quite a few cars with engines already swapped with low kms such as D16 or B18B, I am familiar with the engines but I would like to know if I should even bother with these as they could have done the job half-*** and potential problems could occur?

Please give me your input because I work part time and go to school full time. Very busy schedule lol. Thank you very much.

fv8s

if you want a quick Honda car you most likely want a DOHC VTEC motor and not a D series even though that may feel a lot faster than your 2.slow motor in your Jetta. If you do not have a lot of experience buy a Manual car. Converting it can be done, but in your case I would save the time and money and just buy a 5 speed car off the bat. 200,000 kil. is nothing for a Honda. I have had two Hondas that have pulled hard over 200,000 miles (which is obviously more than Kil.), with me beating the **** out of them everyday of the week.

B16AGUY

Dependant de ton budget, un moteur de serie B serait un bon point de départ. Remarque bien que plusieur gens on des D15/16 avec des turbo qui sont pas mal fort aussi. Sa depends tout sur test besoins. Un B16A sans boost va couter un peu plus cher pour se rendre a 200hp mais sa serait plus fiable a long terme. Trouve toi un char manuel et casse toi pas la tete avec une conversion auto/manuel.

English coles notes: B series woul dbe a good starting point for a dd. Although there are some great D15/16 turbo cars out there if he buys and boosts it will eat up cash and possibly reliability depending on how good a job is done. B16 is a fun little engie to start with and along the way swapping parts in to get closer to 200hp will cost more than boosting but the cars reliability will remain higher. Buy a manual right off the bat and don;t mess with an auto to manual conversion.

This is MY OPINION ONLY! There are tons of great turbo builds that have been done on a budget, even other swaps that are also great but the bottom line is it all depends on what he can afford vs what is available in his area.

Dailydriver92

Im not saying that high km in a honda is bad, I am more than aware of what they are capable of achieving. lol. As for my 2.slow engine I agree, all i've done is intake and exhaust as well as more aggresive cams. It is just not worth it and it is far to expensive to fix as well as too long to change something as simple as a timing belt and I had instructions!!

Dailydriver92

Ouais je suis avec toi sur le sujet du B16, je veut trouver quelque chose avec un minimum de rust pour 3000$. Le visuel est important pour moi alors je croit que je vais just faire le intake et exhaust pour le moment et la suspension avec un sway bar and peut etre des plus gros brakes, je vait investir plus tard dans un B16 et je vait le faire proprement. Je sais que j'ai des fautes d'ortographes.. je suis anglophone

In English: Ill look for something with a minimal amount of rust on it for 3000$ which is a good amount to look for a car here, I will invest in a B16 later down the road so ill keep upgrades to the engine minimal such as Intake and exhaust and change the suspension as well as add a Sway bar as well as do the brakes. The winters here are bad so I would need ideas on a kit for suspension that either is not too low as there is alot of ice and snow or has the possibility of being raised and lowered depending on the seasons.

D Griff

Definitely look for something with as little rust as possible, rust is what really kills cars. I would go for something that is already manual. And don't spend $1000 on intake/header/exhaust if you're just going to swap or turbo later, because you won't be able to use most of it. With that $1k, you could be almost half way to a GSR swap or turbo set up.

B16AGUY

I agree, if you're already thinkng of swapping or going boost in the future I wouldn't spend a dime on intake, headers or exhaust until you know which direction you want to go. You say the look of the car is important to you and although I am not of that opinion, you are entitled to yours. You can most likely find something with very little rust and in the QC, MTL area there are probably tons of nice bone stock civics for sale. My suggetion would be to buy a nice unmolested stock civic and then you know you have a nice solid base to build on. For suspension, I personally use Tein SS and they're great. They are adjustable so in the summer i drop it and in the winter I raise it. Make sure if you decide to modify the "look" of the car to save some cash for anti theft solutions as the more you make it stand-out the more thieves will be interested in your car... The Honda sub-culture tends to draw more thieves than others such as VDubs and the like.

lunareg

buy a manual car in the first place, dont even bother converting an auto if you dont have to