I think that bolt ons are are a total waist of money, especially on NA cars, I think people should save there money for forced induction or internal work instead....give me your opions!

 

Well....I feel that if you can get it for a descent price..then its cool....Like my intake, im constructing a CAI right now....that will do just as good as AEM and its only costing me 60 bucks....NO way am i goin to pay 250 for a pipe and filter.

Exhaust systems are a good investment, cuase they do actually open up your car a lil, and they givve your car a nice sound....
I think headers are the best you can do to your car but somtimes they are a lil over priced....

But do YOU consider Bolt ons cams to? I mean you just bolt in new cams and they can do a **** load for ya....If your out there to make serious power with your stock engine(D16, D15) and alls you are going to buy is I/H/E....youll never be fast....at all.

 

way over priced, exactly. On average cold air system-$200, header-$250, cat back system-$500, pulleys-$200. Over a grand 4 nothin but sound. But according to a magazine (and most believe) would give you close to 40 hp.....BULLSHIT

 

After selling "not name brand" parts for a few months, I realize how much AEM, Greddy, and a bunch of others are ripping people off. I have sold OBX-R products for about 6 months now. Most of the stuff on my car is OBX (Business write-off's..w00t), and I do not feel that any of it is wasted. When you strap on that Cold Air Intake and Cat-Back exhaust, you can feel a difference. Whether you can now chirp first, and maybe even second, there is a small difference. The prices you quoted are a little high, but you're probably talking about DC Sports, AEM, etc..and I can't blame you for being upset... If you're going to do bolt-ons, then you aren't going to notice any huge differences between generic/brand name items....except on certain things (header, higher end products (BOV, intake manifolds, etc.). Hope it helps.

jB

P.S.
Look on EBay for your stuff...you can get killer deals on good parts. Magazine ads/internet sites are typically more expensive for the same parts...

 

Look for parts on the www.thepartstrader.com. This is probably the best place to find quality parts.

 

um,mm actually i dont think bolt ons are a weaste of money at all. cause you can put them on you D16Z6 and then if you do B series then you can keep all your bolt ons they are all universal. I bough a intake system off my buddy for 20 buckls and waiting till I get turbo setup redone.

 

to me they arn't a waist at all, you know, you must start somewhere. Don't buy the big brand: greedy, mugen, AEM. Personnaly I think where buck became important is where internal parts interacts, I won't put some cheap jober pistons in my engine, now it's time to get a brand like JE, Eagle, ARP,crane, HOLLEY, JhONSON, B&M. those compagnie make stricly performance peice from long way before import. I don't believe that a CAI costing 250 us $ worth more then a 3" mendrell bent CAI Home mades with a K&N filter just cause it's made stricly for import. My Brother actually build his RSX T-S with brand like MUGEN, COMPTECH, SPOON. I ride on Ractive coil-over, ractive-strut brace and can do the fu*k'n same thing he do, I don't know how many hp i'm puttin down, i know he has more, but i'm not that far behind you know. The peice he buy cost a damn **** load man, like near 2000 can $$ for an exaust or like 300$ for mugen pedals.
Personnaly, I carrefully look at what I bought, for engine internal part I believe in professional, they know way more than me.

 

An article in a past SCC magazine had some dynos charts of different things they did with a 92 b16 hatch. The best part was that the headers of various different brands produced the least of all increases.. So buying a header BEFORE you have any MAJOR mods is a mistake.. do the cai and the exaust and engine swap or whatever before you do headers. I know someone that spent 900$ on mugen headers and for what +9hp over DC... get real.. that extra money could have been put better places.


[Modified by rice_classic, 8:07 AM 5/14/2002]

 

Intake doesn't do much unless it is pulling cold air, and even then it's minimal. Make your own. Its easy, and you can be much more proud of it in the end.

Header.... IMO probably does the most for a D16A6. The stock unit is a little restrictive, and with creative runner lengths, bends, etc, you can actually make power. Read up on what to look for. Cheap headers usually don't do much. This is an instance where the brand can matter just because of the quality and shape of the pipes, flanges, etc. Many of the cheap headers out there end up leaking at the flanges after they've been bolted down more than once.

Cat Back.... mostly for sound, but worth it if you go with a small turbo or something later.

Pulleys.... I know some guys that dyno'd an integra and a civic both with and without AEM pulleys. These were back to back runs, and on both cars they got ZERO power out of them. There were no measurable differences between the two runs on either car and that was with various other bolt ons on the integra.

Cam gears... On DOHC motor yes. On SOHC with stock cam, not worth the money.

 

um yeah just make a short ram air CAI and then put your front passenger side headlight on 4 clips like me. When you get to the race track pop out the light and you got free flowing cold air. Unless of coars you live where it is hot like anywhere thats not canada! hehe

 

i agree with the originator of the post. i think bolt-ons are a complete waste of money. you can have i/h/e and get a maximum of what 7-10 hp. why bother when you could do a swap or turbo or nitrous that yield 50+ hp gains.
esp. exhausts. i've seen dyno chart after dyno chart where a cat-back adds 2 or 3 hp! you pay 400-600 $$$ just for two lousy hp. c'mon!
like said above, bolt-ons just make your car sound good and in some cases look good. but **** like swaps, cams, and FI is where the hp is at.

 

WASTE!

I started with a DX 1.5L with bolt ons "I/E/H and it probabaly made me slower

Then I swapped in a ZC, did the same thing and didnt get much out of it.

I bought a Greddy turbo....now that was money well spent!

Costs about 2,000 for install and turbo, I probabaly wasted 1,500 on bolt ons.

 

Bolt-on's look and sound cool, and if you get some actual real gains... good for you. Bolt on's suck unless you have a B16 or better. But still money not well spent unless you get them for next to nothing. Don't do it, go FI and do it right. Then you will feel the HP and be faster instead of sounding fast.

 

First of all....

IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE MOTOR.

Just like some one said, D15's and D16's unless turbo are not worth buying I/H/E parts for.

NOW, if you save some pennies and do a D16 build up (same price as a ZC) + homemade turbo setup, you won't be kicking your own *** for paying money for something that doesn't really do any thing for power.

Also IMO:

D series I/H/E = just sounds like ****, and your bound to get laughed at.
B series I/H/E = getting there...
D series Turbo =
B series Turbo =

 

Save your money and put it towards a swap, fi, or a serious internal buildup of your stock motor. Bolt ons will gain minimal hp as compared to the above three mods.

 

get a swap...then do bolt on's

 

one prime example that bolt ons suck (even 4 b series) is the camparison done by Super Street between the civic si and the aem si, with pretty much every bolt on possibleand a huge *** price difference the aem si was only 2ths faster than the stock si 15.7-15.5, thats not ****. Also the last time i was at the track some guy had a crx si same as me, except he had intake, header, chip, cam gears, pulley, and some other bullshit and swore it would "run like hell".......and his time was 16.5 while mine was 16.2 with my homemade intake and slipping tranny. Then he tried to tell me he was spinning thats why he was so slow even though his 60' was better than mine

 

Forced Induction, technically speaking, is a bolt-on mod. I mean you bolt it to the engine.

But I understand what you're trying to say though. But you have to think, power isn't everything, depending on circumstances.

If you are a street guy, you might need that turbocharger on the freeway. If you are a drag guy, that turbocharger will definitely be needed. If you track your car or you get on the autocross, you're basically better off with an NA setup. Reason I say this is because, with all the horsepower the turbocharger makes(Yes you can run a turbocharged car on the track) you really do not need all of it unless you are on the straight away...but tracks consist of more turning than straightaways.

It just depends on what you plan to do with your car.


[Modified by iloveracing, 10:01 PM 5/14/2002]

 

I do not consider bolt-on mods to be a waste. True, they won't get you big HP gains on a stock engine. But they do get you something. And if you go with good components and a CAI, you gain some much-needed low end and midrange power. Furthermore, good bolt-ons provide a good foundation for further engine work. If, for instance, upgrading your cams will be MUCH mroe rewarding if you have already done bolt-on mods. And bolt-ons make a day and night difference when you do an engine swap. The stock components are bad enough on the stock engine. But they become downright HORRIBLE on a hybrid. The stock airbox has a tiny filter element that will literally choke a heavy-breathing B-motor to death. And that 1.325 inch tubing on a stock DX doesn't help matters, either. SCC's B16A Civic HB went from having 133WHP before bolt-ons to over 152WHP after them. This is almost 20HP! And I managed to gain almost .5 seconds simply by going from the stock airbox to an AEM CAI for a 1999-2000 SI on my B16A CRX. So although bolt-ons will not net 40HP, they are FAR from worthless.


[Modified by StorminMatt, 4:08 AM 5/15/2002]

 

i like the second to the last choice in the vote....y waste money for bolt ons on a sorry engine when u can save for a better swap and tehn hook that one up?! well i heard someone say he got some universal bolt ons that he could use on his new engine so thats kewl too!....but if u want power, do a swap...if u wanna prove that D15's can still be fast, then goodluck and tune hard my friend!.....i say, jus get bolt ons if u know they will help in the performance of ur car....i mean, its all up to tuning preference., aint it.....say fer instance, 4-2-1 headers to 4-1 headers....one mite want a 4-2-1 header cuz of its low to mid range power, but someone else wants the 4-1 cuz of top end power craziness.....and people have their preference of intakes and exhausts cuz of the variety....but alotta people have different ideas in how and why they use bolt on parts....people like em jus cuz their kewl, and i agree too! it sounds kewl in ur car, and others think it helps in performance, like in all the dyno tests in the magazines and stuff...either way, as long as u got teh money to spend, buy it for ur own preference, i guess....or u can always save ur money! thats kewl too!


[Modified by SPL-EF9, 8:14 PM 5/14/2002]

 

swaps
oem
custom builds
stock/sleeper look
bolt-ons-- not worth it IMO--been there and done with it.

 

I have a 89 hatch with a B18A... my mods are as follows:

1990 B18A block
1999 B18B Head, Intake manifold and Throttle body
JDM B16A SiR Transmission
JDM B20Z Cams
JDM SiR Crank Pulley
JG Cam gears
1998 Integra Type R Flywheel
ACT Stage 3 street disc
TODA Pressure Plate
Magnacore Spark Plug Wires
MISC Intake
DC Sports 4-2-1 ceramic header
Tanabe Super Hyper Medalion Exaust
HASport Motor Mounts
1990 Integra PR4 ECU
1996 GSR Fuel Pump
97 DelSol B16 fuel rail
B&M Fuel Pressure Regulator

I can say that i have noticed a huge huge diffrence from when it was stock!!


Vrrroooooooommmm!!

 

Bolt-ons are a huge waste of money... $2000 for name brand bolt-ons = 18-20 HP or $2000 on a turbo/supercharger ( 500 for NOS !!! ) = 50-100HP... ummm, its not rocket science... Get a cheap filter, cheap header, and have the local muffer shop run custom 2''/2 1/2'' piping, and Spary the **** out of it !!!

 

89 EF How much did you pay for the setup though? You could have bought a Turbo and gained more HP for less money. Going the NA route costs big bucks if you want really good performance

 

There are many dfferent people out there. That is for sure.

With that said, there is also many different things people like to do to cars.

If you like building up a 5 dollar intake, all power to you!
If you like huddling over a engine with 500 HP, all power to you!

As long as your having fun with your car, nothing else matters. That is after all why we got into this hobby anyways, isn't it?

I do feel however, that an enthusiest should stay within there current means of build knowledge. If you have tons of money, but don't know a damn thing about Turbo setups, I think You should have to have the desire to find the information about the setups, before you go out and spend.

I also feel that any true enthusiest should have respect for other rides, and also not to forget who they are when they build their car.

My overall point in all this jabbering is:

if you like spending 6,000 dollars on a N/A setup because you find Turbo's are to complex, that's fine with me. As long as your having fun, and your being true to your self, that's all that really matters.




[Modified by Bryson, 11:33 AM 5/15/2002]