I'm currently in the process of buying a 2002 Honda CRV, 140,000 miles, AWD, Manual. I'm getting this car for college and obviously wanna see if I can make it go faster, hoping to get 200hp ish out of it, I don't care much about numbers, more it being preppy off the line and able to keep up with my friends a4. It seems from what I've seen that if I can find a junked tsx of the same vintage, I can swap on the intake, head, and oil pump. I am relatively broke and am not trying to grenade my engine or anything, mostly looking to see how much I can get out of this engine on a budget. The current plan is to install the RBB intake off of a tsx I can find, along with the oil pump, type s if I can find it. Sounds like the Honda Element sway bars should fit on and get rid of a lot of body roll so will try to get some of those too.. I haven't found a headers option (not sure if the TSX headers are that much better). would a new exhaust be necessary for my goals? The OBX is honestly a bit loud for my taste, and finally, k-pro... not sure if I'll have the money for it unless I can talk the buyer down a decent bit. I also just want to say, I am very maintenance-conscious. I want my car running perfectly inside and out, this isn't my first vehicle by any means, I switched from working on Volvo Redblocks to make my life a bit easier as I've heard Hondas can be. I promise I will make sure the diff fluid is good, u joint, engine mounts, and valve adjustments etc. How would you all recommend hitting my goals?

 

A general recommendation: get your tuning solution set up first, then add engine performance mods as funds allow.

something that may be worth looking into is going with a 205/50R15 tire. In this size there are plenty of performance oriented tires to choose from. This has the added benefit of shortening the overall final drive ratio which will feel like a torque increase, and it will lower the CG by about and inch and a half without much impact on ride comfort. it will probably look funny, and you're speedometer will be off... but you'll like driving it more.

for performance on a budget you want to focus on the things you can be sure will make/free-up power. the TSX oil pump and aftermarket exhaust are two things that probably aren't going to make much difference initially. I would focus on the head and intake manifold swap. at that point a good tuner can tell you on the dyno if you need free-er flowing exhaust.

check out Suspensions Explained and Julian Edgar on youtube. They can be a little dry.. but both do a great job demystifying suspension design and modification.

 

Does k-pro work fine with the gen2 crv? I've heard a lot of mixed stuff about it, and thanks for the advice! I've done some more digging, and it seems like the k24a2 head would lower my low-end power where the k20a2 would be an increase across the board, so I may wait till I can find an rsx type-s to scrap for that. Do you think a k-pro and rbb intake would be sufficient for my power goals? And I'll check the vids out, my suspension knowledge is lacking lol.