i have a new 02 civic ex coupe with manual trans and am looking to install some relatively cheap mods ($100-200) to make is perform better without voiding the warranty. where should i start? cold air intake, headers, pullies? i have very limited funds so i'll be adding things as i get the money for them. thanks in advance for the help.

 

aem intake

 

Take out the spare tire, remove the power steering, etc. There are free ways of picking up horsepower/making the car faster. Loosing weight is one of the best ways. Unfortunately your budget isn't large, so those are some of the options you should look at. With $200 bucks, you are basically looking at an intake.

 

the consensus seems to be cai. i've heard aem is the best. what about their new V2 cai? is it worth the extra money?

 

i'm thinkin headers or pullies would void ur warrenty.

 

i've been told that headers won't, but pullies? i'm not sure.

 

If your budget is $200, then yeah, I guess intake is the only way to go. Although I think you're better off just saving your money for something bigger and better in the future.

I mean, an intake is just going to flow & sound nicer, but honestly, you aren't going to really notice any dramatic differences. Unless you're one of the select few capable of feeling a few hp difference.

 

LOL select few, once you start modding cars, you start to notice any little difference, sometimes, I think its in my head. lol But sometimes the butt dyno is accruate.

Blaze

 

header its singular

 

They cannot void your warranty unless the aftermarket part you install causes another part or system to fail.

 

what about short ram intake? i hear it's not worth anything. is that true?

 

short ram sucks up the hot air in the engine bay, at least the stock airbox draws cooler air.

 

if your car breaks down, which isnt likely considering it's an 02, you could swap out an intake and most other bolt-on modifications in a matter of minutes if nessecary

 

just a way of saying it...

 

While this is all good advice, I suggest that you either modify your existing intake components, or build your own CAI. Here is a page of 2k1 AEM CAI install http://slacknet.nu/diy_aem_intake/installed.html
I'm not sure if it is exactly the same (I'm no 7gen civic expert), but should give you an idea of what it should look like. You can get all the tubing and bends from somewhere like jc whitney, I would suspect. You still need a filter if you go this route.

you could modify your existing would probably be cheaper and might be a better option with your realitivly small budget. If your engine intake stuff is the same as what is pictured, then you could pretty easily remove that first box that the incoming air would see and run a tube to either where the intake draws from originally, or a new location. That box is probably just there for noise supression, but check into that further. If you used this configuration, you could also replace your filter with a K&N type filter, and probably see better flow.

I'll give you a few cautions before I go.
PVC pipe is not recommended because it apparently releases harmful gasses when it gets hot, but this is something I don't know too much about.
Secondly, if you do decide to make some tube go somewhere other than the stock location, hydrolocking (filling your engine with non-compressable liquid-water) probably would become a greater possibility. I just want you to be ware.
pvc hydrolock

 

I found a link again to one diy cai site for del sols... http://www.teamdelsol.com/howto/-col...diycoldair.htm

 

the AEM CAI V2 is worth the money. They had a article on Sport Compact Car, a honda civic ex with a AEM cai V2 add 6 more horsepower to the wheels on the dyno, compare to the AEM cai, and short ram

 

Well bro if you only have 200 bucks to work with...I would say...Go to ebay and look a lot. Here are a couple things I recently found off ebay for under 200 dollars to help complete my swap. Of course each was under 200 but these are only examples.

Powertech 4-2-1 header: 170 shipped
AEM short ram intake: 72 shipped
8 pound flywheel: 156 shipped

These are a couple possibilities. I would suggest the flywheel because it will help you drivability wise but if you can't do it yourself...Intake...

FYI: Pullies are a total waste. The amount of weight and rotational inertia benefit would be so unnoticable that your money would have been better spent at a strip bar. At least one of those purchases has some performance ability to it...LOL


[Modified by beau_safken, 12:03 AM 2/18/2003]

 

take your interior out, and remove the resonator

 

yeah i agree, Ebay has alot of good deals and high performance parts for cheap.

you can also strip and gut out your interior and plastic, and take out your power steering belt and pump, that is also a cheap way to may your car lighter and little faster

pullies are a waste of money, all they are is for show


[Modified by Sleepel2_Motol2s, 12:57 PM 2/18/2003]

 

Works great!!!I dont know how much weight I drop but all I can say is that I can feel a difference but its always cold as hell in my car.