I have about 13,000 dollars to spend on my car. This will be a daily driver. I plan on purchasing a civic with a blown engine on the cheap. I have never really worked on engines before, but have been doing a lot of reading up on the subject. Taking into account that I am going to be spending most of the money on the engine, (minus rims, lowering springs) what would you guys do? I am hoping to get 300 hp at the wheels. Is this possible? Any parts suggestions or advice would be appretiated, thanks.

 

ill tell you what to do, take that money buy a 92 240sx swap in an SR20DET and have a nice RWD setup

 

why on earth would you buy a honda , let alone a wrong wheel drive car to play around with.

with 13g's you can invest in something that is rare and gets attention even if its not the fasest car ( take the NSX for example, by todays standards is hella slow, but people still look at it as you drive by)

at the same time 13g's isnt gonna buy you a 10 second beast either, because an ultra fast car requires alot of pateince, expert knowledge and lots of trial and error to calibrate various little things.

personaly i would never BUY a fwd comuter to play around with, it just so happens that i HAVE one and have no choice but to play around with it.

a modern RWD sports car ( not the v8 monstrocities of the past) is better than any fwd civic you can hype up in terms of speed and drivability. Sure you hear of people getting civics to do 10 seconds, but have you ever seen those cars? the persons took extra care when building them and i'm sure had more than one failure along the way.

here is my advice

1. take that money, and invest in mechanic courses, welding courses, aero dynamics and suspension theory books/videos/seminars etc,
2. make friends at your local dyno, because if your gonna do this seriously your gonna want to dyno after every little tune you do to see what exactly happend and fine tune it further if there is room for improvment.
3. make friends at a local junkyard or obtain a source for used parts
4. read read read and read more.

if you want to play around with a car, buy a busted *** geo metro and play around with it till it blows, hell, maybe if you do the right things you can actualy make it faster, then sell it off.

 

Very wise advice. My Mom always told me (yes, I'm a momma's boy) that people are a product of the movies they watch, the books they read, and the people they associate with. You need to surround yourself with the right people and research, research, research.

Be smart, and take your time. The thing that separates successful people from lowlifes is that lowlifes need instant gratification. Successful people are willing to wait on their returns.

Best of luck.

 

If it's your first engine you're gonna need a lot of tools I'm sure you don't have. Also I'd invest in a helms manual once you'd bought the car.

 

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hell yes!!!

 

Buy an EF, a first gen B16A, a good turbo kit, and strip the EF of everything not absolutely necessary. Get some decent wheels with sticky tires. Then go to the drag strip and if you did everything right you should return home with a glove box full of 12 second timeslips all for less than 5 grand. Then take the other 8 grand and invest in something nice (like real estate, or a Nissan Silvia).

 

use the money as a down payment on a brand new car.

 

A new car loses 20-30% of its value when you drive it off the lot, plus you go into debt and have no money left for mods and tuning. Obviously, this guy is interested in modifying his car, or else he would be posting on a Factory forum. No one wants a stock car! At least no one I know. Even if I had a Ferrari or Porsche whatever, I am sure I could find something to make it better. That is what this forum is all about, right?

 

buy a nice luxury car