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hey guys i need some serious help. i have never owned a piston engine car until igot my 2003 EX, well i sold my Turbo II RX-7 because it was too easy to make fast and it drank gas like a V-8, so I got my civic because all the aftermarket support and plus it will be much more exciting to say i have a fast civic than another fast rotary. anyways ive been researching like crazy and found that our d17a2 engines suck, that we should get a d16 or heaven forbid another b18. well i refuse to believe that the d17 cant throw down decent numbers. i am going to go all motor, which will consist of crower stage 2 cams and valvesprings a mild port and polish job with a 3 angle valve job. now i think the d17 loses all its ponies in the intake manifold and exhaust ports, correct me if i am wrong. so i am also having my friend make a sheet metal intake manifold keeping the center mounted throttle body and am going to port match the intake manifold and exhaust ports to the gaskets. now i found something interesting and will probably open a world of hope for us d17 owners. the civic GX shares the d17 blocks with our cars but they have 12.5:1 compression to burn the natural gas, so would it be possible to use the GX pistons in the EX and would the rods be stronger in the GX as well, just a thought. i wonder if anybody on here has tried because the GX pistons are only 30 bucks a piece, so it will be worth a try.

 
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good luck man....you should just go turbo

 
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i love the turbo sound and performance but i dont like the expense and having to worry about wear and tear on my internals from boost, besides if i wanna go turbo ill just spend 2500 and buy another TII rx7, get a 40 buck boost controller get my exhaust dumped and run low 13s....i wanted a challenge but from what i can tell i bought the wrong year civic....anybody want to take over my car note, hehe

 
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always the k-swap option

 
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going all motor on the D17A2 will pretty much be a waste of time. you might as well get the 6th gen civic if you want to go NA only

 
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Searching the site I found a place jdmfabtech.com who makes intake manifolds for our cars. Spoke with a guy there and he said this upgrade provides minimal gains and "...for someone looking to build a really serious D17 setup [this] should be considered last on a list of major upgrades."

I too was considering replacing the intake manifold.

 
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Good Idea, Working On The Internals Is Always The Best Way To Start

 
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skip fabbing up a sheet metal manifold and use the d16y8 mani. port that if you have to. don't even bother taking step one unless you are ready to buy aem ems for aorund 1200 bux plus tuning. The ems is the only way to properly controll D17 ignition timing, and get the most out of an na engine. if you stuff the gx pistons in there it will detonate non stop. A member a few years back tried that and had bad detonation. Now you might want to get the gx pistons and shave down the domes and clearence for a big cam to bring it a little closerr to earth 11:1 ish
I believe the rods are all the same, even the gx. although i am not positive.
Most of the port work will be openeing up the tiny exhaust ports and a little cleaning up of the intake. with the higher compression a decent port job stage 2 cam and ems you should be able to obtain close to 140-150 whp.
when you look at the dollar amount and time it would take its really not worth it but, if your like me you like a challange. I stopped at 133 whp and now i am swapping.

 
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damn thats it....i thought that with high comp pistons and a big cam with port and polish on a great dyno tune would net at least 170whp. wow that is a big waste of my hard earned money....im hoping that somebody will take over the note on my car and trade me a del sol si because im going back to school now so im going to use my bonus money to put another down payment on the car so ill only owe like 11k on it, not bad for a 03 EX with 52k. so if anybody is interested let me know, with bank financing the payments would only be less than 200/mo

 
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hmm so youve been on the rx7forum huh.. do you know ta rx7 and rxdad?

 
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I think you'll miss your rx7 very much soon, if not already.

typical turbo d17's are low-ish 14 second cars ... typical k-swapped cars are 13-14 second cars. unless you put a ton of money into it, you won't be reaching 12's.

 
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If you want to go NA/all motor, your best bet is to swap the engine out for some persuasion of K20, even with a lot of work on the D17 you won't be pulling the numbers that a K20A is pulling. Someone did try GX pistons a long long while back I think, but I can't remember his/her name, I think it was a girl (?), and I think she said gains were relatively good, but I can't recall any concrete figures/dyno graphs being posted, so in truth its probably anyone's guess.