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I am having a bit of a delimma. First off I love my Civic. I am dressing it up for the time being. I have a AEM CAI and a Apexi exhaust on it as far as the engine goes. Now here is the question for everyone. Is our engines really worth bolting parts on to? Or are we better off doing en engine swap for a more powerful engine and then slapping a turbo or supercharging from there? I here so much controversy over how bad the 7th gen civic engine is for mods and power gains. Especially the non-VTech DX/LX models. After I am done dressing up I kinda wanted to get into performance, but seeing as how there is such negativity surrounding the possiblity of any real power coming from our stock engines, even with Turbo, will it even be worth dumping any money at all into it. I mean, I hear with custom Turbo setups, some peeps are not even breaking the 200 HP barrier. That's kinda dumpy to me. I have a couple friends that got all frustrated with this car and gave it up for a couple of RSX-Type S and now they are a lot happier. Of course then again it's a more expensive car. I need some info here as what can 'really' be done to improve performance in our engines. Gimmie all the performance modifiers you can think of for Normal Aspiration short of TurboCharging this engine. And if possible, what kind of gains that could 'realisticly' be gotten out of them. Thank for all of your help!

 
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first off why don't you try searching, and your responce to the turbos only producing less than 200 hp - its at 197 how much closer do u wanna get? and thats only 8psi, there are plenty of threads about turbo, n2o boosting for our cars - just search you'll be amazed what you can find [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/IMG]

 
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to answer your question - just as much as a ex can but thats not saying much

 
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Why don't I try searching? Well first off I have searched, and I am currently surrounded by peepes in everyday life that mod cars and know a lot about it. I am going mainly on what they have said, articles that I have read, and some threads I have seen on this website. How much closer do I wanna get to 200 HP? Bro...Bro...Bro....I think you are missing the point here. The point is I want to see 'how much' gains we can squeeze outta our engines. Not how close we can get to 200 HP or ANY mark as it may be. To tell ya the truth, if I can get to 250 HP, that would be perfect...But that doesn't look like it's happening without totally making the engine unreliable for everyday use. (racing only). And as far as Nitrous is concerned....Um, no thanks, I dont' want to destroy my engine. I have heard plenty of stories of Nitrous...And quite frankly, there is a reason it's 'cheap' HP.

 
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no i have used n20 for almost 2 years now with very minimal problems i guess if your a retarded ricer and shoot a 150 shot then it will blow. a turbo actually wears a engine down more than nitrous

 
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*starts ignition* put put put put put put put put

 
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Well, I am not retarded.....At least I don't think so. But I am in-experienced with Nitrous use and therefore I in theory to what you have said would blow my engine to tiny bits. However, if you recall my previous post, I am talking about every day driving longevity AND power...Not just race power.

 
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just let me put it plain and simple so everyone can understand this...
IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY AND TIME, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
for example, if you take your engine to KMS, you too can have a D17 engine pumping out close to 250hp as well!

http://www.7thgencivic.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=3&threadid=60730

this is the thread since im not sure you've found this by searching a little...

 
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Due to a lower compression ratio on the LX engine, the LX engine can take more boost than an EX D17.

 
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Bolt ons do minimal gains to the car HOWEVER that mainly consists of the bolt ons for intakes, exhausts and most headers. The HP 4-1 header with cat (2-piece) and the Kamikaze header seem to be the better bolt ons. You could try changing the cat converter for an aftermarket one. I just think that you shouldn't depend on the traditional intake/header/exhaust route but try out other shyt before you pick those mods and because you already have an intake and exhaust, the right header should show you some gains with them. If you have the $, upgrade your ECU as well.

 
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If you're going to try and get some power that you can appreciate from your engine without turbo or N20, then its gonna cost a little money and take some custom work. Right now besides some of the normal bolt ons there isn't much in the line of cams, intake manifolds, throttle bodies, etc... I would take it you would want maybe 150 hp at least to make the car fun? Or are you looking for more? If you want more then its really gonna cost alot I'd imagine. I think with I/H/E, cam, port and polish, under drive pulleys, chip, etc... the car would come more to life and possibly could hit 150 hp. Thats a rough gestimate of what I've seen from other types of cars. If you're lookin for more than that, maybe a different car would be the way to go? Or just wait and see what happens with parts. SEMA starts today! Good luck...

 
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ECU upgrade? What manufacturer makes one for our cars? I will search around, but never thought of it....Just thought I would post here as well. Thank you all for the input. I do want to do the header....And intake manifold...I know a guy around here that does a lot of custom work. Yeah 150 HP Normal Aspiration sounds good. Yeah I am trying just to make the car more fun...Not really trying to race...[IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/IMG]

Oh yeah and 250 HP is still too perfect for me. But you all think I can only get there by putting a mean *** custom turbo setup in it? I found a shop that will fabricate everything for the engine for around 6 grand. But that's for everything....

 
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ignition upgrade......ecu...headers, cat back... intake..pulley cam gear....
port polish.. bigger throttle body... turbo....should be fast enough..keke