thegent

I will be receiving around $2500 USD as a sort of gov't bonus for finishing my studies and I was thinking of putting it all into the civic. I'd like to know if this sort of money can turn it into a 'competitive' track car. The difference between the brands in say, coil-overs and shocks : are certain brands more worth it than others? What mods should get top priority?

I'm thinking of upgrading my rubber, suspension and a sportier-sounding exhaust. I can't make this thing fast in a straight line, but I want it to shred corners and haul some serious G's.

Or should I just drop this idea and get a speedbike first? I kinda fell in love with the idea after I got a ride on a friend's GSX-R 750...

Michalo187

iTrader: (33)

streetbikes=death in my opinion they are very dangerous for everyday your civic will be nice with suspension mods and some bolt ons it can do good in other races just not the straight line like you said. if you want speed its gotta be turbo or swap and it cost way more than 2500 dollars but good luck let us know what you decide

Zzyzx

Sadly this gen civic will probably never be "compeditive"... but you can have a lot of fun with it.

but any way...

First thing that should be changed is wheels and tires. Find your self a light set of 15X7's then wrap them in some sticky rubber. If this is a track only set of wheel's and tires then you can run "R" compounds such as Toyo RA1's though I wouldnt recomend doing so untill you get use to the car with "street" tires on it. (you can severly hamper your learning curve by going to a really sticky tire right off the bat).

After that Dampers.... probably the most over looked part, but it influences just about every aspect of the cars performance, from braking and acceleration to cornering. So, if you go "full" coilover or a spring + Shock, make sure its got a Good adjustible damper on it. Double adjustible would be nice (Seperate Bump and rebound adjustments) but a good single adjustible damper will do fine too (Preferably one that donesnt adjust bump and rebound at the same time)

for springs and anti-roll bars... this kind of comes down to handling preference and driver ability.... You kind of have two options here, you can tune the car to handle really well, which will make the car a bit twitchy and unforgiving to driver error. or you can tune it to be "Idiot proof", where the car handles better then stock, but you can still screw up and not have to worry to much about the car looping on you. (Sadly Idiot proofing is ushually what people are really looking for when they ask for suspension advice, even when they say they want a better handling car)

An then the alignment..... VERY IMPORTANT!!! you'd be supprised what a little tweaking of the alignment can do for handling (hinder or help). First thing's first, Ditch the OEM alignment specs. they are designed to make the car understeer and to maximize tire wear.... meaning they are crap for trying to make the car handle well. Your going to want to run a good amount of negitive camber on the nose, at the Very minimum -1 to -1.5 more if you can. On the rear you dont want to run too little but then you dont want to run too much.. so run a touch less on the rear Vs the front. For toe.... heres where you can really tweak the handling of the car. Toe in on the front will make the car more stable while going in straight lines, toe out will help you initiate turns better... Most people round here run 0 toe on the front, personally I prefer a bit of toe out.. not a whole lot though as toe will eat tires 10X faster then just about any amount of camber. For toe on the rear... Toe out on the rear will GREATLY increas oversteer tendencys... Toe in can stabilize a cars oversteer tendencys.. Tune accordingly. Meaning, if the car understeers too much, add a little toe out on the rear, if it oversteers too much reduce the toe.. and possibly toe in the rear. basically... I can't really recomed a rear toe setting as it greatly depends on how the car's handling. But remember, Toe eats tires!!! so many people run 0 Toe on the rear by default.

Theres a bunch more, and between me, Boilermaker1 and Robbclark... we could probably write a book on how to tune your 7th gen cvic's suspension to the bleeding edge of performance.... but we havn't, so your going to have to ask questions

thegent

^^ awesome post. You so got repped.

JetBlu01

I say **** the civic...use it for daily driving and get a bike...I have a turbo'd D17 (it's okay) and I have a '05 Gixxer 750 and I love my 750 but I only ride it at the track...I've run 10.4 with just slip-on exhaust...u will NOT ever get that adrenaline rush in your 7th gen civic...just my opinion