Civic 99-00 Si Question

Alright,

To let you know right off the bat, I have next to no experience or solid knowledge of the technical categories of imports and tuners.

Though what I can tell you, is that I've been doing some looking around lately, mainly to find an Import that caught my eye and is affordable.  What I had found was the Coupe Honda Civic Si 1999 or 2000.  I did minimal research to see EXACTLY what set those two cars apart, though the only thing that was brought to my attention was that the 2000 model had something like 60-hp more than than the 1999.

So, that is what I do know.  I believe I'd like to go after that certain car.  What I'd like to know is certain things I can do to the car to customize it making it faster, stronger, sportier... and faster!  Now, don't necessarily take that out of proportion.  I'd like to upgrade the car NOT to the point where thats all that car is all about necessarily.  Though, to the point where it is customized a little more than your average Civic annnnd if some random hot shot pulls up to you on the free way you could show him the way home!

I've looked over some basics to upgrading parts under the hood, but with my utter lack of knowlege behind it, I wouldn't know where to begin.  Which is why I was hoping I could consult you all.  One of the things I DEFINATELY would like to do to this car would install a Turbo Kit with a BOV.  Just a sucker for that sound.  Though after that I'm lost.  I don't know anything about the boosts, brands, intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds, etc etc.

So mainly I was just hoping that maybe you all could suggest some "configurations" or just parts and pieces and the brand setup that would compliment my interests and intention of use for that car?

I appreciate it  

I can tell you off the bat that you're going to be told to find a better platform for tuning. It's a wrong wheel drive, and to get an engine that'll hold boosting you have to rebuild the whole thing. The experienced tuners will come through and flesh out the specifics of my post, but that's it in a nutshell.  

Awesome,

Thats why I've come here for, hopefully these things can be layed out for me.  At the sametime though I'm still trying to stay "fun and affordable" if this is possible  

For starters, what is your definition of "affordable"? 'Cause mine is like $100 dollars, and that's why I'm just here to learn and Don't drive a fast car.  

I think this car would make a great first tuner platform, one to practice working on cars and learning how to perform basic maintenance before getting something something more advanced like a turbo car. I would consider a stock (or near stock like rims exhaust intake and lowering) 2000 civic si for my daily, as much as I dislike the fact that 99% of honda tuners I have run into, dont know [censored] about cars or how to tastefully mod one.

a couple weeks ago I Got nearly killed by some [censored] in a primered grey bodykit prelude, doing a ricer flyby at 70mph in a 40mph zone in crowded traffic with a redlight coming up just to show off in front of me,nearly hit me, and then cut me off when he found he didnt have enough room to slow down and almost plowed into a bunch of cars. but he was clearly jealous that I had a MUCH faster car than him, and because he was driving a honda i have gotten a negative opinion of honda tuners, but mostly bad drivers.


unfortunately, as sporty looking and nice the 99-00 civic Si is, it is a very unfriendly tuner platform. These cars were built for grocery getting economy cars, but since a ton of people own them, people have managed to make them into cars built for racing, out of shitloads of cash, time, work and modding virtually every component on the car. Even the so called "fast" version of the car, the civic si, only runs pathetic 16's in the quarter. I will give you this though, if you were to tune a honda, better to start off with a somewhat tuneable motor like the DOHC B16a than something weak like a SOHC d16y. One thing about hondas, is for all the extra topend that vtec gives, it takes away from your torque bigtime. HP numbers dont make you fast alone, the 12second vans on turbominivan.com only have 200whp, but run 12's because they got 400lbft. Most VTEC hondas have like 160hp, but only 105lbft of torque or something really weak like that, which really takes away from them being able to smoke anything in the straightline.

There isnt a 60hp difference between a 99 and a 00 civic si there might be a 60hp difference between the civic dx vs the civic si, i looked into them when i use to want a honda del sol, they used the same  torqueless 160hp b16a from 1994 til 2000.

The cost to tune a honda on a hp to dollar ratio or ET to dollar ratio is very costly, and doesnt add much to the resale value. For one thing, there FWD so when you accelerate, it takes the weight off your drive wheels which loses traction and makes for shitty 60ft times and bad launches. 2.0 60ft's in a fwd car is considered really good, for my mr2 thats considered Par.

Turbo it? The B16a comes with a 10.5:1 compression ratio if I recall, its 10 or 10.5. That is really high, and makes it hard to boost much on. You might spend 1000 dollars on a turbo kit, but you wont be able to run much more than 6-8psi on it which is next to nothing.

The stock internals for civics are really weak. The only way you can run a reasonable amount of boost is to sleeve the block and put in forged pistons, and replace most components on the motor. This can be very costly, figure several thousand for the rebuild and the parts you would be approaching 5000-6000+ into the motor before you could run any reasonable amount of boost. And if you boost spike or something before you build your internals, well boost on a honda often leads to blowing the motor, and for some reason honda motors r really expensive, 3000 bucks for a torqueless b18c1. Whenever you see a 12 second honda the only reason they are fast is because they have a 2page list of engine mods, and 10000 bucks put into them. For me, If i wanted to run a 12, all I need is these mods in this order, Intake, exhaust, downpipe, Manual Boost controller, upgraded Intercooler, upgraded turbo, a fuel pressure regulator, some kind of fuel tuning piggyback like an SAFC or Greddy Emanage and dyno tuning and Im running 275whp and 12's. Not a bad return for 2000-2500 bucks total invested.

Than youll run into traction issues, I am not sure but I doubt the civic si came with an LSD from the factory, so you got to figure in some new rims that have wider tread, LSD's go for a thousand bucks usually and a stronger clutch is practically required if your racing it, figure in a lightweight flywheel while your putting all those engine mods in, thats another 1000 bucks usually.the rims though can be had for cheap depending on which rim and tire you go with just dont get a sears brand or something that screams cheap ass. there could be suspension issues from lots of hp too since your car wasnt built to handle double its hp from the factory. by the time you got a good 10000 into a civic Si, you probably still couldnt touch my car, which only has maybe a $1000 in actual engine mods. and like 500 bucks in suspension mods plus my rims, cuz my drivetrain and motor was setup for racing straight from the factory. numerous wins in WRC and JGTC.

However, there is a way to get the neat bov sound w/o having to build the internals and buying a turbo kit. Buy a car that came with a turbo from the factory.

I see these honda tuners that spend 3000 bucks for a b18c1 swap for there civic's for maybe a 30-60whp gain over what they originally had. Meanwhile, I can get a 30-60whp gain for my 2.0 turbo by spending 500 bucks on a new turbo, because my [censored] came from the factory built. My stock internals have been known to handle nearly 3x the hp it came from the factory, as much as 450whp has been made. That means I could smoke ferrari's, vettes, vipers, and still not have to touch my engines internals. cars that came turbo'd from the factory tend to be more dependable as daily drivers since they were meant to be boosted and often have failsafes built into the engine to keep them from blowing, like last week I boost spiked to 25psi, instead of blowing the motor which could have easily happened, my knock sensor went first as it was designed to and the engine went into safe mode making it impossible to blow by retarding the timing and restricting boost.

Long story short, get a turbo car if you want something that can be made fast for cheap and daily driveable. If you want to get 20mpg around town, 12 second quartermiles and dailydriveability, look no further, get a car boosted from the factory.

Youll have to drive responsibly and know your way about how to work on a car. If you dont know much about the car, or respect a turbo car or drive like an asshat, youll wind up either blowing a motor or wrapping yourself around a telephone pole, these cars take mature, knowledgeable drivers.

For cheap speed look into these cars
1990-99 GSX eclipse -reliability may be a factor
SR20DET or RB25DETT swapped 240sx
Subaru WRX
2.5L turbo dodge caravan, omni or Daytona
MKIII Supra, 1jz preffered, but 7mgte powered ones can be worked with.

If u gotta get a civic, get one that already has a boosted b18c1 installed, atleast that way your partially there already to owning something fast. Id say a boosted honda with built internals is good for running a 12.  

haha, yeah I can relate with you on that one.  As for a car alone goes, I like to try and stick around 5-10,000 (Just a lot of saving) for that little, so it probably doesn't keep my options very diverse... as for other "components" and what not, just more saving... once we start looking at 17.5k 20k+ thats a bit scary for me.  Though I'd hope to do the same and learn as well  

Very imformative.  Though I have to admit I'm going to have to look deeper into some of the things you have told me.  I am one of the really under experienced people that you're talking about.  On the other hand though, I don't THINK I'm a bad "asshat" driver, and not only would I necessarily like to be a tuner, I'd like to know what I'm doing and be a formidable one.  Though all the while having the knowledge, do dailey driving, but blow away most anything that would want to go  on the freeway.

One of the main reasons I chose the the 99-00 Honda Civic Si was because one, it's manual.  Two, I liked the more "cosmetic" features about the coupe, being a manual as well.  Though it sounds like to do the few things I would like to do under the hood it's going to cost me a lot more money than it should, and if I don't invest that money behind what I'd want to do I take a risk of blowing the whole motor.  I did notice that the torque was somewhat disgusting low on that model though, so... I guess I'll try and look around more.  I wish I could say that I could go out and drop 15k-20k on a car right away, but I just don't see it happening anytime soon, or soon enough I guess I'd put it.  Cheap speed, that looks good... how typical and fanboy right? Though unfortunately I'm just a middle class dude trying to have a little fun.  I really appreciate your input though. Thanks  

If you want something that could be fun and affordably look at a nissan/Datsun 280z w/ a manual. If it runs now it will already be fun, but after that you have the clutch hole, and people have done about every swap imaginable to that car. I have seen them on Ebay w/ chevy 350s and last week I saw on w/ a Nissan SR20DET. Good luck.  

Many people have no experience what so ever on these forums, like me. I am on here to learn, and I have and im still learning.


PS: Hopefully its not too late to ask but, what parts do you mean by engine internals, sirscr0tum?  

the bottom end, like the block, the pistons, the piston rings, the ringlands, the rods. All of that stuff can be very expensive to build up and for some cars you have to build that up before you can get more than 300+whp.

If your into the better looking cars and comes with a manual, turbo car should also meet this. Turbo cars tend to have more aggresive styling from the factory and thusly do not require a bodykit to look fast or good.

the mr2 turbo, the 3rd gen rx7, the 97-99 eclipse gsx and the supra turbo, all of those cars can turn plenty of heads without a bodykit and people know there fast just by seeing them, even in there stock form.

I kept my mr2 stock bodied, added some rims, an exhaust and lowered it, and it looks like a wolf in wolf's clothing.  

Dont listen to this person. The SI is a great choice for your first tuner, and I would reccomend finding someone experienced with Hondas who is willing to teach you about your car and maybe even let you help tune it. ( I did this with mine, and is how I learned alot. My mechanic even charges me reduced rates now when I help him on mod's I want to learn).  

There isnt any misinformation in that post, maybe you should accurately explain how an all aluminum block NA 1.6L 4cylinder is by any means fast short of a motor rebuild for forced induction and a turbo kit.  

^turbo build wont get you faster times on an autoX course.  in fact due to traction issues it would probably add a second or two to your times.  my 2007 Si makes for a great autoX vehicle with good tires, and an HFP suspension kit.  The suspension kit is made by honda which allows Si owners to compete in stock class.  i'd love watching someone do an autoX in a high hp car, and get there ass handed to them by someone driving a bone stock 99' civic hatchback.  

I have a 2000 civic si everything is stock injen internals. non turbo, just changed wheels, ajustable coilovers, full 2 1/4 exoust. did a 14.5 1/4 mile. with a sliping cluch had to change it a wheek later. check out the stats and set up on this website. have the picture there also, looks sick. hopefuly ile do 13's next time with my stage 2 cluch and 9 pounds flywheel.
http://www.dragtimes.com/Honda-Civic-Timeslip-11859.html