new car! need advice

ok...so im getting a 02' civic ex sedan. i was planning to make it all better..but i really dont know how. what would be some good upgrades/mods to make my car a hella lot faster and better looking?  

haha thanks for the advice. but does anyone want to go step by step on how to improve my car?  

well...im just trying to make my car better and IF price didnt matter, how could i make this car much faster?  

oh...dang...crap. thats a lot of stuff. and money. haha ok...here's another question. if i had 8000...what would be a good car to buy that would be speedy and not too much more to mod?  

alright, so buy a car thats doesnt need a swap or a rebuild and it should be light. but some of these terms i dont even understand. im kinda a "rookie" when it comes to cars. i just got interested and want to learn about the automotive stuff. but ill figure it out. alright thanks.

now next question, where would be a good place to look for the cars you suggested that have already been moded? here?  

oh yea. if i wanted to, what would be some low budget things i could do to the civic?  

It all depends on where you live to look for cars that already have light mods.  But as for the civic;  What do you want to do with it?  Because if you just wanna drag it then ignore everything I'm about to say.
 So let's say you just  want a fun, and fast car to drive outta your Civic.  That's pretty easy to do.  The fist thing you usually want to do to  a car you just wanna go over the speed limit in is to upgrade the suspension.  Almost completely depending on how serious you want to get with the Civic.  After you have done that, you'll be surprised how much fun the car is to drive just because of how well it can handle it's meager amount of stock HP.  I forgot to mention that with a suspension upgrade you'll prolly want to put  on a nicer wheel/tire setup as well, if you haven't already.  Besides from looking not much better, the newer wheels and tires will give you a better grip.  After that, if you still like your Civic look into getting the engine rebuilt, even if it's not by you, so you can start moding it with forced induction goodies.
 That's  about all I can tell you unless you tell me more specifics on what you wanna do with the car and such.  Hope this helps.  

~Benn~  

thanks benn. specifially i would like just to make my car faster with more hp. thats basically it. haha but i know with my civic its not really gonna come cheap. unless you know of something. and also...what would be some good base cars that i could get? just out of curiousity  

Yah, I know of no cheap way to make a FWD Civic fast.  It is doable though...  With lots of money and sponsors.  But since most of us don't have those, I'd recommend getting the engine rebuilt with a new block, Intake manifold, exhaust manifold, etc.  So you can Turbo-charge or whatever it is you wanna do to it.  It won't make it a really fast car but faster.
 As for good base cars your mostly looking for RWD - Rear Wheel Drive - You probably know what that means but I don't want to assume either way.  Front Engine, and stock Turbo'd.  Some cars that you might look into are:
   

Stars mean Turbo'd -- Good --
                                                                     *Nissan 240sx
*Nissan Silvia  
*Nissan 300z
*Nissan 300zx
*Nissan 350z (Kinda spendy)
*Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX (other models are FWD)
*Mitsubishi Lancer
Honda S2K
Ford Mustang ( If it's all you can find )
*Volkswagen Jetta  
Volkswagen Golf
Toyota Carola  
Chevrolet Corvette  ( I don't know your price range )
Infinity G35 ( Not very realistic )
Lexus IS400
**Mazda RX-7 and RX-8
*Nissan Skyline
Toyota MR2
*Toyota Supra

I hope that helps

~Benn~  

oh thanks! lol that helps a lot...but what are the price ranges for these cars...cause im not exactly rolling in the money like most of us.  

Yah, not many people really have the money we just try and piece cars together.  It works...  Anyways the list of cars that I gave you range  in price from probably a really crappy MR2 for like $500 bucks to laying out 70k plus  on a Corvette.  Seeing as theres a $65,000 price range right there, I'll give you some estimates ish on some of the cars.  It is as follows: Just kidding, since your not filthy rich let's rule out the Silvia, Skyline, 350z, S2K, Corvette, G35, and probably the Supra too, but you might find one cheap.  But be careful buying Supra's, this is just my opinion and I know someone is going to say otherwise, but up until 1994, Supra's...  Weren't all that great...  Anyways, here's some prices, and you'll find them higher and lower depending  on every variable known to man while buying a used car.  So here goes:


The 300 series for Nissan - 7-9k in pretty good cond.
Eclipse - 4-6k
Mustang (older body) - 4500-7k
Jetta - 7-10k
Nissan 240sx - 4-6k
Supra -  20k - You can pay more than your house cost for a Supra if you wanted to.
RX-7 - 12 - 17k  But again, you could pay ungodly amounts for one.
MR2 - 3 -7k
Carola - 1 - 3k  And their pretty good bases too.    


Not a huge list but it should help if you need more prices just ask.  

Once again, hope it helps.

~Benn~