There's a plastic strip in the door jamb on both sides... it looks like ****. am i safe to take those off?
Also.. the plastic strip going horizontal across the bottom is sort of ugly. is there any way i could buy silver ones?
Does anyone have rim suggestions?
And what about aftermarket headlights?
I like my tails... so thats not a biggie.

Also..
Any suggestions to engine mods?
I don't want it to be too heavily modded... i just want it to have decent acceleration, and i want it to sound alright too.. but still maintain good gas mileage.
Its an automatic.. but its the only civic i could talk my mom into throwing 2k down on because it has somewhat low miles.. clean title.. and one owner who was an old guy... and yeahhh.

 

you'd have to drop quite a lot of money to see any real gains in output.

Check out Drag's rims or maybe some Rota slips

I think taking of the horizontal plastic will make it look worse. You could paint it if you want.

check ebay for headlights. Just make sure to seal them when/if you buy them (the original seal sucks)

 

you should paint those black trim pieces, thats what i will be doing in august. can't wait

rims, drop, tint, front lip, type r or si grill, foglight. that should help with appearance quite a bit. for engine work maybe the basic intake header and exhaust.

btw... if you do not like those tails, i am sure tons of people would like to take those off your hands. lol. good choice on keeping them

our car looks so much alike back when i first bought my civic. except mines had some HX rims and my back license plate area is painted not black. no worry about the auto trans, thats what i got too. i got mines back when i didn't know how to drive a manual trans. lol. but for sure my next car is going to be a manual

here's a pic of my civic when i got it

 

If you remove the door sill you will have exposed semi-jagged metal. Under that plastic there is a metal tab sticking straight up running down the length of the door jamb. I wouldn't recommend painting it either. The only color I think that it looks good is the same color as the interior, which it already should be.

Yes, you can paint the side skirts and side moldings.

I like black housing headlights (not projectors) from eBay. They're just as good as any other aftermarket headlights. Seal them up with silicone where the lens meets the housing. Do a thorough job, this will keep moisture from getting in and fogging up the inside of the light.

Glad to hear you like the stock taillights, the ones you have are the best looking kind for 96-00 Civics.

For mods, you can do intake/header/exhaust but it won't do so much for you. You would have to do the DX to EX exhaust conversion if you want to get a header. Sorry to say this, but you won't get much better acceleration even with these mods. Automatic transmissions lose much more power through the drivetrain than manual transmissions and acceleration on automatic Civics is pretty poor. I think the best thing you can do is to swap a D16Y8 head onto your D16Y7 block, which will net you around 25HP.

 

our civics do/did look a lot alike.
Could you point me in the direction of some new grills? i was looking at some already on ebay, but i didn't know which ones were just cheap or wich ones were actually quality. i actually saw a grill that came with some fogs too.
how do i install fogs, if i do decide to go that route?

thanks for the suggestions everyone.
would installing a new intake improve my gas mileage?

 

Intake Cleans up the bay nicely lol thats about it

And for the grill, Ebay grill will be fine, i wouldnt suggest paying for than 25 for the grill... and front/rear lip combo is only about 120$ i believe.... all fit good...

And its all plastic so if it dont fit just right than

• Leave it out in the sun.
• Or take a heat gun/hair dryer too it

Etither one will do it...

I member when my civic wrecked into the fence [Dogs ran away i jumped out, and went chasing them, without pulling E Brake] my plastic bumper was all bent up....
Left the whole bumper in sun for 2 hours and went back out, and Bam it all fit perfectly lol.

 

Okie dokie, I'm a little late to the thread but here it goes

-Drop (1.5-2" if you want to clear up the fender gap, 2.5" in front, 3.5" in back if you want to slam it)
-Wheels (16's are a good choice for 96-00's)
-Type-R grille
-Mugen style front lip
-OEM fog lights
-Type-R style headlights (or black housing projectors)
-short-ram intake
-4-2-1 header (4-2-1 will give a bigger increase in bottom end and mid-range power)
-cat-back exhaust

As far as the side moldings and side skirts (those black pieces), I personally wouldn't recommend painting either of them, but it's possible.

Also, have you considered a 5-speed conversion? It's not too hard to do, and it shouldn't cost more than $1,000.

 

Hmmmn thanks for creating this post, because I am about to purchase an Ex and want to make it look better as well.

 

Both of you please Keep it clean, No body kits or spoilers k SLiiM! :P

 

oh for sure. haha.
i'm not tryin to rice it out..
i just want a clean lookin ride.

How would i go about lowering it? new suspension?
how much would that cost?