Alright guys
obviously a noob, I'm sure this question has been posted a million times with a million answers, sorry lol

alright i just got my 97 civic ex a few months ago. whats the first thing I should do to the engine for better performance? cold air-intake?



Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

my budget can be pretty wide. turned 16 october of last year and getting a job asap (any suggestions on that too? haha)(plus parents will help me pay for most of what i might need) . i wanna work somewhere that i can learn about tuning and stuff. pep boys? anyways...

thanks guys / girls

 

You can start with a generic ebay cold air intake but put a name brand air filter on it, like K&N. They're a forum sponsor. Cheap ebay filters are junk, but a pipe's a pipe.

You can get exhaust system after that, but you won't see the gains you want unless you really build the engine. Pep boys might be an okay place to start. There, or autozone, or any parts place. Just talk to people, make connections in your local car community.

 

Yeh, thats what Im planning on doing tomorrow, but I was gonna get a CAI at a shop. a pretty nice one.

What is the next thing I would need to add to build it up? Sorry for the noob questions. Im lookin everywhere on the site too, but tryin to get my car specific instead of going off other people.

Thanks for the help

 

well that being a ex you already have 127whp. with a sri, another short gain of hp.
umm biggest bet you got is boosting if you really want power or swap the engine out and get something else.

 

If you buy a CAI at a shop don't pay them to install it. It's ridiculously easy and a great place to start learning.

 

Im gonna google boosting, and look all about that. Any other posts anyone can refer me to about available swaps for my 97 ex?

 

Seriously, you need to ask yourself this:

1) How much money are you able to going to have for this? Or is money just not a factor at all?

2) How much power do you ultimately want? 200hp? 300hp? More?

With those answered, we can help a little more.