Honda Car Forum

I have the 125 HP 1.6 liter VTEC engine with a five speed manual. I don't want turbo lag, but yet superchargers don't add as much power. What do you think?

YEA!!!!!!!! do both!!!!!!!!!!!

Turbo

Neither, go with a compressor.

Neither, buy a REAL car.

Definitely turbo!

Well, the first thing I would do is I would take the money that you are planning on spending on all of that and set it asside. Then I would sell the civic and buy a better car that not everyone in the world drives and put that money into that car. Go w/ the turbo in the new car.125hp, i think my lawn mower has something like that. W/ a turbo, you can actually push 180!

If an aftermarket supercharger is available, that's the one to pick. Turbo charging uses the exhaust gases, and that has additional problems in my opinion. However, your car may be uniquely suited to one or the other.

i m guessin u ve done the regular header, cam, clutch, intake, muffler, upgraded piping already. The key difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger is its power supply. Something has to supply the power to run the air compressor. In a supercharger, there is a belt that connects directly to the engine. It gets its power the same way that the water pump or alternator does. A turbocharger, on the other hand, gets its power from the exhaust stream. The exhaust runs through a turbine, which in turn spins the compressor. There are tradeoffs in both systems. In theory, a turbocharger is more efficient because it is using the "wasted" energy in the exhaust stream for its power source. On the other hand, a turbocharger causes some amount of back pressure in the exhaust system and tends to provide less boost until the engine is running at higher RPMs. Superchargers are easier to install but tend to be more expensive.

First and foremost, you need to consider how much money you have set aside for the project.Answer some questions... - how well does your car run? is it strong enough to handle the added power of super/turbocharing? how many miles are on the engine? do you have proper compression in all cylinders? is your clutch in good shape - will it be able to handle the added power? etc.- how much money do you want to spend? are you looking for a simple drop-in aplication like a jackson-racing supercharger? are you looking for higher horsepower gains in a basic (e.g. greddy) turbo kit? do you want the huge gains all at once or do you want to be able to add to your turbo setup?- do you have alternative transportation? if/when something goes wrong, you might not have a car to get you to work/school/whatever... installation and tuning takes time - especially if you're doing the work yourself.the D-series in your car is still a good platform to work on. I'd suggest buying a basic (again.. like greddy, drag, something similar) turbo kit and then adding to it when you'd like to develop more power. a properly sized, small turbo wont have any perceivable lag at all.