Honda Car Forum

My wife just bought a 1990 Honda Civic DX it has a 1.5L in it. What would be the best upgrades for Horsepower improvements??It's all stock right now. No changes at all in the car.

Check out www.kingmotorsports.com They are the Honda Acura experts. Probably a K&N airfilter and less restrictive muffler.

How fast do you want it to go? A bolt on turbo would increase hp quickly. New exhaust & muffler. Make sure you do a tune up job on it too. (spark plugs, filters, sensors & so on.) MSD Ignition system is top notch quaility. All these you can easily do. Just make sure to get the proper turbo for your car, you don't want to blow the engine with the wrong one! all this would make your car envied.

go with a cat-back system and an air intake is the easiest way to do it. it should get that 1.5 to around 100+hp from the original 92.

Depends on your budget:Bang for buck is either going to be a Turbo or Nitrous.Cheaper method would be to just get your chip modified. Makes your engine more aggressive through the amount of fuel injected and timings and what not.If you're broke, you can still get a Cold Intake and Exhaust and end up with 10-20hp. Makes the intake and exhaust stroke of your engine easier. Take off your A/C compressor and you can also take off your power steering pump if you're serious about making more horsepower at the cost of luxury. They take power to make them work.You can lighten your drivetrain by getting a lighter flywheel and low profile tires with light weight rims. Your engine doesnt have to push as hard to spin your tires.www.honda-tech.comA good place for more information.

turbochargers and the best way to go but you will never get the power you need without the propper fuel delivery. make sure you run enough fuel psi with whatever upgrade you get. compression is also the best way to increase power. 11:1 is the best ratio anything with few liters.

What would be awesome would be if you left it stock and saved your money! seriously a civic is a great grocery getter but you will look stupid rolling around in an 80hp car with a bumble bee muffler on the back. You really wont get much(if anything) out of a catback exhaust system and cold air intake. The engine in your wife's car does not produce enough power for free flowing exhaust to help. You will most likely lose torque from it and it will be slower. As for a turbo, do you know how much a kit costs? probably more than you paid for the car. And you would have do a swap because i seriously doubt the motor in that car would last very long. Not trying to crush your dreams here but i would put money elsewhere and just enjoy the gas mileage and reliability. If you want a 'tuner' car, i would look more at a used Rx7, MR2, older Z car to name a few. I personally went domestic for my 'power' needs because its cheaper and easier to go fast over dumping thousands into a 4 cylinder to try to achieve the same output as say the small block in my malibu. And, well, a radical cam sounds better than a big muffler anyday

It's a DX you should just get a whole new transaxle with a honda b-series engine. Then you can work on some aftermarket mods like an intake and exhaust, or just get a turbo.