Engine/Transmission/etc reliability + FI

awkwardturtle

With my particular car, 5 grand just won't happen. That's like a greddy turbo kit. Those things SUCK - I would never run another greddy kit, no matter how good they are on other cars. Crappy quality, manifolds crack constantly, etc. My particular kit, with a tubular manifold, good injectors, quality piping, etc, is $7500. You can find a good kit used for 5k, but I don't do used when it comes to parts like this.

Trust me, I know If I could've boosted my car for 5k and gotten the same results, I would have. It's just not feasible. The best you can do is piece together your own kit with some lower end parts and a nice garrett turbo and hit about 350-400 whp, but that's running a log mani, and that's a no-go for me.

Red__Zed

I think I know what I'm talking about on boosting Hondas.


I'm guessing you (overpaid for) got the swift kit. The stuff we put together is just as clean and runs about $5000-5500 with a 5857jb

awkwardturtle

Does that $5500 include a full 3" exhaust, a 3" downpipe, tial bov/precision WG, AEM gauges, gauge holder, stage 4 clutch, $700 engine management, a full tune, 1000 CC injectors, a bigger fuel pump, a boost control solenoid, etc? Yeah, that's what I thought,

If you factor out the engine management/tune, exhaust, gauges, clutch, injectors/fuel pump, etc, the core kit was only <$4500. That's about as cheap as you're going to get a fully hand-made kit. Look how much the greddy TT kit costs for this car? It's all mass-produced cast manifold garbage, and it's 8+ grand if I'm not mistaken. The kit I got is the cheapest "nice" kit you can get for my car before you step down to greddy junk. The cheapest quote I got from a reputable shop (Full Blown Motorsports) was $4500 for the kit, and that was literally just the piping they fabricated and the turbo, so easily add on $2000 or more for the rest of it. A full race kit is probably $2000 more than what I paid total as well. If you want to argue that FR is a waste of money and whatnot, then I donno what to tell ya, but we aren't speaking the same language.

Anyways, I'm not here to argue over Civic kits. I have zero doubt in my mind that I know more than you do about my specific car and turbo'ing it, so we'll end it here. If you think $7500 to completely turbo a Civic SI sedan with quality parts is outrageous, then whatevs. I'm here to learn about turbo'ing a 370 now, I've already conquered the SI for what I wanted.

Red__Zed

Everything but the clutch.

Even better, the guys I built for are still running the cars (last build was in 09), and not selling it 4 months after building it.



On the z trans, there is a lot of debate and not much data from hard use. You are probably good up to about the same limits as the stock bottom end.

awkwardturtle

Honestly, I doubt that.. but if it's true, go over to 8thcivic.com and become a vendor, because you would be undercutting the next closest kit producer by almost 2 grand.

Yes, my car runs, I drive it every day. And no, I don't have a dyno graph as my tuner never gave me one, but I don't need one.. I already know what the kit is capable of, and I already know I'm running it near the fuel limits allowable. I'm not sure why you seem to find this so unbelievable - I run a pretty normal turbo setup. A turbo of this size running ~11 psi tends to put out around 450 whp. There is nothing magical or special about my build.

And as for your insinuation, the kit I bought has zero to do with me selling the car a few months after building it. It comes down to the sole fact that I built this car when my income was nill, and now I have a lot more coming in. Is it not the natural progression of a car enthusiast to move up to bigger and better things? I could sink $100,000 into my civic, but it'll never be a good platform. Hence the Z coming into play..

Red__Zed

Built quite a few kits for friends, not interested in doing it full time. For it to financially make sense, I'm wanting 25%+ margins, looking at similar prices to the vendors....Then add on dealing with a Honda crew that brings way too much liability....no thanks.

I've never know a tuner to not produce dynos.

Nothing special or magical about it, just weird to not have them.


Your shop seems to think your car had/still has all sorts of problems.



Anyways, best of luck with the z. The switch to rwd should be fun. Make sure to invest in real tires though.

Red__Zed

Did you ever get your car running? What did you dyno?