Honda Civic VTEC - Power Pages

The first step we took was with the AEM Cold Air Intake. As you can see, the factory airbox is quite restrictive. Even though Honda had good sense enough to run a plastic venting system to obtain fresh air for the intake, it could never seemingly run as good as with a direct blast of cold air like the AEM intake provides. Indeed, our suspicions were true as the easy installation of the CAI bumped our numbers up to 97.9 hp with 89.8 lb-ft of torque. The power and torque graphs shifted up considerably, showing considerable gains in the midrange area, right where it's needed the most.

The next step was to add the A'PEX WS exhaust. Replacing the factory exhaust was a cinch thanks to the excellent engineering design of the A'PEX team. Within minutes, the car was ready to turn the rollers of the dyno again. If you follow the Power Pages religiously, you might be able to tell that we place more emphasis on where and how the power comes in, and not so much on how high the peak number turns out to be. When it comes to adding power, it just doesn't make any sense to have a sharp peak in the upper regions of the powerband while the rest of the power stays relatively the same as before the installation. It's this "power shift" that makes your car faster and, effectively, feel stronger. Looking at the graphs for the WS exhaust, you can see that they were shifted upwards slightly and in an almost uniform distribution. This means that the little Civic now has more power throughout the powerband, in spite of the slight drop at the peak point. Torque was also raised in the same general fashion.

The final step was to add the Landspeed header. We expected wonders from this thing, and it didn't disappoint us. The power curve shifted up to 104.2 hp, while torque was equally compelled to join in on the fun, registering a 1.1 gain at some points. Final torque is an impressive 92.3 lb-ft.

ConclusionAs the import performance world grows by leaps and bounds, it's very easy to get caught up in trying to find the newest, latest, thing that no one else in the world has. Doing so will only cause you to overlook the potential of some proven performers; this is exactly the case with this Civic. Even though its been on the streets for over a decade, it was still able to make power, and not just more power than stock form, but enough to keep it in contention with some of the newer (and therefore more expensive) vehicles on the market today. It just goes to show you-you can teach an old dog new tricks. Keep your eyes posted and see just how many new tricks we can turn in upcoming Civic Power Pages

Performance Chart