First post! Anybody got a Hondata? And more...

[MolonLabe]

Hey all, I recently bought an 02 Si and started lurking on clubsi.com. Made my first post there and they promptly told me to come here, so I did. I like ephatch better even though it gets less traffic. Been lurking pretty heavily for a few days now, just reading and gathering info. I'm now thoroughly confused on the intake situation, that's for sure. Comptech's icebox looks good but you pay for it, boy talk about limited availability and nothing on the secondary market! And its difficult for me to understand how an intake tract made of plastic wouldn't conduct heat, but I'm not an engineer after all. The exhaust situtation is also somewhat confusing, although I haven't played all the files on that EXCELLENT sticky post yet! I wish I had decibel ratings for the cat-backs because I want a deep throaty sound, but not loud enough to be annoying during daily driving (I drive for at least two hours each day).

My question is, does anyone here have a Hondata? Expensive little buggers aren't they? Seems like everyone talks about Hondata with hushed reverence, but I haven't read any reviews or seen any hard numbers on the dyno except for older versions of the Si, which is a whole different ball game since we have the 2.0 iVTEC and all.

Also, I'm constantly looking for links to good vendors. I'm heavily involved in the online firearms community and I've found that there are a few vendors that make the rest look really silly in terms of pricing. Are there any "must have" links you guys could provide?

[02SilverSiHB]

JSIR on here said he lost power with the cai from comptech compared to the cai he had before, but he did some modification and I think he was pleased. myeverlovinsir and a few others have hondata and love it.
Sounds like the greddy would be your choice. I've heard that exhaust and it is deep and not too loud.
hondata has info on the civic si...the dyno numbers aren't much, but the overall power throughout the rpms is great from what consumers have stated.

http://www.hondata.com/k20a3civicsirelease.html It's a good system if you want to stay with minimal na mods and not go boost. If you are going to eventually go boost, I'd not buy it, as that tune is not for boosted ep's

[chet]

As far as exhausts go, I've heard so many fartcan mufflers around town that I absolutely love my Thermal exhaust. Its, by no means, loud. It looks good and I would definitely consider it a deep throaty tone.

Also, if you'd like to save a little $$ on an intake, I have a classifieds thread you might check out.

As far as reputation and quality of customer service, You cannot go wrong with www.showstoppersusa.com Chuck and Rocky are the best.

[Hatch, Si Hatch]

I posted on ClubSi to tell someone to come here. That was in the southeast forum. Was that you? If so then what I'm about to say will sound familiar, if not then its just another site for you to check out. www.k-series.com.

As far as intakes go I have the AEM Cold Air and love it. Its not very bling bling though. In fact you can't really see it at all since it snakes under the battery. The Injen CAI is a nice alternative, and has the bling factor since it goes around the battery. Only problem with it is you have to relocate the fuse box.

As you may have read, a good many people on this site(including me) have gone with a Mid-pipe w/ stock muffler. Gives the nice deep tone w/out being really loud at high RPM.

Shopping on eBay I think I spent a total of about $400-500 on I/H/E. I got the Intake for $160, a HP Racing header for $160, and a 2.25" Mid-pipe for $100, add shipping in and I fell somewhere in that price range.

I still haven't upgraded to Hondata yet, however I do get tempted every so often. I just can't justify the price. Everyone that has it says that it is worth every penny, and I can see where the extra revs would help out alot, especially since I auto-x alot. In the end I figure I'll just save that $600 dollars to put towards my K20A ITR engine. *dreams*

Enjoy the EP.

[MolonLabe]

Hatch, I posted up in the general discussion over there, so you don't sound familiar.

This car is a daily driver so I'm worried about hydralock and loss of drivability issues, all that mundane every day stuff like gas mileage etc. This car will be driven year round in snow, rain, ice, 110 degree summers, etc.

Also, because its a daily driver, I won't be going to a boost system. If I wanted to go with a forced induction car I could have bought one for the $16k I paid for this Si. But I need a reliable front-drive car that's great in all weather conditions and is still fun to drive, so the Si won out. That doesn't mean it couldn't use some more power and a bigger footprint. The bling factor isn't very important to me, I'm too old for that and bling never got chicks for me anyway!

Maybe later I'll get the Supra turbo or the Rx7, hehe... Assuming my career does what I hope it does...

[rs_1101]

lol id suggest u read up on this forum theres lots of comments about hondata, intakes, exhaust.. just do a search.. yea and clubsi doesnt seem to like us very much so.. welcome to ephatch!

[Tenacious G]

welcome to the site. from what i gather, ephatch and k-series are leaps and bounds more informative/helpful than clubsi.

[02SilverSiHB]

Originally posted by chet
As far as exhausts go, I've heard so many fartcan mufflers around town that I absolutely love my Thermal exhaust. Its, by no means, loud. It looks good and I would definitely consider it a deep throaty tone.

Also, if you'd like to save a little $$ on an intake, I have a classifieds thread you might check out.

As far as reputation and quality of customer service, You cannot go wrong with www.showstoppersusa.com Chuck and Rocky are the best.
what kind of thermal do you have?

MolonLabe, since you're worried about hydrolock, get the comptech I guess. hondata is awsome..you'll love it for daily driving. Then maybe get a header and exhaust later on if you feel you need it. Personally, if I were you, I'd use my money on hondata first.

[jdkindle]

Sorry for the spam, but there is alot of useful information on my FAQ page

the link can be found in this thread; http://www.ephatch.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25010

[MolonLabe]

See, now here is what confuses me. On the link provided by 02SilverSiHB, we get the following dyno chart and analysis of a Hondata on a car with a CAI and headers:

http://www.hondata.com/images/k20a3ancivicsi.gif

And I quote:

"We suspect there is something not quite right. With a CAI, Flash and headers it made the same or less power than a stock Civic Si with flash under 5500 rpm."

I sure do appreciate their honesty in salesmanship, and not making up cool-sounding numbers to entice the unwary buyer, but I'm not seeing anything here that makes me want to go spend $600. On the other hand, they also claim that 0-60 times are improved by 1 second, which is nothing short of phenomenal for a chip job. The other dyno chart they provide is somewhat more helpful, but compares a stock car running at 87 octane with a flashed car running 91 octane. Thus, its not really an apples to apples comparison, I sure wish they'd run the stock setup with 91 octane just for consistency.

So what am I missing? Hondata shows a peak horsepower of 150 or so in a stock car running 91 octane, and a peak horsepower of 155 or so in a car with $500 worth of other mods. I guess the lesson is that headers and intake don't make a significant difference in these cars?

[Mighty_Mouse]

0-60mph is improved by 1 second because the higher redline allows you to reach 60mph in 2nd gear, whereas you have to shift to 3rd to hit 60mph without a Hondata.

[MolonLabe]

A ha! I see, Mighty Mouse. The higher revs are kind of like a change of gearing in regards to that performance test. But how much faster would the car be in the quarter mile?

I have a bad feeling that there is only one way to answer that question, and it involves my wallet...

[Mighty_Mouse]

Not really like a change of gearing, but I believe that you get the point. It just plain eliminates one shift due to the higher redline. I don't know if anyone has done 1/4 mile times with/without a Hondata. There's a lot that goes into a good 1/4 time, but an experienced driver should run pretty consitently. I'd also be interested in the amount of change. I'd guess around .2-.3 just because you land in a sweeter part of the RPM range after each of the two shifts, though it looks like the torque takes a beating in the upper RPMs.

Everyone says that the car feels faster and has much better throttle response.

[02SilverSiHB]

Originally posted by Mighty_Mouse
Not really like a change of gearing, but I believe that you get the point. It just plain eliminates one shift due to the higher redline. I don't know if anyone has done 1/4 mile times with/without a Hondata. There's a lot that goes into a good 1/4 time, but an experienced driver should run pretty consitently. I'd also be interested in the amount of change. I'd guess around .2-.3 just because you land in a sweeter part of the RPM range after each of the two shifts, though it looks like the torque takes a beating in the upper RPMs.

Everyone says that the car feels faster and has much better throttle response.
Azn02Siran like a 16.1 without hondata..then with just hondata he ran a 15.5. that's in the heat of Arizona too. not bad

[MolonLabe]

Hmm, that sounds familiar, I ran 16.1 at 85mph all night long no matter how hard I flogged the car. I abused the car that night and didn't run any faster. Don't you hate it when you wheelhop bad enough to skip your CD player? The other guys at the track were understanding enough, considering that I still had the temp tag in the back windshield! They knew the car was bone stock.

Well, a gain of six tenths in the quarter is about as impressive as you could expect for any computer modification, no matter the cost. This also fits in with a "friend of a friend" type story I've heard about a local guy who installed a Hondata, some kind of intake spacer (manufacturer? dunno) and a CAI and runs 15.4 here locally.

More noob questions:
So the engine in the 02 Si is the K20a2 or the K20a3? Difference?

How hard is the install on headers? Can a shadetree mechanic do it with a couple of jackstands or do you need to shell out more cash to have the car put on the lift, remove the engine from its mounts, etc. etc.? What kind of gains would you expect from a header install (assuming you had already installed a decent cat-back)?

By the way, I've fallen in love with the driveline in this car. It doesn't mind being powershifted on the upshift, and it really likes a double-declutch on both upshift and downshift if you have the time. With proper double-declutching I can drive the car SMOOTHLY, I just need to work on matching revs and doing it a bit faster. The car has 25,000 miles on the odo and I noticed a scuff on my factory shifter, so I bought a phallic lookin' little Razo (spelling?) aluminum shift knob the other night and put the factory shifter in a box so it won't get torn up with use. I also bought and installed some kind of boy-racer lookin' pedals, they are alot larger than the factory pedals so I can do things like match revs on the downshift while braking at the same time. LOL you can tell what my money situation is right now--maybe next week they'll have a sale on air fresheners and naked-chick-silouette mudguards at the Autozone? Hahahaa....

PS Thanks for all the info, you guys are much more helpful than clubsi.

[JasonS1]

The major contriubtion that the Hondata tune gives to our car's 1/4 mile times comes, once again, by eliminating one gear change. We HAVE to grab 4th gear just before the traps, or we'll peg the rev limiter in 3rd. With Hondata, we can rip through at the very top of 3rd. That's where the .4-.6 seconds comes from.

For performance modifications, I have stuck with the AEM CAI on my '02 Si. The filter is fairly well protected from water (with the exception of DEEP puddles), I love the sound, and I really think it helped wake up the motor a bit.

I'm seriously considering a mid-pipe, but have the same concerns you do concerning a header/cat-back. I don't want a loud, annoying fartcan on my car, and all the dyno graphs I've seen don't show significant improvements. Definetly not worth the hp/$$$ from what I've seen. However, I do think that the header/mid-pipe/exhaust will offer incremental gains, which is always a step in the right direction.

At our last meet, I raced two other Si's from a dead stop through a 3/8 mile "track". One was stock with only a CAI, and one had intake/header/exhaust. With only my CAI, I beat both of them by 1-2 car lengths. It was then that I decided to wait to buy an exhaust. I didn't see the Si with i/h/e WALK away from me just because he had the mods. He was a good driver, and I beat him with just an intake. Before I drop $250-$500 for a nice, coated header, and $500-$900 on a full cat-back exhaust, I want to see a signifcant increase in performance.

I think that Hondata is the way to go, but have concerns over warranty issues. I'll probably do the flash after the 36,000 mile mark. I think it's the best overall basic mod, even if it is a bit pricey.

As far as drag racing goes, any Si should be able to break into the high 15's. It's all driver. If you're getting wheel hop, you're being too aggressive with the throttle, or you need to feather the clutch better. I've seen a friend run a 15.51 with only a CAI. He rolled off the line quickly, but with ZERO wheel spin (yet alone to the point where it causes hop!). I was running in the 15.9's by spinning the tires briefly at the start, and then I tried his technique, and have been running 15.7's....with nothing but a CAI. And my motor only had 2,000 miles on it at that time. I know it's loosened up a bit. I've just got to take it to the track to prove it.

The other popular mod has been the Neuspeed Short Shifter. I have had it on my car for about 5,000 miles now, and think that it's just OK. It relocates the shifter about 1.5" upward, and shortens throws about 30%. It's not bad, but I wish it was tighter still. I just ordered some aluminum shifter bushings from EBay, so maybe that will help.

I hope that helps you some. I'm fairly new to this too, and am in the exact same position as you are. Keep us updated on your mods and experiences. Sorry about the novel.

- Jason

[MolonLabe]

Dont' worry about the "novel", they aren't charging us by the word or anything. Anyway, look at my posts! Only a lawyer can write a 1,500 word document and call it a "brief" with a straight face--we are wordy people.

Did you lose any throttle response with the AEM? I've seen people complain about resonance and the fact that the filter is so far away from the intake killing the throttle response of the car. As far as warranty concerns, I paid extra for the 100k bumper-to-bumper uber warranty, but the way I'm piling miles on the car it won't take long for me to get there anyway.

Oh yeah, it was wheelspin city when I raced, and yes it was my fault. But of course I had owned the car less than a week before I raced it, so I wasn't used to it yet. My previous car was an ex-cop-car Crown Vic with a slushy automatic, so there was a time of transition in driving style. Also, the drag strip was set up for cars with slicks (of course) so there was all sorts of rubber on the track and with hard street tires, traction was actually less than on the street. I had a friend video tape my runs (actually I've hosted one of them on imagestation, I should post it) and you can hear the car spinning hard in second gear, which NEVER happens on the street. Anyway, I've gotten used to it and I'm a better driver now... when spring comes I'll try it again.