Honda Civic Blog

Lets face the facts. Lip kits are the future and big bumpers and side skirts are a thing of the past. Lip’s are basically bumper extensions. Some cars come with a lip from the factory. Lips enhance styling while keeping a clean, professional look because they are mounted to your stock bumpers. Most of the time installation is quick and easy.

Now that you want a lip kit for your Honda, where do you get one? Well thats easy. You can visit a nice car part website like ProCivic.com, or you can check out the great deals on eBay.com. Most lip’s come with all parts and hardware needed to install it, whichs leads us to our next question. How do I install a lip? Check out this guide to install lip kits.

There are basically a few different ways to make more power out of your Honda engine. In this guide I will explain each method, describing the advantages and disadvantages of each, and also comparing them. This guide should help you choose the route to more power for your Honda. Enjoy!

First, you need to decide how much power you want, how reliable you want your car to be, and how much you are willing to spend. The budget aspect is the most important. To make big power, you need big bucks. Different engines respond to modifications differently, so that is another factor to research. We wont get into each specific engine type in this article. We will only describle the methods for getting more power on a universal level. Here are ways to make big power from your Honda:

1.) Forced Induction – This is one of the more popular routes to go. Adding a turbocharger/supercharger to a Honda engine is the cheapest way to create lots of power from most Honda engines. Companies like Greddy and Jackson Racing make turbocharger/supercharger kits that directly bolt on to your Honda. Forced induction systems are easy to expand. You can create more and more power by increasing your PSI. The downside of forced induction is the reliability. A Honda with a turbocharger/supercharger can be very reliable with good tuning and engine building, but some people get carried away with the amount of power they are putting on stock engine components. Aftermarket engine components are a good idea to consider when adding forced induction, although it is not always needed with a mild PSI setting. The amount of power an engine can handle depends on the engine.

2.) Motor Swap – A very popular way to obtain an increase in power is a motor swap. A motor swap is when an engine from a Honda is placed into the chassis of another Honda that the engine did not come in from the factory. Most Honda engines are interchangable with most Honda chassis. A very popular swap is putting a Civic SI or Type R motor into lower model (DX, LX, EX) Civics. There are also mini swaps, where the engine head of one engine is placed onto the block of a different engine, resulting in a more powerful combination that the original motor. The advantage of swapping motors is that reliablilty is not hurt since a stock motor from another Honda is being used instead of a modified motor with forced induction or another type of big power adder. The disadvantage is that motor swaps are hard to install and are sometimes very expensive.

3.) N/A Motor Build – Some people choose to take their stock motors and modify them with camshafts, nitrous, high compression pistons, intake manifolds, intakes, etc. Building your stock motor (or swapped motor) is a great way to go if you plan to slowly invest in your Honda. Since you don’t have to buy a whole motor or forced induction kit at one time, it allows people to spend less money at one time. The disadvantage is that after it is all said and done, going the N/A route will cost a lot more money than a forced induction kit or motor swap to reach the same HP goal.

Some people choose to combine all three methods to create an awsome engine. Hopefully this little article helped you choose which route is right for you. Thanks for reading.

When you lower the car, the camber will go out and you need a camber kit to fix it. However, I find it is not necessary to correct the camber in most cases. Most people think they need a camber kit because of a tire-wear concern. The reality is, TOE ANGLE kills tires WAY faster than camber ever will.

Sound like a bold statement? Conventional wisdom is that when you lower the car you need a camber kit if you don’t wanna wear out the tires fast. Well, there is another adjustment/spec here than nobody has mentioned. Caster is another key.

When you lower a double wishbone car like the 88-00 Civics, 90-01 Integras, Accords, TSX, etc, the camber angle always increases in a negative direction: The wheels tilt inwards. It is what makes the car handle better in turns than strut cars. It is a natural effect of cycling a double-wishbone suspension.

Lowering many cars also increases the toe angle, which is to say it points the tires outward. They kinda fight for direction where the car wants to go.

But also, realize that all cars have some positive caster. The means that when you turn the wheel, the axis of rotation is not 90 degrees. You may notice it more exaggerated on BMWs and Benzes. The best way to view the angle is to turn the wheel all the way to one side, and get out and look at your car. Notice the wheel is turned, but also kind flopped over? Have a friend with a S500 (if you have one) do donuts while you watch outside. The wheels really flop over on those cars!

Think of it like pushing a wheel barrow. The angle from the axle to the handle is like caster. Pick up a wheel barrow and stand it veritcal on the tire with the handles straight in the air. Now imagine pushing it and trying to turn it. Haha…it just fell on you! Now imagine pushing and turning it normally. Much easier. Much more stable. And when you trun it, the tire is not actually turning. It flops over on it’s side and leans! That is how your car turns too! That is how motorcylcles turn and well.

Caster is great for high speed stability. That is why all cars have some dialed in. Without it, the car would be super twitchy and hard to control at speed. It’s why autobahn burners have more caster than your typical Japanese car.

The problem is, when you lower the car and toe angle is thrown out, the wheels are actually riding on the inside edges of the tire as they grind away pulling the car in different directions! This is in addition to the increased camber effect! With an improper alignment the car will WASTE tires in a matter of months (or weeks if you drive like me).

The trick to lowering the car and having the tires last is to get a good 4-wheel alignment to fix the toe angle. I have had over a dozen hondas, all lowered, and most lowered past 2″. I have never had a camber kit on ANY of my cars. The ONLY car that I had a problem with tires with was my 94 accord which I had never aligned. Go figure.

amber will tend to wear tires out somewhat quicker than stock, but generally speaking, with a good toe alignment, the increased wear will not be cumbersome or even really significant. The added camber actually makes the car handle a little better. Also, a little camber in conjuntion with the caster will wear the tires out almost evenly! So why get rid of it?

Here are some images to illustrate what I mean.

In this image, you can see where the inside and outside of the tire are. The red dots are there to help you identify the wear-indicators inside the tire grooves. When the tires wear down to these wear-bars, you know it is time to replace the tires. These tires are almost there:

Now, you can see how the tire is worn more toward the inside…that’s camber wear. This customer was driving on this tire, with the car lowered moderately with a good alignment. He has not maximized tire wear, but clearly he has not greatly suffered either. No camber kit was installed.

In the next image, we have a tire which was lowered aggressively, and the car was NOT aligned.

Look how aggressively the tire has worn on the inside edge. The cords are even showing. This wear is caused by TOE angle. The direction of wear here is dramatically different than a camber-worn tire. This type of wear will kill a brand new set of tires in a matter of months. Mistakenly, people will lower their cars, not align them, get this wear, and blame it on camber. The timeline continues when the customer buys a camber kit, installs it, and the wear goes away. Must have been the camber kit, right? It was the toe, people. Also note, this is a front tire.

With a drop under 1.75″, you should not need to even worry about it, because a drop of that much will not even throw the car out of factory camber specs! But that toe will be in the red every time!