5th May 2015, 16:37
| #1 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 97
Thanked: 278 Times
| My Turbo-Charged Honda Civic Disclaimer: Although this might seem like a thread to promote certain individuals, I am only writing my experience of turning a stock Civic into what it is now. The main reason I joined Team-Bhp was so that I could give back something to this brilliant community which I had been endlessly stalking to get help on my modifying needs. It all started out roughly around September 2013, it was another boring day in the office. It’d been 4 months since I came back from my post grad and started to work for Dad. So here I am staring endlessly into the screen browsing random websites in between work, thinking to myself I need to do something with my new found free time. It was one hell of a year constantly meeting assignment deadlines every week and all those infinite webpages and innumerous library visits to magically conjure up a dissertation that’d justify all the money I had spent on exploring Singapore and its long lists of eateries (read beer havens) for a year. So I go through the various threads on Team-Bhp, unconsciously brewing up a plan for that unfortunate car sitting in the garage since 2007. • A brief flash back One random sunny morning back in 2007 I come across this gleaming advert on the newspaper showing a new car Honda has come up with. Like any other 16 year old it caught my eye and I started to scan through it. Bang..! The exteriors and the tachometer sold me, I wasn’t really a technical guy (still not) so the performance figures barely caught my attention. Like always I made sure I sat next to dad when he started to read the paper and carefully acted like I’d seen the advert for the first time and tried to pass on the amazement, the car had left me in, onto him. Fast forward a month, we had a silver Honda Civic parked in front of our porch. • The start of it all So it’s November 2013, I’m desperately looking to find new ways to spend time after work. The Civic had run barely 27,000 kms. It was always a secondary weekend car for us. So I had a talk with dad and to my amazement he said I could take it off of his hands and do whatever I want with it. Surprise, surprise. The first thing I did with it was I took it to a workshop called Concept Carz near Manyata Tech Park to sort out the numerous dents on the car. The owner, Faizaan, was a mutual friend and I took the car to him and he said he could do it in a few days. So I had a small dent on the left A-pillar, a huge dent on the left side skirt (Thank you BBMP) and other damages on the bumper. Also I wanted the Mugen spoiler for the car, I didn’t really know you can buy it off the shelf. So I showed him a couple of pictures and he said he can fabricate them for me. Some pictures…  The dents were removed and was painted back to stock. Frankly it exceeded my expectations. The paint matched perfectly as well. However, I wasn’t quite happy with spoilers they had fabricated. So I paid him for the dent removal and re-painting and thanked him for his work and off I went thinking what next I should do to the car. It was pretty simple, stop ricing your ride and do some actual modifications to the car that’d make difference. The K&N typhoon air filter of course..! Called up my uncle who was deep into the rallying scene since back in the days when I could hardly crawl. He sent me to a friend of his at Ozzone Enterprises, Indranagar. The deed was done in under an hour. And was it worth the money I paid..! The increase in acceleration was instantly noticeable and god did it sound good from mid-revs. I think this is one mod every Civic owner MUST do. And of course thanks to GTO I went ahead with it after reading through his thread on the same. I can’t really put into words what this mod will do to your loss of ability to control that shameless grin that appears on your face when you floor the throttle. I drove around for a month with that grin and I got bored because I didn’t find anything else to do in the evenings. So back to the laptop looking for cosmetic mods (since all the other performance mods I could think of were either too expensive or too insignificant individually). The one’s I found didn’t really excite me. It was a bit too blah. They were just smoked versions of the same stock design. Like the halo projectors with the Audi R8 LEDs and the same old smoked LED tail lamps. I came across these BMW knock off tail lamps on some Thai website and I was floored. I got to have it..! Ran around to almost majority of the guys who had aftermarket shops in Bangalore (even the infamous J. C road) and none of them had even seen it before. Finally I made bail and found these guys in Delhi called RetroRides. They’ve got a huge reputation locally and expertise in vinyl wraps. Spoke to the owner, Mr. Deekshith, he says of course I can get it for you. Ha, such relief. Then we go on exchanging ideas for headlights and he says he can custom make the headlights any way I want. ANY way I want them. Alright, challenge accepted. Where do you look for if you need inspiration on designing a headlight?! Audi of course..! The new gen A5 lights were jaw dropping.  So I had to build around that design. It was a walk in the park. Grabbed myself a tape and started to tape out the design on the headlight and took measurements.  I sent him the images on Whatsapp and he said it’ll be done. I had absolutely no problems dealing with this guy. He’s friendly, open to suggestions and quite economical too. So he gets back to me in a week with the progress and he suggests that the high beam won’t be possible to be integrated with this design and I might face issues while driving in the night. I wasn’t bothered about it as long as the design came out exactly the way I wanted it to be. He suggested I go with FXR 3.0 projectors. I googled around a bit and agreed on the same. Oh and the LED strips double as turn lamps as well. Here are a few pictures on the build and the finished product.    He shipped them to me in a solid package encased in a wooden frame so it wouldn’t get damaged. Had absolutely no damages on it. Got it all fitted by Gear Up, Jayanagar. Know the owner, Anil, since long and his employee a pro with electrical work. Left the car alone for a few weeks then back on the train I was to find parts for it. Found Mugen RR grills on a website I can’t remember the name of right now. And of course the spoilers..! Ordered the spoiler with carbon fibre in the mid-section from Retrorides again. Seriously, this guy had most of the things I needed and it was cheaper than what I’d get locally including the shipping cost from Delhi :/ . Pictures again…   Was playing around with badges for a while since I couldn’t figure out the best place for it. Got all of the badges off of eBay for a steal. Also the FXR 3.0 projectors were useless for city driving. Imagine when I had to take it on the highway..! It was too late to swap the projectors to anything else, so I came across Cree LED light bars on one of the threads on Team-Bhp and saw many experimenting with all sizes of the light bars. So I got my measuring tape out, measured the space available in the fog lamp slot in the bumper and keyed in the magic words on eBay. Found heaps of 10 inch light bars from a long list of sellers from Hong Kong. Then slowly researched the difference between spread and focus LED light bars and decided it was the focus LEDs I needed. Got 2 LED light bars for a steal, almost the same price I would’ve gotten 1 LED light bar locally. I suggest you contact the seller before placing the order to make sure she understands your requirement and sends the same. Got it shipped without any damages in a week and I went ahead and got it installed. The installer couldn’t set it up in the place where the fog lamps are supposed to be for some weird reason. So we decided it’d go in front of the radiator. Ended up looking like the car suddenly grew Goofy’s buck teeth but hey the illumination was splendid. A bit too good unfortunately. I’d blind the oncoming traffic mercilessly every time I turned them on. So I decided to use them only if the visibility was too perilous for me to drive. Thought I’d stop with the experimental mods. So it’s January 2014 already. Why don’t I come up with another “brilliant” plan to change the way the car will look. Alright let’s get it painted. I’ll spare you the boring details of settling in on a color. Bottom line, I didn’t want a wrap done because I didn’t get the right shade in the wrap and also the wrap would be a bit too fragile and more vulnerable when compared to a paintjob. My only requirement was the guy who paints the car needs to have a dedicated paint booth. Not a random garage turned into a paint booth. I decided on a Matte Dark Grey color for the car. I called up DC since I saw their Duster had a shade of the color of the grey I wanted. I crackled loudly when the person on the line told me how much it’d cost me. I kid you not, 7 lakhs. For a paint job. Seriously, I had to call him up a few more times and put him on loudspeaker to convince my Jeeju and a few friends who thought I was randomly BSing. I came across a lot of people who showed me their work with matte paint and got varied quotes from them. The only guy who fit my requirements was Motormind. Shahid is perhaps the friendliest lad I’ve come across in this whole journey. He actually went to automotive design school and came back to India to open up a dedicated mod shop. He’s passionate, he’s got the vision and the right people to do the job. The cars that they’ve pulled off are a testimony by itself. So I gave my spoiler to use it as a pallet to zero in on the right shade. Pictures again…  The images don’t really do justice to how drastically different they looked in person. Went ahead with the lighter shade with sparkles. The reason I went ahead with sparkles was I didn’t want the car to look like a cemented wall. It being matte and all, that’s a possibility. So Shahid had most of the car taken apart for the paint job. It was the most brutal thing to witness when I dropped in for a quick sitrep. Also the fenders looked bloody brilliant when they were painted and kept on its side..! Have a look…      The whole color selection and the paintjob process was around a month. Yet another brilliant job from these guys. The finish was perfect, had a slight color mismatch with one of the panels and the body so they re-did the whole car to perfect it. The LED in one of the headlights decide to die on me to poop on my joy on the day I was supposed to pick it up. Called up Deekshith and he said it’ll be the capacitors fault and he said he’ll mail them to me the next day. Anyway here’s how it looked on the day I picked it up…   Got all the badges coated through the dipping process to look like carbon fibre so it’d go with the whole theme of matte grey and carbon fibre. One hell of a journey it was and the result was beyond what I originally decided to do with my “spare time”. So I promised myself that this would be the end of it and I wouldn’t get over board with the car. I was lucky that dad paid for all this. A hobby of mine I’d remind him. And he’d retort saying it was a wasteful one. The next few months were mellow, nothing really drastic happened. • Quarter life crisis Turned 24 in September and I start feeling weird all of a sudden, I guess you can call it a quarter life crisis. “Responsibilities”, “Seriousness”, “Marriage”, “Settle down” and other vague words you’d laugh at before when someone mentions it were starting to really bother me deep inside partly because it was high time I start associating myself with those words. So another weird evening I take the newspaper and Bang..! The Z800. Is it a beautiful bike or is it a beautiful bike?! So I drive down to the Kawasaki showroom in Indranagar and stare at it like a kid. Sit down with the marketing rep and mentally jot down the finances and some useless technical figures that make little difference to me over the way the bike carries itself. Coincidentally, an owner of a Z800 had ridden to the showroom and had a chat with him about the bike. Was impressed by what I heard from him and also from what I heard from the exhaust. One evening, on the way back from office I carefully drop the topic with dad. “We’ll talk when we get home”. “Err ok!?” :/ Bought it up again and he said No. Debated for a while and he said, “You don’t even know how to ride a moped without scraping you’re limbs and you expect me to be ok with you buying a superbike?!” He wasn’t entirely wrong on that, the last time I rode a two-wheeler was back in 2011. But riding a bike wasn’t a problem, it was the braking I was bad at. Maybe because I squeezed the front brakes too hard or something, it’d be on the road in a blink. But it was a superbike!!! Every kid’s dream to own one when they grow up and can afford one. A month later after intense argument I dropped the idea. Any idiot who knew me would understand why my dad was against me buying a bike, let alone a superbike. In time it sunk in and I made peace with the idea. And also I started to get bored again and needed to obsess over something. Got the seat wrapped in Black Nappa Leather from Ovion. Actually got them for a very good price since Jeeju had gotten all of his car seats fitted with them. They did a very neat job, I had asked them to add some extra foam cushions to the seats. And boy do the rear seats seem like the perfect couch to relax in. The only weird thing left are the stock seat, pillar panels and the seatbelts which are beige in colour. I figured the car needed new pairs of sneakers. And also Christmas was almost upon us. Googled alloys and got in touch with some local alloy dealers. Didn’t quite like any and the ones I fell in love with were wayyy too expensive and would’ve been an overkill on the Civic (Read: Adv.1 alloys). So I figured I’d settle halfway so I visited the guy who has it all, Hot Tracks. Saw loads of alloys and settled on a 17” Black OZ Racing Ultraleggera. Wanted 18” badly but people advised me against it since I’d ruin the ride quality. Bought the tyres from the Continental dealer in J.P Nagar. Wanted Pirelli P Zeros but didn’t get them anywhere, so I bought 225/45/R17 Continental ContactSport 3ers instead. Contrary to the threads I found online, 17”ers didn’t make any negative impact on the ride quality nor did it make the steering play any tighter. Instead I felt the steering wheel loosen up more. But there was an obvious drop in acceleration because of the 225s and I knew I had made a grave mistake. Anyway I loved the alloys though. Here you go… The goodies    • The “Disco Potato” build Why would anyone slap a turbo on a 1.8 NA Honda Civic? Why not? I have absolutely no logical reason as to why I decided to turbo the car. I think it’s partly because of GTO and Bhuvan. Yup, it’s definitely them. They must be blamed. These two are like the pioneers into the whole “Turboing your Civic” trend. Went through their threads numerous times and every time I re-read them I became more inclined towards the insane idea. Met up with Binoy from Racedynamics, Manek from Racetech (yes ignorant me didn’t realize they don’t touch civilian cars), Mr. Jovita from RRP and Joel from RaceConcepts to discuss the same. I had absolutely no knowledge about the whole scene of turbocharging a car apart from what I read online. All of them were really kind and patient enough to make an immigrant understand what it’s like in their world. So, who do I go ahead with? Racetech is obviously not an option unless someone donates a NA supercar and a ton of money. RRP’s quote was a bit too out of my budget. Also their turbo package was not recommended because of the small GT20 Turbo ( Read Bhuvan’s thread: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...seconds-8.html ) Racedynamics of course provides the brains for the build. Their piggyback ECU and in house Dyno is clearly one of the most spinal part of the build. RaceConcepts, Joel, the Honda Yoda. He sure knows his Hondas (Need I say more: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifi...ng-beyond.html ). So here I am confused between RRP and RaceConcepts. I got loads of inputs from quite a few people who knew both of them really well. All of them contributing more to the confusion. My obsessive stalking of Team-Bhp website led me to Bhuvan’s above mention thread. He’s done it all. Got it turbocharged by RRP and he was getting it upgraded by RaceConcepts. Contacted him through his thread. Called up Joel again, asked him if he could call me when Bhuvan’s gets his car there. And then he did, Bhuvan was just back from his Kabini trip with the upgrade and Joel and him were deep in discussion in technical jibber jabber I didn’t get. I asked him how does it feel to be in a turbocharged Civic and he was kind enough to take me out for a short drive. How was it? Bloody horrid! I had my feet against the footwell, hands clenched onto something I don’t even remember, I was scared, I was blown away and I was having a huge adrenaline rush that I’d soon get addicted to. The car was exceptionally built and drove like a beast. One would really expect it to be a really bad everyday car. It wasn’t. You could take it out at any given time, drive in the worst possible traffic situation come back home with no stalls and no strain to your poor clutch foot. Now why on earth would anybody say no to THAT on their car?! The deed was done. Thanked Bhuvan and keyed in his number onto my phone and back on our way Jeeju and me were. Two weeks later on Jan 19th 2015 I dropped off the car at Honda Yoda’s garage. Joel explained what I’ll be getting into and how much each part will cost and what power output we can expect. We had a choice of either going for the Garrett GT25 or the GT28 turbo. I had no clue on this, so got in touch with Bhuvan and man he’s been a huge help with all my ignorant doubts on basic stuff. Then I got back to Joel and he said if I’d want to make more top end power it’s better to go with a bigger turbo. And so we did, Joel placed the order for the “Disco Potato” a.k.a the Garrett GT28. Why am I calling it by a weird name? Well, here you go http://www3.sympatico.ca/mr2sc/disco_potato.html The build took forever thanks to the Indian Customs agents. Also Joel had a few race builds lined up. It seemed like it’d been ages since I left the car with Joel. But I’d visit every week to see the progress. It wasn’t exactly a Lego block build. He had to plan the layout and measure everything before he even got onto fabricating the parts. To be frank, I knew a wee bit beforehand about the build thanks to Joel and Bhuvan, but didn’t know it’d be immensely complicated. I knew what Joel had achieved before and what he’s capable of so I didn’t really ask him to fasten the process. After the parts came in, the work started and fast forward to the D day. The car’s built like a freaking tank. All the discomfort caused by the 3 month wait was buried deep under when I fired the car up and took it out for a drive. The car was doing 103 at the crank with fat 225 tyres and the typhoon filter.  After what Joel did to it…, well here you go.  224 HP at the crank! And it’s only running a very modest 10psi of boost. I’ll have to conjure up new words to describe how the car drives. In the city traffic it’s more comfortable to drive than its previous NA self. And when the rpm climbs it’s a totally different ballgame. You get pushed into the seat, the exhaust note consumes you and you’re partially in a trance because of the turbo whine. You let go of the throttle and you hear the BOV go off. A perfect mechanical symphony beautifully put in by Joel. I can do 30 kmph in the 4th gear without a slight hint of the engine knocking. I get bored in the bumper-to-bumper traffic and I want to get ahead of the guy in from of me, I drop a gear and feather the throttle. The whole characteristics of the car changes, from a light hum to a monstrous bassy growl post 2500 rpm the car pushes me back into the seat and off I go. It kinda feels weird when you stop listening to music when you drive. But hey with a soundtrack like this, all the bass from the exhaust, the turbo whine and the BOV, at your disposal I wouldn’t want to complain. He’s tuned it exceptionally well. Perfect to hop around the city comfortably and unleash hell on the highways/inside the city on demand. Maybe it all sounds pretty weird reading all this (I definitely empathize) but you’d get what I’m trying to share with you guys if you hop into the car and experience the same. I apologize if I don’t sound technical about the turbo build. Frankly I have a very marginal knowledge on all the torque values, afr readings and yakitty yak among other things. It’d be better if you ask Joel (Team-Bhp handle: Fieroid). But what I can do I provide you the list of the parts that went in. • Garrett GT28R Turbo • Custom turbo header manifold • Wastegate 40mm • HKS BOV • Works manual boost controller • RD Turbo ECU • K&N filter/Intake pipe • Exedy Stage 1 clutch • Titanium exhaust wrap • Front brake pads - semi race • Rear brake pads - semi race • Custom full exhaust system • Turbo spec Denso spark plugs • 300cc fuel injectors and • An Intercooler of course... Here are a few pictures of the build… My “seasoned” driving skill had completely worn out the clutch. So Joel swapped them for an Exedy Stage 1 Clutch. The clutch pedal is softer than the stock ones. Yea I know, again a contradiction to all things I read online.  The intercooler and the final layout.  The external wastegate and the stock fuel injectors with its replacement *sob* :/  He got rid of the Goofy’s buckteeth LED light bar placement and placed it in the perfect spot. It’s focused perfectly now.      Drove the car around for a week and I needed some gauge pods for the Prosport gauges that were installed. The ones I wanted were XLR8 and they looked like…  But when I contacted them they quoted me around $450 for a pod. Ha, imagine that. Why would anyone pay that much for a gauge pod? What I had to do now was obvious, go back to the guys who can fabricate what you fancy, Motormind. Got in touch with Shahid again and asked him if he could do it for me. Of course, he said. So I dropped it off with him for the gauge pod, a new mesh in front of the intercooler, touch up on the driver side door handle and a carbon fibre dip for one of the logos that had been stolen when I had parked it. The car was with him for around 4 days. Seriously, he pulled it off. It looked perfect and seemed like it was a stock fitment right out of the Honda factory line. Few pictures of the gauge pod. Got the Gauges from the ProSport website directly. I wanted a digital one in the same theme as the stock tachometer and ProSport were the only ones with it. Last edited by blahman : 6th May 2015 at 11:03. Reason: Updated more content |
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6th May 2015, 11:13
| #2 |
| BHPian Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 97
Thanked: 278 Times
| re: My Turbo-Charged Honda Civic    I met Bhuvan when he was in Bangalore a few days ago. We used his Gtech pro to measure the 0-100. It did the run in 8.8 seconds. So what else is left? I’d love to run Teins on it but unfortunately I don’t feel like spending anymore on the project. I’ve almost spent double its market rate and there’s always a point where you realize you’ve gone a bit too overboard and you start to listen to your head more. Maybe I’ll ask Joel to run more boost on it though  . It’s been a fun 1 and a half odd years spending time and money on this car. Made a lot of mistakes and learnt heaps. Met amazing people along the way who are truly passionate about their work. Most of all, made great friends who have the same terminal psychological issues as me. I’d like to thank the mods for making this amazing platform for fellow petrolheads to share their experiences amongst other things. Also Binoy (TeamBhp handle: Binz) from RaceDynamics for patiently explaining about the whole turbocharging process when I randomly dropped by the RD office when they were about to call it a day. Joel’s been a magician on the car, if anyone would’ve asked me if I could run around in a 223 hp Civic a couple of months ago I’d laugh at them. Bhuvan’s (TeamBhp handle: bhuvan_prasad) been a great buddy and learnt a lot about car builds from him. Maybe we can take both our turbo'ed Civic's on the infamous Hyderabad ORR . Before I get too homo with the end note, thanks dad for letting me go ahead and max out with my “wasteful hobby” and my Jeeju for being my partner in crime throughout. P.S I need help to click some nice pictures of the car. Someone with the fancy DSLRs and know great spots for a photoshoot. Until then please bear with the pictures from a Nexus 5. Hope you had a good read. |
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6th May 2015, 11:24
| #3 |
| Distinguished - BHPian   | |
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6th May 2015, 13:39
| #4 |
| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Mumbai
Posts: 1,925
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| Re: My Turbo-Charged Honda Civic Loved the narration blahman. Now you've gotten me thinking of something which has been a buried desire deep within me How easy is the turbo car to live with? Any major hiccups or mechanical faults that you faced during the turbocharging process? Also, how many kms up after going turbo? |
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6th May 2015, 14:14
| #5 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Mangalore
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6th May 2015, 14:30
| #6 | ||
| BHPian Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 97
Thanked: 278 Times
| Quote:
. I think the only worst part of the build was the wait. I picked up the car from Joel 3 weeks ago, out of which it was away for a week because of the gauge pods. Have managed to drive around 250 and odd Kms. Mainly in the city. Its a bliss in the traffic thanks to the soft clutch. It pulls even from crawling speeds when its in 3rd or 4th gear. It's been as reliable as it was when it was stock *touchwood*. Runs on normal Indian oil fuel. I experimented with Shell V-Power and Shell Super, but didn't find any significant difference in performance (Or maybe I'm bad at gauging it anyway). The guys at RD have done an amazing job with the piggyback, the rpm needle stays sturdy at idle even when I switch on the aircon (I've heard bad tunes have left people with their cars constantly hunting across the rpm meter). The only inconvenience is that I've to idle the car for about 30 seconds or so before I kill the engine to take care of the turbo. Bottomline, it's brilliant to drive, you get addicted to the way it responds when you step on the throttle. The tuning scene now has come a long way since the days of unreliable builds that made you feel you would've had more fun using the same money you spent as confetti instead. I would heavily recommend you to go ahead with your buried thoughts. I wouldn't have jumped into it without making sure there was another reliable Civic out there that was turbocharged by the same guy. Quote:
Sorry i wasn't clearer about the ecu. It's a RD piggyback ecu. I'll upload a picture of it later when I get off of work. Err, I'm not entirely sure about getting the internals worked on. Had a talk with Joel regarding increasing the boost, he recommended it'd be better to get the internals sorted out before I get any further with the build. Maybe if i can get my finances right we can look forward on a September/October build *fingers crossed*Last edited by Rudra Sen : 16th September 2015 at 11:05. Reason: merging back to back posts | ||
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6th May 2015, 15:35
| #7 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Pune (1-4 DND)
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6th May 2015, 16:17
| #8 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 97
Thanked: 278 Times
| Re: My Turbo-Charged Honda Civic Quote:
. I didn't quite get what you meant when you said "you have a turbo + a racedynamics pggy back ecu to further boost the car". Well I didn't experience any 'uncalled for' wheelspins when I was driving around normally. Getting adjusted to the new clutch was a very small learning curve I'd say. But when you shift rapidly while redlining you can feel the wheels lose traction for a second because of excess power (Again that can be controlled by your throttle input, if I'm not wrong). I'm sorry, I wouldn't want to put out any costs on the thread. It's best if you have a chat with a tuner you're comfortable with and discuss the respective costs and the complementary upgrades you'll need. Last edited by blahman : 6th May 2015 at 16:19. Reason: Typo | |
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6th May 2015, 17:33
| #9 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Bangalore
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6th May 2015, 17:52
| #10 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Bangalore
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6th May 2015, 18:27
| #11 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Hyderabad
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| Re: My Turbo-Charged Honda Civic Quote:
Hey Zahin, The stock graph is at the wheel, and the final one is with corrections and is at the crank. The ECU is same as ours, the RD powertune. Anoop, hope you don't mind me answering on your behalf. Disclaimer: I will be making a few comparisons to my turbo Civic which runs an EVO 16g6 turbo and has headwork done. This by no way means my car is better, it is just to compare and contrast different builds and different turbo's. Finally, the thread is up and the car is all ready. While this is not my car, I probably can take the liberty of saying, I was a fair bit involved in the whole process. I have been through a lot with my turbo Civic, and I wanted Anoop to get everything right in the first shot itself, hence would keep chatting and giving my two cents to Anoop and Joel about the car. Real high quality and well matched parts have been used, be it the GT28R or the HKS BOV or the wastegate, or even the RD piggyback ECU. The clutch is as easy to press as stock, I probably would have gone for a 5 puck more aggressive clutch, but since Anoop drives around mostly in crazy bangalore traffic, I guess this is better. Tyres are good, I felt they squeal a little more than the 225 Michelin Pilot sport 3's I have, grip levels seem to be slightly less too. The gauges look fab, overall build and plumbing inside the hood looks and is of really high quality. Coming to the drive and the 0-100 test runs I did on the car. When the build was being done, I knew this car would spool faster than my civic, as it had a smaller ball-bearing turbo, and I also felt that it would be able to keep up at the top end with my Civic in a flat out acceleration run. Joel said that mine would still remain faster, and right he was. The car is really drivable and as a street build it is perfect. The AFR's are spot on, 12-14 under low load, low RPM and 11.5 under load and boost. There is NO lag, it feels like a Civic with a intake+free flow till 2500 RPM. Post that, the turbo builds up and it pulls in a nice linear manner all the way till the redline. That being said, there is 1.7s difference in the 0-100 times of this Civic and mine, and I feel it should be much lesser, even though my turbo is larger and I have headwork done. I feel the car can do with 3-4psi more of boost, as the gauge is reading 3psi at 2000RPM, which seems strange, and then tops out at 9psi. So, I am not sure if it really is a 9psi boost or there is some calibration issue with the gauge and the total boost is 6-7psi only. Have told Joel and Anoop this, they will get the boost checked with another gauge I suppose. Dialling up boost is really easy, as they already have a boost tee, so just turn two clicks, and dial in some more fuel. Would love to see her do low 8's or high 7's in the 0-100 dash. The car is still a hoot to drive, so easy in traffic, and good fun when the roads open up. It is a quality build, and should reliably run and last for ever. Wishing Anoop miles of fun with his Turbo Civic. | |
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6th May 2015, 19:27
| #12 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 868
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| Re: My Turbo-Charged Honda Civic Quote:
Nice read, BTW. I am too inclined to get my car done up as well, but my priorities are quite different at the moment. Sigh!! Also, Kudos to your dad for letting you be what you want to be. You are a lucky man! | |
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6th May 2015, 19:42
| #13 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: kochi
Posts: 502
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6th May 2015, 20:30
| #14 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: NCR/Turin
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6th May 2015, 21:57
| #15 | ||||
| BHPian Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 97
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| Re: My Turbo-Charged Honda Civic Quote:
, but hey we end up getting better things because of it!Quote:
The FXRs are brilliant when its dark and there are no streetlights or oncoming traffic. Once I have bright yellow lights from behind or from oncoming traffic the light from the projectors seen non-existent. Maybe its because its only meant for low beams. Bhuvans setup has the best of both worlds so if he finds his projectors useless he can always put the high beam on. I have no experience with other projector setups other than the FXRs. But frankly I wouldn't recommend them at all. I'm not sure if there are better aftermarket ones out there. The over-bright LED light bars are my only solace in some streets. Took the car on the highway once, was shocked with how pathetic the illumination of the projectors are. With the light bar they are perfect, I easily have around 10 feet (slightly exaggerated) of super bright throw in front of me. So I advice you again not to go for a setup with only the FXRs. Hope this helps. Quote:
. But seriously it was more of Bhuvan's and Joel's brainchild that I'm driving around in. I couldn't have put across the build into words better myself. So I guess you'll have to pat yourself on the back for this mad build! Quote:
Thank you sudeepg, I'll make sure I pass on the compliment to Dad. And yup the brakes are part of the build. We received the wrong size of brake pads so its on the way. Will head over to Joel's and get it fit asap. I'm sure you'll get to work on your car sooner or later and I hope you have the same shameless grin slapped across your face everytime your'e in the car. | ||||
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