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Working towards building a 1 of 1 Honda City in India: Mods done so far

14th January 2025, 16:23 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

After I bought the City, both VW Virtus and Skoda Slavia were launched followed by the new Hyundai Verna. So I decided why not fix a turbocharger in my car.

BHPian GrimZ23 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Hello, fellow Bhpians, Greetings from Lucknow! I am posting about the modifications I have done to my Honda City 5th Gen.

Backstory

Always been a Honda fanboy, I live in a joint family and the first City came in 2001, following the second generation in 2007 which was then followed by 4th gen facelift in 2019. So when I was given the option of which car I would get I chose the 5th gen city in August 2021 and that was honestly the best decision I have made till date.

The RS kit

As soon as I got the City I went ahead and dechromed the front grill, blackened out the side mirror and the spoiler. Till this time the RS kit wasn’t available in India, 2 months later I finally got the RS kit courtesy of MindAutoMods in Delhi, I immediately bought it and got it shipped to Lucknow.

The final look:

Starting the 1/1 Journey

Nardo Grey

Some time later I got the idea of how beautiful would it look in Nardo Grey and so went ahead and got my City wrapped, the colour however was a bit dark to my liking, but hey I finally owned India’s First NARDO GREY HONDA CITY!

Type R roof spoiler and ORVM covers

As a fanboy, I always loved the Civic and the FK8 Type R design always fascinated me! The roof spoiler looked so good on it. So I thought why not get the roof spoiler for City, the sloping roofline would look so good with it.

With this in my mind, I got in touch with Modsters Automotive Chennai. We discussed about building the part, I gave them the idea and finally agreed on making the Type R roof spoiler and ORVM covers in FRP. It took a month for the parts to be built and another week for them to arrive, and now another 1/1 mission accomplished! India’s First Type R Roof spoiler for Honda City was installed on 2nd August 2023 along with the first ORVM COVERS.

Repaint

2 days before Holi 2024, City was parked in a basement parking lot of a complex, when a drunkard decided he didn’t like the mods so, he hit the whole right side of City damaging both doors fender and the bumper. The damage was extensive enough that I had to go with the insurance claim, the wrap roll that I had left wasn’t enough to cover all the damaged parts completely. So I did what I had always wanted, Repaint to the exact shade which I wanted from the beginning.

Resulting in a better-looking, finished Nardo Grey City!

Type R front bumper, With in-house DRL

After the repaint I thought why not give it a more unique look, there was one last piece of the Taiwan Imported Type R bumper left with a known dealer of Grease Monkey Lucknow. They Immediately got it shipped and now the front end looked so good! Only thing which was missing was the DRLs. We searched a lot but we could only find 4 bulb looking DRL and they definitely weren’t suiting the front end. Tried to get them from China but the shipment was rejected twice. So Grease Monkey Automotive Lucknow, made it possible by designing the DRL out of an acrylic sheet with sequential indicators. Again first in India TYPE R DRL for City making it 1/1.

Mechanical Journey

Even though I’m 23 I am not allowed to solo travel with City out of town (completely respect my parents' concern) that was the biggest reason I couldn’t start with mechanical mods sooner. I was in a dilemma that in Lucknow there is no one who does mechanical mods. Until I was introduced to Grease Monkey Automotives Lucknow. The owner, is like an elder brother to me now, a true car enthusiast, built a Bodykit, muffler, bonnet, and cold air intake for his Hyundai Accent on his own way back!

Current Mechanical Mods

Exhaust

DeCat Valvetronic exhaust with a custom built 3-inch resonator, in the coming week we will be installing 2.5 Inch SS pipes throughout and I’m getting rid of the Valvetronic and replacing it with a straight muffler.

Stage 2 ECU remap

Currently running a stage 2 Quantum Red ECU remap with Crackle overrun from Quantum tuning with claimed gains of 20bhp and 30NM torque, I hope to soon dyno test it. I acknowledge that there isn't much gain because of the NA engine but the power flow is now throughout the rev range and the drive feels much more smooth.

BMC OEM replacement air filter

Got the conical air filter first and we were building a custom cold air intake, with the filter being placed inside the grill. But it failed because:

The MAP sensor was having issues fitting in the intake we made
During pulls the engine bogged down, especially during gear shift so for the time being we are using the OEM replacement

Upsized tyres and Brembo pads

185/55/R16 stock tyres weren’t able to perform after the tune at all and since they were almost near the end, I went for 205/55/R16 Yokohama S drive and they offer so much more grip. Also, I changed the pads from Honda pads to Brembo extras for somewhat better braking (they were also cheaper than Honda OEM for ₹3800).

My dream and help required

After I bought City, both Virtus and Slavia came to the market following Verna. At this time I decided why not fix a turbocharger to the 1.5NA. This has already been done in Malaysia to a City hatchback, but currently, I’m still trying to acquire knowledge to be able to do it here in India.

This has been my dream and I would feel immense pride in building India’s First TURBOCHARGED City. I’ll be forever grateful if fellow BHPians could offer me their opinions on the same.