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Hi all, well had my fn2 for a year now so think its time to start modding, any advice would be great let me know what ya think.
The start of my fn2
- Thread starter williamsom
- Start date
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bit of both really, was looking at getting some wind deflectors fitted and rear windows tinted other than that at a blank really
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Well for a start you can very quickly spend a lot lot more than you thought possible!
The first mod I would recommend to anyone is to get the geometry set up properly for road use. This is commonly known as Fast Road Set Up or FRS/FRSU for short. If you are thinking of lowering or just generally getting some better springs it makes sense to get them done at the same time because a lot of the labour involved in setting the rear up in fitting shims is repeated if you fit springs at a later date and lowering alters the geo again so you'd need to have it adjusted again.
I went for Eibach Progressive springs. They only give a 15mm drop but that is enough in my opinion. As the name suggests the are progressive meaning that on the first part of the suspension travel they are a little bit softer than standard springs. This means that a lot of the crashy ride is reduced. As the springs compress further like when you load the car into a corner they become a bit stiffer, so actually reduce body roll in the corner. Sounds complicated but the long and short is that they are cracking springs.
This coupled with correctly set toe and camber on the FRSU means you get a much more stable ride that improves turn-in on corners and quite a bit more grip.
That should set you back about £400-500 dependant on where you have it done. Springs on their own are about £160, front camber bolts are around £30 and shims are about £8 each. Some cars need 1 shim a side, some need two, it just depends how far out the car is to begin with. The rest is labour.
With regards to engine tuning, how far do you want to go and budget really comes into it here!?
As you start adding power you might also want to start thinking about brakes. OEM rear discs and pads are fine for road use. For the fronts OEM discs are fine but I can heartily recommend some Ferodo DS2500 or Cosworth Streetmaster pads. Add some Motul RBF600 fluid and a set of braided lines and you'll have much better pedal feel and increased stopping power.
Pads are around £100, lines anything from £80-150 depending on which ones you go for and fluid is about £15 a bottle and you'd need two to flush out the old stuff and bleed them up afterwards. Then labour to do it if not doing it yourself. Probably 2-3 hours depending on where you go.
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yeah i was thinking about getting the frsu as one of the first things and upgrading the pads as well, then mainly thinking of going along the line of exhaust, and filter and then dont know where after that
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Toda are renowned for making one the best performing cat-back exhausts for the FN2. It isn't cheap though at around £1400-1500 and they rarely come up second hand. It sounds fairly quiet when pottering about but is nice and aggressive when you hit VTEC.
At the other end of the market is the Milltek. You can get it brand new for around £460, although this is the non-resonated version without a silencer in the b-pipe. It is pretty loud and lairy and people will look at you, but if that is what you want then great! :lol:
HKS make an exhaust that sounds almost standard when you are at low revs. Supposedly doesn't drone at motorway speeds, but has a nice bark in VTEC. I've heard one in person, does sound nice, but I've not heard it on the motorway cruising so will withhold judgement on that! :lol: This will set you back round about £870. If you see pictures of it, you will more than likely see the chrome grilles that they supply to go in where the chrome triangles are in the rear pumper. You don't have to fit these and the pipes can be trimmed back a few inches so they don't stick out of the bumper without affecting the noise or performance.
All three of these exhausts will give you good gains when combined with a filter and a remap.
Depending on your opinions of Tegiwa, they have produced what looks to be an excellent single exit exhaust that should be good for making power. I've yet to hear one in person, but their exhaust manifold is very well made so their cat-back should be pretty similar. They are going for around £495.
Intakes.
I've personally gone for a HKS Racing Suction Kit which is a short ram intake, but I've also sorted out a cold air supply and a decent heatshield.
If you have around £1k to spend you could either get the Mugen Airbox or a GruppeM. Both will get a really good cold air feed.
A HKS like mine is around £380 now new, or they go for around £220 second hand. Heatshield and scoop will set you back around another £200 plus fitting.
You could go for an Injen intake which will sit down near the bumper. Their latest one is supposed to work really well.
Or you could go for the CPL intake, which again sits in the front, low down, but needs you to relocate the battery. It comes with all the brackets etc needed to do it.
Both CPL and Injen are around £400 from memory.
Mugen is thought to be the best option. Won't get heatsoak from the engine bay, then again my HKS doesn't now with the heatshield and scoop. Mugen is the costliest option and rarely come up second hand. Probably makes the same gains as my HKS as it is now.
Tegiwa have copied the Mugen if you can't stretch to the price.
Both are almost stock sounding.
HKS sounds like an animal and made really good gains for me, combined with the heatshield and cold air scoop, I'm really happy with it now. Doddle to fit yourself (I've done a guide in the how-to section).
GruppeM is again expensive new, but occasionally come up second hand at about £500. Lots of carbon so looks good. Scoop goes on the underside of the bonnet so you have to cut the liner under the bonnet to fit it. It is said to be restrictive if you want to tune above 250bhp. Still makes good gains under that. Again quite quiet.
Injen makes good gains but can suffer from heat being sucked in from the radiator is it sits near it. Not as easy to fit as the others. Wheel arch liner and maybe bumper off to mount it. Never seen one second hand, rare. Not many people have bought them, but nothing really wrong with it, other than it does give a flat spot in the power if you don't have a custom Flashpro tune done. Almost as loud as the HKS.
CPL is the hardest to fit. Bumper off, arch liner off, and relocate battery. Still not hard if you are handy with the spanners. Makes good gains and doesn't pull in heat from the radiator. Come up second hand quite often. As loud as the HKS.
Now being honest adding these will make the car sound better and will probably give you a few more BHP, less than 10 more at a guess.
To get the most of them, you need to invest in a Hondata Flashpro module and get a decent tuner to do a custom remap of your car. Amongst other things, this Flashpro module allows the tuner to reflash certain parameters on your ECU that affect its performance, but doesn't affect things like the immobiliser. A tuner can alter the air to fuel ratio, ignition timing, cam angles and if they are doing it properly on a dyno will set the point at which VTEC engages to where the high cam starts making more power than the low cam. Typically on standard cams and with basic breathing mods, this would be around 4,200 rpm. As you can understand this will release a lot more torque and power in the mid range, sometimes up to 40bhp more at 4,000-5,000 rpm which makes a big difference to how it drives. Differences in peak figures are less, I saw 220bhp with my car and similar mods to those I've mentioned, but you will notice the mid range difference immediately. After a while you will wonder why Honda set the VTEC crossover so high to start with! Flashpro is around £550 for the module itself and a custom remap is in the region of £300 dependant on where you go.
If that sounds enough then great, if not then you are looking at a race header/manifold which is freer flowing and removes the cat, so your car won't pass an MOT until you either put the standard header back on and get it tested, or find a friendly tester. This again will free up even more mid range grunt and bit more top end. If you go ahead with this though unless you get your car remapped it will throw up a Check Engine Light as the O2 reader after the missing cat will be getting very odd readings. A custom remap will essentially disable this sensor so as not to put up the CEL but more importantly will set your Air to Fuel Ratio correctly, as fitting a race header will through the AFR out and therefore it isn't advisable to run the car for long periods without remap. Once you have done though, happy days! Depending on the header, you should see around 225-230bhp with the Intake, Header and Exhaust (I/H/E) mods, but your torque should also be around 160-165lbft which you will notice a big difference in during day to day driving.
So if that sounds appealing, it makes sense to get a race header on at the same time as you get the custom remap.
Race headers vary from the £500 Tegiwa one, CPL do one for around £900, and the one renowned as the best is the Toda and is around £1,500. The Tegiwa one is remarkably similar to the Toda, but with a slightly bigger bore. I have the Tegiwa, it works for me.
That's probably enough to be thinking about. Read my build thread if you like (link in my sig) and shout up if anything catches your eye.
At the other end of the market is the Milltek. You can get it brand new for around £460, although this is the non-resonated version without a silencer in the b-pipe. It is pretty loud and lairy and people will look at you, but if that is what you want then great! :lol:
HKS make an exhaust that sounds almost standard when you are at low revs. Supposedly doesn't drone at motorway speeds, but has a nice bark in VTEC. I've heard one in person, does sound nice, but I've not heard it on the motorway cruising so will withhold judgement on that! :lol: This will set you back round about £870. If you see pictures of it, you will more than likely see the chrome grilles that they supply to go in where the chrome triangles are in the rear pumper. You don't have to fit these and the pipes can be trimmed back a few inches so they don't stick out of the bumper without affecting the noise or performance.
All three of these exhausts will give you good gains when combined with a filter and a remap.
Depending on your opinions of Tegiwa, they have produced what looks to be an excellent single exit exhaust that should be good for making power. I've yet to hear one in person, but their exhaust manifold is very well made so their cat-back should be pretty similar. They are going for around £495.
Intakes.
I've personally gone for a HKS Racing Suction Kit which is a short ram intake, but I've also sorted out a cold air supply and a decent heatshield.
If you have around £1k to spend you could either get the Mugen Airbox or a GruppeM. Both will get a really good cold air feed.
A HKS like mine is around £380 now new, or they go for around £220 second hand. Heatshield and scoop will set you back around another £200 plus fitting.
You could go for an Injen intake which will sit down near the bumper. Their latest one is supposed to work really well.
Or you could go for the CPL intake, which again sits in the front, low down, but needs you to relocate the battery. It comes with all the brackets etc needed to do it.
Both CPL and Injen are around £400 from memory.
Mugen is thought to be the best option. Won't get heatsoak from the engine bay, then again my HKS doesn't now with the heatshield and scoop. Mugen is the costliest option and rarely come up second hand. Probably makes the same gains as my HKS as it is now.
Tegiwa have copied the Mugen if you can't stretch to the price.
Both are almost stock sounding.
HKS sounds like an animal and made really good gains for me, combined with the heatshield and cold air scoop, I'm really happy with it now. Doddle to fit yourself (I've done a guide in the how-to section).
GruppeM is again expensive new, but occasionally come up second hand at about £500. Lots of carbon so looks good. Scoop goes on the underside of the bonnet so you have to cut the liner under the bonnet to fit it. It is said to be restrictive if you want to tune above 250bhp. Still makes good gains under that. Again quite quiet.
Injen makes good gains but can suffer from heat being sucked in from the radiator is it sits near it. Not as easy to fit as the others. Wheel arch liner and maybe bumper off to mount it. Never seen one second hand, rare. Not many people have bought them, but nothing really wrong with it, other than it does give a flat spot in the power if you don't have a custom Flashpro tune done. Almost as loud as the HKS.
CPL is the hardest to fit. Bumper off, arch liner off, and relocate battery. Still not hard if you are handy with the spanners. Makes good gains and doesn't pull in heat from the radiator. Come up second hand quite often. As loud as the HKS.
Now being honest adding these will make the car sound better and will probably give you a few more BHP, less than 10 more at a guess.
To get the most of them, you need to invest in a Hondata Flashpro module and get a decent tuner to do a custom remap of your car. Amongst other things, this Flashpro module allows the tuner to reflash certain parameters on your ECU that affect its performance, but doesn't affect things like the immobiliser. A tuner can alter the air to fuel ratio, ignition timing, cam angles and if they are doing it properly on a dyno will set the point at which VTEC engages to where the high cam starts making more power than the low cam. Typically on standard cams and with basic breathing mods, this would be around 4,200 rpm. As you can understand this will release a lot more torque and power in the mid range, sometimes up to 40bhp more at 4,000-5,000 rpm which makes a big difference to how it drives. Differences in peak figures are less, I saw 220bhp with my car and similar mods to those I've mentioned, but you will notice the mid range difference immediately. After a while you will wonder why Honda set the VTEC crossover so high to start with! Flashpro is around £550 for the module itself and a custom remap is in the region of £300 dependant on where you go.
If that sounds enough then great, if not then you are looking at a race header/manifold which is freer flowing and removes the cat, so your car won't pass an MOT until you either put the standard header back on and get it tested, or find a friendly tester. This again will free up even more mid range grunt and bit more top end. If you go ahead with this though unless you get your car remapped it will throw up a Check Engine Light as the O2 reader after the missing cat will be getting very odd readings. A custom remap will essentially disable this sensor so as not to put up the CEL but more importantly will set your Air to Fuel Ratio correctly, as fitting a race header will through the AFR out and therefore it isn't advisable to run the car for long periods without remap. Once you have done though, happy days! Depending on the header, you should see around 225-230bhp with the Intake, Header and Exhaust (I/H/E) mods, but your torque should also be around 160-165lbft which you will notice a big difference in during day to day driving.
So if that sounds appealing, it makes sense to get a race header on at the same time as you get the custom remap.
Race headers vary from the £500 Tegiwa one, CPL do one for around £900, and the one renowned as the best is the Toda and is around £1,500. The Tegiwa one is remarkably similar to the Toda, but with a slightly bigger bore. I have the Tegiwa, it works for me.
That's probably enough to be thinking about. Read my build thread if you like (link in my sig) and shout up if anything catches your eye.
- Messages
- 29,212
Oh and for looks, look no further than the GP kit (lower section of the bumpers). Honda made, so good quality and gives the car a much more purposeful look. I've put the instructions on how to fit up in the how-to section, so it gives you an idea of what is involved or you could get the dealer to fit, but they'll charge a couple of hours labour.
One of the cheapest places to get it:
http://www.coxmotorparts.co.uk/genuine-honda-civic-typer-grand-prix-pack-milano-red-p-956.html
One of the cheapest places to get it:
http://www.coxmotorparts.co.uk/genuine-honda-civic-typer-grand-prix-pack-milano-red-p-956.html
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me too! :lol:
