My wife and I just got a 2002 Silver ES a couple months ago and we love it to death and want to upgrade it. We don't have an extended warranty so we are free to mod the car however we want. From doing research here, it seems like turbo is the best bet vs. NA because of the significant power gains. But, I have a question for all of you who have turbos and/or turbo-knowledgeable...

Reliability is very important for us. This is our primary car and we use it a lot. It's also an automatic transmission. Would putting a stage 1 turbo kit w/ intercooler and run it at a psi of about 5 on stock internals be safe? We are not looking at breaking into the 12s or anything. We want a reasonable 160-200 total hp (so a gain of like 40 to 80 over stock). Just something that would get us beating Civic SIs Also, how much more difficult is it to tune an automatic vs manual? Boe was saying it was hard...does that also apply to stage 1?

Thanks for your help

 

RRMs kits come pretuned...so no worries there...guru(vince) has been driving on his auto for awhile now and he really loves it and not any problems that i know off...

 

tuning is done by myself/RRM prior to the customer getting the kits. That way all you have to do is install it and drive. No worries. Tuning an automatic is a Fu@#ing pain though. They act totally different than a 5 speed and their ecu makup/controlls are totally different.

For what your wanting i'd just get the non intercooled version and leave it at stock boost(5psi) That is more than enough, about 175-180 whp. Also that kit has been out for over 2 years now and no problems ever reported. Good luck

 

If you want to go turbo that's probably the easiest and fastest way to get what you want.

 

That's good to hear about the RRM kit. I've been spying that kit for a while...it's good that I don't need an intercooler because that saves a bit of money. Isn't an intercooler safer for the engine though? Like I said, reliability is important to me. If I could get by without one, however, that would be preferable.

RRM headers are compatible with the turbo kit too, which is good. However, the piggyback is not needed unless you go to stage 2, correct? Although with gas prices and an 80 mile a day commute, paying for 91 octane doesn't sound to nice.

Technically, this is my wife's car (in her name). In my name I have a crappy Civic DX (always something wrong with it, plus it gets broken into a couple times each year). I can probably talk her into getting a turbo sometime soon...after all, I did get her into liking Lancers. At first she hated it, but a little persuasion on my part and a test drive convinced her. We used to be Honda people but we got jaded by all the theives and high repair costs.

Although I think she shouldve gone with the black 5spd OZ and not the Silver auto ES. But hey, it's a fine car anyways....

thanks for your help, guys.

 

you don't need an intercooler if you keep the boost at 5psi. The intercooler will give you more hp but the non-intercooled is safe and fine. If your worried about the gas mileage i'd leave the stock header in with the non-intercooled kit. It seems to like that better but if you do stomp on it often you'll burn the gas up quickly.

Higher octane gas is a high performance must. Even if you stayed NA you'd eventually be getting 91 as you'd need it to prevent detonation. Good luck.

 

Turbo is definitely the best way to go if you want more bang for your buck.

Going NA and paying retail you are getting about $52-$70 pre gained hp.

With the turbo kit you are getting about $35 per gained hp, and it's easier to tweak and upgrade in the future when you get even more hungry for speed.