Quote:
Originally Posted by Los7Krpm
I know now that Type-S is way to go. But at the time I didn't know the difference was night and day. So does my car ('04 RSX) have any potential for performance? Or do I have to rip the engine apart and rebuild it from scratch?
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Absolutely not, I know the Type-S owners love to sit there and laugh at bases for compensation purposes.
Plenty of things can be done to a base, though some things are harder to find ie. turbo/sc kits but they do exist.
the base is a great way to go, you can save some serious gas and you get some sweet mid-range torque with the so-called 'vtec' haha.
Truth be told the Type-S will always have a bit more potential because it is a more powerful engine in its stock form, but honestly the base is nothing to be ashamed of.
Many Type-S owners also suffer alot of 2nd and 3rd gear issues with their 6 speed tranny's, something us base 5-speeders can simply shrug off and not worry about.
There is the obvious 50hp difference between then cars but I mean honestly - they can pay an extra 6 grand off the start for that, we can spend 2-4 grand on aftermarket (depending on how much work you do yourself) and ****en spank a stock type-s
When I bought my base it was a good deal (for Canada) a 2002 base 5sp, 130k for 10,900 (my dad is an asst used car manager at an acura dealership so I got a dealio) while the cheapest price for a reasonable type-s (ie. not some dumb teenager who obviously raced it and prolly ****ed it up a good bit) with just under 17k
I've just started my work but I've gained probably 10-15 horse with little money spent.
- Magnaflow muffler (I will be doing the full exhaust soon) - $50 (was 140, buddy of mine put a clearance sticker on it from canadian tire how could i resist)
- Synthetic AMSOIL oil -$25
- Insulated my fuel lines with insulation tape - $15
- Threw in a B&M short shift (no performance boost but faster shifts) - $180
I've spend money on some exterior mods to but thats besides the point. Point is for less than 100 bucks I've already upped it around 10-15 horsepower given I did all of the work myself.
I'll be fabricating my own Cold Air intake hopefully this weekend my exhaust hopefully next weekend - you can use PVC pipe for a cold air and slap an injen filter on it, works very well maybe a little ghetto (im using actual pipe for mine though).
If you want to save cash on an exhaust do it yourself, OR find a good deal on a muffler (which is usually the expensive part of the exhaust, and then have a muffler shop build you an exhaust, usually in the 3-400 range where I go which is significantly cheaper (they can copy brand name designs and lets face it a pipe is a pipe is a pipe)
Right there for well under a grand you'll give yourself a great boost.
If you are disciplined enough save up buy some DC headers (they only fit type-s so again I refer you to a muffler shop, they can usually adapt them for 50 bucks or so) and then look into kpro - get it tuned professionally if you dont know what you're doing though, only one place in Calg does it and they quote 1200 for kpro w/ professional tune (so you're paying about 250 for the tune)
Seriously I know there is a base RSX kicking around Calgary thats working in the range of 500 horse.
Don't listen to morons who believe the Type-S is the end all and the be all of the RSX.
Last thing, get some cams (I like Skunk2 Stage 1) you'lol have to a little work to your engine to prep it for the cams though (not required but recommended) seeing as the base exhaust cam is rather restrictive.
If you want a cheap immediate result I suggest the exhaust as the rsx stock exhaust is less than 2in thus quite restrictive.
Cheers