I purchased my 2008 Honda Civic brand new from Ide Honda in March of 2008, as my wife was pretty pregnant by that point. The intent was to get a baby mobile that didn’t crush my soul.
I rather enjoyed this car. We used it for all sorts of road trips and it was a reliable little beast. I recall one summer going to DC we got 38 mpg and coming back we got 37 mpg. Not bad for a 2 liter making 200 hp back in 2008.
The first thing I did was get rid of those stupid stickers as SI badging on the back. Now everyone thought I had a regular “slower-than-your-Kia” Civic instead of the hotter “slower-than-your-mom’s-V6-Camry” Civic.
As everyone knows, the K20 is a complete bad ass of a motor. Coupled with a limited slip differential, the car, in theory, could have been quite fun. Of course, I decided to start autocrossing so I kept it stock.
Probably a good idea, because I couldn’t drive it to within 6/10ths of its capabilities. Understeer was the word of the day as I overdrove into every corner and then layed on the gas, mercilessly frying the front tires.
At some point, I did replace the tires with Azenis RT615s, which were a pretty good tire back then, but that just masked my flaws rather than helped me go appreciably faster. I eventually smartened up and started autocrossing my Boxster.
With no requirements for class rules, I went ahead and dropped the car, and mounted up some real wheels.
Eibach Pro-Kit and Kosei K1 TS 17″x7″ wheels (13.7 lbs) with Continental ContiExtreme Contact UHP A/S tires in 215/45/17. The tires were, of course, complete garbage, and the Eibach Pro-Kit did nothing but encourage further understeer, but, it was a street car now so who cares.
Eventually, I wound up getting rid of this car and getting my GTI. The turbo torque lured me in after dealing with years of gutless, high revving VTEC. The fact that this car started rusting after one year of ownership didn’t help endear it to me.
autophiliac 