Eric.'s Car Thread | FF and MR | NEW: Cruise/Exhaust + AutoX Post 60

[Eric.]

(Note: If you're viewing this post - I'm working on the thread organization.)

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Newest member of the Honda family here. I picked up this (new) Civic Si Sedan on September 27th after looking at it and driving it two weeks beforehand. Its quite likely the last '08 Si Sedan that was available in the area seeing as the 2009's are coming in weekly. The color is Galaxy Gray Metallic, which is no longer available after 2008

Specs:

197hp, 139ft-lb 2.0L I4 engine (with VTEC YO)
Close ratio six-speed manual
Limited Slip Differential (anyone know how many ways? 1, 1.5?)

0-60mph in 6.7s, ~140mph top speed according to online sources.

In Si Spec, the Civic is pretty much loaded. The only major options are for navigation, foglights, a sport muffler, and various interior accessories like any other car (all weather mats, trunk tray, cargo net, and so forth). This one came from the factory with just splash guards as the sole option, and the dealer put a red pinstripe on. I added foglights, all weather floor mats, and a trunk tray upon delivery. I just received all of those Friday and as promised, took a couple of photos after a very thorough washing. Clay bar, wax, the works.

Sorry that these are all from the iPhone so far. I'm going to get our camera out sometime to get some better quality ones.

At the dealer on September 6th, the first time we viewed the car. The dealership was closed so all we could do was look.



Parked at college on September 30th, then a couple night shots on the way home that day. I'll be revisiting that spot with the camera soon for it to look nice.



Today, after being barred and waxed. Not that you can tell from these pictures.



And a few close shots I was toying with for an iPhone welcome screen. The third one is what I ended up using.




Thats about it for now. I'll add some sort of review shortly. Until then, please feel free to ask any questions.

February 3, 2009: Personalized welcome message, "IF:RPM>5800;VTEC"




NOTE: All updates will now be hosted on my Flickr to be more organized and to avoid dealing with Imageshack or whatever else for mass uploads. I will make a new post linking to each update as well as adding a link here. Thanks!

General Flickr link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericbiggs/

June 29th Update: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericbiggs/sets/72157620604061451/

 

[Kent]

Real nice. Congrats and be sure to take good care of her. 👍

 

[TB]

Mine's a Nighthawk Black Pearl '07, your's is a Galaxy Grey '08. You have the Si, I don't. Coupe vs. sedan. Fogs for you, not for me... Your car is just about everything mine isn't.

Nice ride, Eric.!

 

[Eric.]

Real nice. Congrats and be sure to take good care of her. 👍

Thanks!

Oh yeah, she's getting babied. Its only been near 7,000 rpm a couple of times, never under WOT. Looks like I'm also part of the 8000rpm club now.

Really happy with the gas mileage. The sticker says 29mpg highway, and I got 28.5mpg out of my first tank with a ton of cruising the main drag the first night. I'm expecting 33+ out of a more highway-focused tank.

 

[Joey D]

You bought a car with navigation in it? How much did that set you back? From my experience on board sat nav systems are rather meh for the insane amount of money you must part with to get it. According to the Honda website it's a $2,000 option, but I know often times dealers play with numbers to make it more appealing.

The fuel economy stickers are always wrong, you should be getting pretty good mileage once the engine breaks in. 33 shouldn't be hard to achieve depending on how you drive.

I remember driving a Si when I was looking at cars, I found it hard to drive in the city due to the engine being so revvy. But then again I wasn't really used to driving manuals with engines like that. However the thing handled like it was on rails so I could forgive it for this.

Nice car though, you planning on doing anything to it? Since you live in Illinois the first thing I would invest in is a set of winter tires. Other then that though the car looks pretty good so there is much in the way you can do to the exterior. You plan on taking it to any autox or anything?

 

[Eric.]

You bought a car with navigation in it? How much did that set you back? From my experience on board sat nav systems are rather meh for the insane amount of money you must part with to get it. According to the Honda website it's a $2,000 option, but I know often times dealers play with numbers to make it more appealing.

The fuel economy stickers are always wrong, you should be getting pretty good mileage once the engine breaks in. 33 shouldn't be hard to achieve depending on how you drive.

I remember driving a Si when I was looking at cars, I found it hard to drive in the city due to the engine being so revvy. But then again I wasn't really used to driving manuals with engines like that. However the thing handled like it was on rails so I could forgive it for this.

Nice car though, you planning on doing anything to it? Since you live in Illinois the first thing I would invest in is a set of winter tires. Other then that though the car looks pretty good so there is much in the way you can do to the exterior. You plan on taking it to any autox or anything?

No, no, no....I was just saying that Nav is about the only major option available on Si models.

Yeah, they love to rev. But you can skip gears easily as long as you let the clutch out right (let the revs drop enough).

We usually only get one good snow, so I'm gonna pass on winter tires this time at least. I've never needed them before. I don't plan on any exterior mods, if anything I'll put an exhaust on it sometime. No autocross events around here unfortunately...


Thanks a lot though.

 

[Dead_Poetic]

Nice! I know its not the fastest car for the money. But its just nice. And im sure its pretty fun to drive too. Glad to see you got the si model. Cool car.

 

[homeforsummer]

Nice 👍 I'm a fan of the Civic sedans.

 

[Joey D]

No, no, no....I was just saying that Nav is about the only major option available on Si models.

Yeah, they love to rev. But you can skip gears easily as long as you let the clutch out right (let the revs drop enough).

We usually only get one good snow, so I'm gonna pass on winter tires this time at least. I've never needed them before. I don't plan on any exterior mods, if anything I'll put an exhaust on it sometime. No autocross events around here unfortunately...


Thanks a lot though.

Ah I apologise then, I must have misread your post about the nav system then.

 

[a6m5]

I like the new Civics. They all handle great, but I wonder how much better Si must be. This one need premium fuel though, right?

 

[McLaren]

I like the new Civics. They all handle great, but I wonder how much better Si must be. This one need premium fuel though, right?

No, it'll run fine on unleaded.

 

[Joey D]

No, it'll run fine on unleaded.

Is that really a smart thing to do? If an engine is designed to run on premium you should run it on premium.

 

[McLaren]

Is that really a smart thing to do? If an engine is designed to run on premium you should run it on premium.

My BMW & my TL are supposed to be running on Premium. They've had zero issues with anything related to what gas I put in. Premium is just a recommendation with a lot of cars, not a requirement. I've treated both to a Premium martini, and there wasn't any big difference except both cars got 2-3 mpg more from the whole tank.

 

[Joey D]

My BMW & my TL are supposed to be running on Premium. They've had zero issues with anything related to what gas I put in. Premium is just a recommendation with a lot of cars, not a requirement. I've treated both to a Premium martini, and there wasn't any big difference except both cars got 2-3 mpg more from the whole tank.

You still should run it on the recommended fuel though, you pay maybe $4.00 more per fill up and it's better for your engine. I put premium in my car and it's not sporty at all, and I try to avoid 92 octane as much as I can and only go to stations the do 93. The MINI and MINIUSA have both told me running a lower grade fuel in my car would cause damage over a long period of time. I have to imagine BMW says the same thing.

 

[High-Test]

You still should run it on the recommended fuel though, you pay maybe $4.00 more per fill up and it's better for your engine. I put premium in my car and it's not sporty at all, and I try to avoid 92 octane as much as I can and only go to stations the do 93. The MINI and MINIUSA have both told me running a lower grade fuel in my car would cause damage over a long period of time. I have to imagine BMW says the same thing.

Best I can get in KC or lawrence is 91. Small town Missouri doesn't usually have anything better than 88


Congrats about the new Car Eric. 👍

 

[McLaren]

You still should run it on the recommended fuel though, you pay maybe $4.00 more per fill up and it's better for your engine. I put premium in my car and it's not sporty at all, and I try to avoid 92 octane as much as I can and only go to stations the do 93. The MINI and MINIUSA have both told me running a lower grade fuel in my car would cause damage over a long period of time. I have to imagine BMW says the same thing.

But the time it takes for it to take effect could happen at the same time anything else is expected to break; thus, you never know.

Regardless, nothing has happened. With all the electronics in the BMW, I'm pretty sure an issue regarding gas would come up on the dash. Never did on the 3, and Classic never caught any sort of issue with the engine when they were certifying it for re-sale. They haven't found anything in the 5, either. The TL has been the same way. In fact, when David McDavid has given me a tank of gas, they themselves put in Unleaded because the engine will run fine on it.

At this point, though, I'm not going to start mix & matching Unleaded and Premium in any of the cars. I'll treat 'em both to Premium every once in a while, but the performance & mileage I've gotten out of Premium doesn't justify the extra 10 cents per gallon for me.

 

[CDailey]

You can run a lower grade fuel and your engine won't detonate because pretty much all cars for the past 10 years or so have knock sensors. Running a lower grade fuel will make your engine run less efficiently than it should, and will deteriorate parts quicker than if you run the recommended fuel grade. It also won't make as much power.

Besides, no one should be complaining about the cost of premium vs regular gas. The difference at max will be $5.00 per tank. If you can't afford that, you either need to stop driving as much or drive differently to conserve your gas.



Sweet car btw.

 

[Prosthetic]

Since my post was deleted I'll say it again. Real nice car 👍 I love the new Si's, they are suuuweeettt

 

[YSSMAN]

I'm not a big fan of the new Civic in general, but the Si is a real nice car. Seems like you got quite the car there, but at least in my opinion, there is only ever one problem with the Civic Si...

There aren't many cars that are that fun to drive for that little of money.

 

[Eric.]

Thanks to everyone else so far...

In regards to fuel, it requires 91 octane. I'm running 93 though. It would cost a whole $2.60 ($1.30 if I used 91) less to fill up if I ran 89, and because the engine would probably be less efficient, could quite likely end up costing more to keep it full.

@a6m5: I'm not sure how different the handling is as I went straight for the Si. However, my dad is wanting a regular one sometime soon before his Taurus explodes (171k miles). I'll let you know then.

@YSSMAN: I've heard that many times. I've loved the Si since this generation was released though. I also don't think my dad would have been as easy to convince to let me get one instead of a Civic.

 

[s204speed]

Nice car! I love the shifters in those!

 

[Boz Mon]

Awesome car! Bet it feels good to take it to redline eh? Maybe it isnt broken in yet though.

One thing I am a bit confused about though is why wouldnt Honda give it a bigger engine? The H22 in my Prelude makes the same, if not more horsepower than that 2.0 in that Civic but it also makes like 20 more ft/lbs of torque. I know that the 6 speed makes up for this a bit, but it has me thrown off.

Nice car nonetheless

 

[Jondot]

Very nice! 👍

I actually prefer the US Civic to the UK one in terms of appearance. Maybe it's because I'm a sedan snob

Anyway, yeah, enjoy it!

 

[Eric.]

Well I still haven't bothered to take real pictures of the Si, but I did play with the head unit's welcome message when I got home from class.



"IF:RPM>5800;VTEC"

 

[CDailey]

How does that feature work? It seems pretty cool.

 

[Eric.]

How does that feature work? It seems pretty cool.

Turn the key to the first position, press the button in the center of the left knob to turn off the head unit. Then press and hold the button in the center of the right (tuning) knob and turn the head unit on. Then the screen will show "Welcome___________" and you can change the characters. The tuning knob changes them, the previous/next buttons move the cursor. 👍 Should work in regular Civics too.

 

[CDailey]

Very cool. 👍 I love little customization stuff like that.

 

[Eric.]

Very cool. 👍 I love little customization stuff like that.

There's also a little hack to let you toggle whether the A/C compressor runs when the defrost is turned on. With the car off, you press and hold the A/C button and the one that only recirculates interior air. Turn the key (start the car? Not sure...) while holding those and one will start flashing, then the other will come on and stay lit. All done. Its nice being able to defrost your windshield without wasting gas to the A/C.

Edit: And this isn't officially documented. The welcome message is probably covered in the manual somewhere.

 

[McLaren]

Turn the key to the first position, press the button in the center of the left knob to turn off the head unit. Then press and hold the button in the center of the right (tuning) knob and turn the head unit on. Then the screen will show "Welcome___________" and you can change the characters. The tuning knob changes them, the previous/next buttons move the cursor. 👍 Should work in regular Civics too.

Will have to do this tomorrow.

 

[The Vanishing Boy]

-> Congrats on the new Si, Eric! 👍