Help my car breathe

[bibby]

I have a 1998 Honda Civic LX, and believe it or not, i bought the poor car from someone tying to make it a ricer, and i just want a dependable daily driver that gets good MPG, the exhaust is just a fart cannon, its not loud, but it actually sounds good. The intake is ****ed up. the 4 basic things to make a car breath better is Intake, Header, Cat Converter, and Exhaust right? If this is so, these are the things i am fixing to start upgrading. i dont want any extra hp, but if these upgrades add hp, then fine. MY GOAL HERE IS MPG. The following is a pic of my car, and the current intake. Followed by a pic of Smeade's new intake on his civic (rebuild), and an intake kit i found that if that is what i need, i am ordering.

To sum up all the questions.
1. To make a car breath better i add: Intake, Header, Cat Converter, and Exhaust right?
2. Is my intake ****ed up and killing MPG?(This is the way it was when i bought it)
3. Is the pic of meade's intake what mine should look like?
4. And lastly, do i need to buy this kit in the last pic(Or one similar(Reccomend?))?

My Car(Not riced out, and never will be)


My Intake


Meade's Intake


Intake To Buy(If Needed)


Any Input Appreciated.

[SAG3]

why would you change the intake to something pretty much the same?

[bibby]

B/C i don't think mine is complete. It looks half-assed. They didn't even remove the stock air filter box. It may just be dumb to me, but why add an aftermarket intake, on top of the stock box? I may just need a tube to go from where the orange one stops, and curves down into the intake spot after i remove the box, but if i do that, im just goin to get a whole new intake b/c that orange **** is fugly anyway.

[revrider1]

Well, the coolair intake will increase HP, but wont distress gas mileage. I would just leave that alone, even if it is fugly, unless you want to spend money.

[bibby]

It just seems like it wont work efficiantly the way it is. Think about it. You buy a cold air intake to get rid of the factory intake, b/c the cool air tubes don't produce as much heat as a stock intake. So how could a half cold air, half stock intake be efficiant. I'm sure its better than 100% stock, but not as good as 100% cold air material either.

[bibby]

Bump For Bedtime.

[RandyJ]

You're just confusing the **** out of me dude.

Leave it how it is. Stock, that car should get 30+mpg, what are you getting now? And nothing is wrong with your intake, meade just has something different. You realllylyy do no tneed to go out and buy somethign that "looks" like what someone else has and hope it works out on your car, that is truly ignorant and idiotic.

[rollin_clean]

if you want to buy a new intake either buy an AEM v2 or INJEN cold air. you have a ram air right now (which is fine) his is also a ram air, look around for cold air intake, it will relocate the filter closer to the ground in the front to get fresher air.

For the headers get the DC sports short tubes

For the exhaust go with a full catback (or either go to a muffler shop and have them put larger pipes going from your header to your exhaust.

The catalitic converter will restrict flow but most places it is required to be there, with out it you will get a little better flow.

the better the flow the better the performance and gas mileage

[tRiGgEr]

Go buy a Toyota yaris

[meade916]

i had almost the exact same setup for a while.......where i had a somewhat "made to work" intake. It went into another box like you have but i had the stock air filter removed. When i got the new one i didnt notice any difference. I think youll be fine. I did my basics (like you mentioned intake header etc) to get it to breath a little better but mainly because it looks better when you pop the hood. (to bad those pics you posted are of my motor half rebuilt, it used to look better than that before it got stripped. Its almost back to normal now though...)

[tRiGgEr]

Sup meade have any rebuild pics of the new edition civic

[bibby]

You realllylyy do no tneed to go out and buy somethign that "looks" like what someone else has and hope it works out on your car, that is truly ignorant and idiotic.

1st of i get around 19mpg in the city and only 26-28mpg on the hwy, so something isn't right. as you stated, "it should get 30+ stock", well it doesnt, it bareley gets close. so i was following his rebuild, and noticed how his intake was, and got me thinking about mine, and like i siad, cold air on top of stock cant really be helping much. I've already replaced the oxygen sensor, and ran gas additives to clean it out, but it just isnt getting any better.

Thanks meade for the input. i guess i couldve found a better pic, anyway, hmm, you said it didnt really increase much. i think im gonna try a new one anyways, and see what it does, then work on the exhaust.

and i will order what i need for exhaust, and take it to a shop and have it put on, i will do that later though, right now i want to settle this intake.

[Meka]

It also depends on how you drive it though...

[bibby]

well definately not like im racing it. Drive it like i'm going to work, and coming back home. Sometimes the drive to work is a little fast if laste, other than that, slab ftw.

[LoudCrownVic]

F U C K! I had a nice little tutorial written down, and it wouldn't submit.

F UCK.

Problem-Solution.

Problem- Intake is a stupid hoebag ****.
Solution- Extend your intake arm with something, maybe some PVC and tuck the airfilter somewhere where it's not going to **** in hot air.

Problem- Your car is too heavy- sapping your gas mileage.
Solution- Lose some weight, install a smaller system, remove unessential parts of vehicle.

Possible problem- exhaust with excessive flow and inadequate backpressure
Solution- Switch to smaller pipe (lighter too) with a dual glasspack muffler (ricer cans) setup. It sounds awesome. Basically split the singlew stock pipe off and put dual glasspack muffs on it, sounds smooth without ricer rattle.