New member... I need boost

Hello everyone. I just registered to this forum (so far, it seems like it's a wealth of knowledge).
I drive a '97 Civic EX, and I am seriously considering a turbo. So far I have few mods (IHE, plugs & wires).

My plan is to start with 5-7 PSI of boost, and then beef up my internals and go higher.

This car is my daily driver, so reliability is an issue of importance as well.

I was looking at some kits over here:

http://www.turbo-kits.com/civic_turbo_kits.html (to be more speciffic, I was looking at the RevHard stage II and the FMAX).

Are these worth the money, or is there a better way (or same value for less money ) to do this? ( I'm not exactly rich )

Any info will be greatly appreciated.

Been running the fmax kit for 3 years now on 12psi stock internals. Not a problem at all.

Go with the headgasket option, the msdbtm is a pos in my opinion.

I see many of you guys here are praising the greddy turbos. They're signifficantly cheaper than the other 2 mentioned above... Is there any other reason why you guys like em so much?

What's the most boost you can get out of a greddy? (practically)

[pdiggitydogg]

the greddy kit for the Dseries runs out of air around 14psi (...if i remember right)
Theyre nice kits for the money but dont come w/ an intercooler, for one thing (at least the old 15g kits didnt).

[2000Pimpinex]

I got the greddy kit cause I'm poor and couldn't afford a complete kit. I bought the kit, then bought the blow off valve. Hooked all that up, now I'm looking for an intercooler. Been running about 8 months, no problems.

[thermal]

GReddy kit is not a bad start. You may say you want low boost now but you'll get hooked. I wish I had a bigger turbo for my civic eventhough I knew it would blow up. But instead i started another project to avoid a catastrophe in my civic. You can boost 10 psi on that stock D-series as long as you have a decent fuel management system. I havent met to many people who have had luck with the GReddy e-manage tho. FMU's just plain suk too... Look into turbo kits from maxrev as well. I believe they use a T3-Super 60 turbo on their D-series kits, which is bigger than the GReddy TD04h-15g or 16t. Goodluck....

Ok so greddy is cheap... not really. If you get an intercooler kit, BOV, and whatever else needed to complete the kit, I would pretty much end up somewhere around $3000... In this case, wouldn't I be better off getting one of the kits above. Actually, I talked to a performance shop in my area (Drivers Image) and they said that those kits are not very popular on civics. He recommended Edelbrock. I read some reviews on it and it seems to be kick ass. Do any of you have any experience with that one?

Also... Should I install it myself? How hard is it? I'm no automotive guru, but I've been under the hood a little. I'm most scared of messing with the electronics part of it...

Thank you for the replies guys. This is really helpful for my research.

[95DX]

some people will say do it yourself others may not, I haven't heard it being too hard but I'd say if your unsure at all about doing any part of it have someone else do it whose done it before besides you said its your daily car if you do it yourself plan on at least a few days off or use another car if you have one/access to one

[thermal]

Edelbrock uses an MF-2 management which really just controls another set of injectors, however it is a "true" complete kit. You will still end up cutting some areas in your bumper to fit it tho.

As far as install...... it's a kit dude. It cant be too hard. Just make sure you do a complete research on the "how to" and thoroughly understand the basics. you'll be fine. If you were local, I'd do it for you for $200. Shops will cost you between $500-700 easily. Edelbrock kits come with a victorX intake manifold as well, which pretty much is the hardest part of the install......

Edelbrock uses an MF-2 management which really just controls another set of injectors

How about I add a VAFC (SAFC)...would that be enough engine management? What other way can I go?

You will still end up cutting some areas in your bumper to fit it tho.

Any drastic changes??? The intercooler is big... I'm also worried about the intercooler blockin all the air to my radiator-engine overheating.

As far as install...... it's a kit dude. It cant be too hard. Just make sure you do a complete research on the "how to" and thoroughly understand the basics. you'll be fine. If you were local, I'd do it for you for $200. Shops will cost you between $500-700 easily. Edelbrock kits come with a victorX intake manifold as well, which pretty much is the hardest part of the install......

I'll talk to a guy at a performance shop here and see how much they charge for all that... If it's too much i'll do it myself. I'll still have to take it to the shop to have it dyno-ed and tuned.

[thermal]

MF-2 is just another way to control more injectors excluding the ones on the intake manifold. I've heard that it was effective on these kits. I'm sure that the AFC can fine tune the "actual" injectors by using its designed functions.

The inside of the bumper has to be trimmed and the brake vents will have to be trimmed/cut to fit the intercooler piping. I'm not sure if you consider that drastic.

I say install it yourself man. Save some money. Get a couple of friends to help out. Make this a 2-3 day project, especially since it's your first install. I did my first kit in 10 hours by myself, but I made some extensive research before actually starting the work. Pre-mount what you can, such as gauges, turbo timer, intercooler, etc...

Yea, I think I will do it by myself. I went to a performance store around here (Drivers Image) and they said they charge $750 for the install. (not including other things such as the AFC, other gauges, turbo timer, etc... all these would be extra.
I talked to these guys for a while, and they actually said that it's not worth doing what I plan on doing.... they said a turbo'ed D16 is not worth the work and the money, and a swap would be a so-much-better solution. I am still leaning hard towards turbo, but, luckily, I'm still in the research stage. I need to think hard before I throw almost $5,000 in my car.

i "helped" my brother turbo his gsr its not too rough just be shure to do the easy stuff first that doesnt put your car down at all and do the rest when you have a few days to do it. its his daily driver and now its real fun.

[sohc_vtec 2NR]

i still like my greddy kit over the edelbrock or the other kits, i know it doesn't have the other accesories like the other kits but it gives you the opportunity to handpick which parts you want, such as what BOV you want, which intercooler are you gonna go with, etc.

its not as big as other turbo kits but for me 14-15 psi is enough for my goal. sure the other "kits" can boost past 15 but a d16 can't handle more than 12 psi anyways...to me i'd rather trade-off the extra psi for somethin' that spools up quick!

as far as price goes here's what i spent:

2030 - greddy 19t kit, type s bov, bov flange
185 - johnnyrace car IC 5"
100 - IC piping/clamps/couplers
TOTAL: $2315

since the greddy kit came with 310cc injectors all you need to do is crank the boost to 8psi and you got a quick ride...