Honda Civic Tourer Tuning

"Tuning guide to the greatest Honda Civic Tourer modifications."

The Civic Tourer is a brilliant project car to have, offering more practical rear space but retaining the reliability and drivability of the Civic it is based on.

This means that this practical family targetted car still benefits from a very extensive and wide range of performance upgrades and parts.

The key to Civic Tourer tuning is finding the right mods you can waste loads of money if you do it wrong.

We look at Civic Tourer tuning and show the optimum modifications for your car. Honda Civic Tourers are popular tuning projects and with carefully picked modified parts you can maximise your driving enjoyment.

 

Check out our video introduction to Honda Tuning, all you need to know about mods and upgrades on your Honda.

 

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Civic Tourer owners uprate the handling of their cars with sports suspension modifications as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

We found that most Civic Tourer factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out for cornering or toe in for stability, , and slight negative camber will radically benefit your cornering and handling.

We suggest that you fit motorsport suspension and lower the car by 28mm - 42 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension.

A nice wide torque band and sweet spot of peak power at one third of your RPM range is optimum.

To be completely frank and honest, on the more modest engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.

Engine tuning mods.

These mods performance upgrades are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get going.

• 1.6 i-DTEC engine from the Earth Dreams series
• 1.8 i-VTEC engine

Getting the best modified parts for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best Engine Mods for your car

1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Suspension upgrade (drop 28mm - 42 mm.), Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Remap.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam, high flow fuel injector.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Engine balancing, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves).

You need to keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a wide power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.

The point of our pointers is to point out to you to the best tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best sport parts and all aspects of modding cars.

A fast road camshaft is one of the best NASP power modifications you can do mechanically to your engine.

It maximises the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a competition cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to look at the fuelling.

Using higher octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Honda project after fitting other motorsport mods. To get sufficient fuel you may need to increase the injectors on your engine.

If you've uprated your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Guides to engines that fit in the Civic

• D16 D17
• B16 B18 B20
• H22
• K20A K24

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Air induction kits are only beneficial to increase performance if the air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction.

For most Civic Tourer engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of needing cold air.

Do not go with the widest exhaust you can buy this will slow the exhaust rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Head work including a gas flow (ported and polished) and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. When you start tuning your Civic Tourer you will usally see that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch. The best mods we would do for your Civic Tourer are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

NA (naturally aspirated) engines do not achieve big power gains if you tune/remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A tuned/remapped turbo will give significant power gains and take full advantage of the strength of the block.

We've also seen some tuners toying with twincharging applications and making some seriously high power gains.

Adding forced induction will see massive power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. It is generally easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to get a turbo working. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.

The nice steady boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloys are less heavy they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good soft compound tire can really enhance your cars handling. The drawback to large rims on your Civic Tourer is that you alter your effective final drive ratio so this will have a negative effect on acceleration and performance.

Due to this aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases we do not recommend going over 16 inches.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Civic Tourer options in more detail with our Civic Tourer owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Honda tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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