can someone help explain this to me

well i got a lot of ppl tellin me to go with performance before looks so we've decided to go that way for a while but so far i'm well...completely lost. My bro gave me some info on it which he said might help me deicide what i wanna do....i understand some of it a lil but he said this should be enough for me to make my next choice on something to modify...well heres the list he gave me and if anyone can give me an explaination on any of it it'll help thanks.
200 Horsepower
170Ft of torque
Ractive 4 in 1 header
Red racing spark plug wires
Strut Bars
Elka suspension
Apex'i exhaust
how knowing all this is gonna help me i'll never understand so anything will do me some good

A few words of advice... since i'm a female who only does performance to my car (and i have A LOT DONE), i've figured out that the best thing to do to understand and to learn about performance is to do research. The first step is to first understand your motor. If you don't know your basic info then you should learn that first before trying to understand how to make your car faster. Start going online and doing searches on different things you can do to your car...read about it and this way you build up your own knowledge and understand what you want to do with your own car. For an example, if you want to do suspension, ask around to see what companies are out there and what they carry and then go home and research all the ones that where mentioned. You can take advice from other people on what to do to your car...but you should always research and read about what it does, how it works and so on. Before i went Turbo, i made sure i read EVERYTHING possible on the internet to teach myself before i installed it. I learned everything there is to know about Turbo and how it works, the point behind it, and how to maintain it. Now if something goes wrong, i know exactly what the problem is.

Another way to learn and get ideas is to just read forums in the performance section and just see what questions people have and the answers that are given.

My last word of advice is...ASK QUESTIONS!!! Everyone always ask me how i know the things i know and i always tell them it's because i'm not scared to ask question. My favorite quote on this would be, "a person who ask a question is a fool for 5 mintues, but a person who doesn't is a fool for life." So post any performance question, or anything that pops up in your mind :biggrin:

If you want to do looks first, go for it, but while you are doing that, you should start doing your research on performance!

I hope this helps, i know it helped for me and i'm a young female doing Autocrossing and i'm sponsored by 4 companies. It does take time though...so keep it up and good will come from it. I've been around cars since i was 7 years old, so i've learned to enjoy and love them. Good luck

couldn't have put it better myself, chix... but some more advice:

If you're still at the point where your learning the difference between horsepower and torque -- you'll probably just want to read up on some car stuff in general, so that you understand what people are talking about

It'll be important too, so that you can make your own INFORMED decisions about suggestions and whatnot that you may receive on parts, mods, and whatever

seriously, pick up an easy book like auto repair for dummies -- even if you just browse through it at your local barnes & noble or wherever and don't actually take it home and start from there

and yes ASK ASK ASK!! that's the best way to learn

but a quick primer, just to answer your first qustions - and bear with me guys, i wrote this out as simply as possible:

Horsepower vs torque:
**torque is the "go" power: hp is the "keep it going" power
**torque is also what comes higher as a standard on most suv's and trucks, because they are designed to hold larger loads and/or tow trailers and whatnot -- so the benefit of higher torque in a lighter car is... well a faster and more powerful start
**horsepower comes two ways:bhp and whp (this is how I learned anyway) - bhp is base horsepower - what your motor is capable of producing outright -- whp is wheel horsepower, or how much power your CAR is putting out once it makes it to your wheels, which is what matter
** as a general rule, your whp is going to be less than your bhp: there are MANY components that will affect this that you can change to allow you to close the gap... but i don't want to get into that right now

I have a few questions for you, now:

your brother said something about 200HP? If you are driving a 93 accord, does he mean that your engine has 200hp? because if he does, and your block is stock... well that's not true as far as i know

check your engine code... if you look on the motor itself it will be a barcode sticker on the right side -- it should say "F22A...etc" -- unless your car doesn't have a stock motor in it

also are you driving standard or automatic?
is your car a dx ex or lx?

then i can give you a better idea of what to expect from your car

(ps - if it does read F22A1 or F22A6 - this is a stock block but bhp isn't more than 165 if no mods have been done)

hope that wasnt too much for ya

I'd recommend a few books too: "Honda & Acura Performance Handbook" (great all around book for information on pretty much everything) and "How to Build Honda Horsepower" (mostly about integras and civics, but shows you what parts do for adding power; with dyno charts).


The H&A Performance Handbook would be the best bet out of those 2 books. I found it at Barnes & Noble for $21.95, well worth the price.

I'd recommend a few books too: "Honda & Acura Performance Handbook" (great all around book for information on pretty much everything) and "How to Build Honda Horsepower" (mostly about integras and civics, but shows you what parts do for adding power; with dyno charts).


The H&A Performance Handbook would be the best bet out of those 2 books. I found it at Barnes & Noble for $21.95, well worth the price.


SO true... it is very well written and easy to understand with great illustrations and photos, although they are in black and white

it also may be helpful to you to pick up a Haynes service manual for your car - it's year-specific and has almost everything you would need for regular maintenance and parts replacement... the Haynes manuals are based on complete tear-down and rebuild of whatever car they cover in that particular edition... so all the pictures and illustrations are, in your case, 90-93 Accord specific it great to have around for when youre switching parts and doing routine maintenance (brakes, timing belts, etc...)

couldn't have put it better myself, chix... but some more advice:

If you're still at the point where your learning the difference between horsepower and torque -- you'll probably just want to read up on some car stuff in general, so that you understand what people are talking about

It'll be important too, so that you can make your own INFORMED decisions about suggestions and whatnot that you may receive on parts, mods, and whatever

seriously, pick up an easy book like auto repair for dummies -- even if you just browse through it at your local barnes & noble or wherever and don't actually take it home and start from there

and yes ASK ASK ASK!! that's the best way to learn

but a quick primer, just to answer your first qustions - and bear with me guys, i wrote this out as simply as possible:

Horsepower vs torque:
**torque is the "go" power: hp is the "keep it going" power
**torque is also what comes higher as a standard on most suv's and trucks, because they are designed to hold larger loads and/or tow trailers and whatnot -- so the benefit of higher torque in a lighter car is... well a faster and more powerful start
**horsepower comes two ways:bhp and whp (this is how I learned anyway) - bhp is base horsepower - what your motor is capable of producing outright -- whp is wheel horsepower, or how much power your CAR is putting out once it makes it to your wheels, which is what matter
** as a general rule, your whp is going to be less than your bhp: there are MANY components that will affect this that you can change to allow you to close the gap... but i don't want to get into that right now

I have a few questions for you, now:

your brother said something about 200HP? If you are driving a 93 accord, does he mean that your engine has 200hp? because if he does, and your block is stock... well that's not true as far as i know

check your engine code... if you look on the motor itself it will be a barcode sticker on the right side -- it should say "F22A...etc" -- unless your car doesn't have a stock motor in it

also are you driving standard or automatic?
is your car a dx ex or lx?

then i can give you a better idea of what to expect from your car

(ps - if it does read F22A1 or F22A6 - this is a stock block but bhp isn't more than 165 if no mods have been done)

hope that wasnt too much for ya

your info looks like just cut and paste to me..

your info looks like just cut and paste to me..


Thanks for accusing me of plagiarism but those words definitely came out of my own brain to my fingers from my own keyboard straight to you.
...

anyway -

hurleygrl - don't be afraid to go for looks first if that's what you want to do - like everybody else says, do what YOU want... it's your car and your money, most importantly

and good luck

FIRST RULE OF FIXING A RIDE, SPECIALLY ON CUSTOM....
ALWAYS LOOKS BEFORE PERFORMANCE...<WHY?
FIRST of you dont want to be driving a pinto with a b18 engine.
Secondly... performance is not very important unless you participate in races at drag runs and competitions and so on.
The final and most important reason. Here in AMERICA, there is no point of making you car super fast. If you get on the freeway(SPECIALLY WESTCOAST), and im sure you all know what im gonna be talking about now, theres always this old woman/man driving in front of you, and are going slow as hell. Also if you havent noticed, left lane on the frewways (SPECIALLY WESTCOAST) is supposed to be the fast lane and right is slower. On the Left lane you see these old folks, and others that cant drive in their mercedes going 30mph, and on the left side you see big rigs going 70 plus. Is it just me our is this retarded. Since you are not able to press the engine because of these conditions, the engines performance slowly deteriorates. The cylinder are constantly filled with extra debree and screw up the performance of the car.

THIS IS WHY LOOKS ALWATS COME BEFORE PERFORMANCE.

its all about personal opinion and taste. wait a sec...its ONLY about personal opinion and taste... though I beleive that a car should be at least half as fast as it looks.

its all about personal opinion and taste. wait a sec...its ONLY about personal opinion and taste... though I beleive that a car should be at least half as fast as it looks.

I TOTALLY agree with what you said. It's all about personal opinion and taste. Me, personally i almost started off by looks, but it didn't interest me any. So now i'm doing performance. Another advice is if you don't have a lot of cash...DO LOOKS because i'll tell you that performance is very expensive! I have dumped a lot of money under the hood.
Powerefx- i understand where you are coming from. There is no point in spending all that money for performance when there is no where to let it go. I take my car to the tracks all the time. I don't do shows because my car isn't anything special on the outside, just looks like a stock civic SI with a carbon fiber hood, tinted windows, and lowered!
My all time advice is do what makes you happy! :biggrin:

FIRST of you dont want to be driving a pinto with a b18 engine.


no but i wouldn't min a beat up pinto with a twin turbo 5.0

Dude before you post in a thread look to see when the last post was. This thread is six months old. So there is no reason to respond to it. Just let dead threads die. Oh, and welcome to AF!

Dude before you post in a thread look to see when the last post was. This thread is six months old. So there is no reason to respond to it. Just let dead threads die. Oh, and welcome to AF!


hey dude ok dude

Dude before you post in a thread look to see when the last post was. This thread is six months old. So there is no reason to respond to it. Just let dead threads die. Oh, and welcome to AF!


hey dude ok dude sorry dude

hey Dude ok Dude sorry Dude i know threads Die
So do Hondas

hey Dude ok Dude sorry Dude i know threads Die
So do Hondas

hey DUDE...stop post whoring just to get your counts up higher! And as far as you saying Hondas die, ummmm i think you need to look on the road and see what kind of oldest cars that are still out there on the road! You would see VW and hondas...it's a true given fact! So stop being childish

performace>looks, yea looks are awesome, but if you are standing at a red light and some punk kid wants to race you and acts all tight in front of his gf just cuz he got a fart can and a body kit, and u got no exterior parts but u got like 600hp under the hood and you smoke him, he gonna feel played when he gets his ass handed to him by a girl, especailly right in front of his gf

hey Dude ok Dude sorry Dude i know threads Die
So do Hondas
funny to mention that hondas die, prove it
i got a 89 accord, 140k miles, runs alot better then any new car i've seen

hey DUDE...stop post whoring just to get your counts up higher! And as far as you saying Hondas die, ummmm i think you need to look on the road and see what kind of oldest cars that are still out there on the road! You would see VW and hondas...it's a true given fact! So stop being childish
and BMW's, but the only ones u will see is are those BMW's that people own and they are in love with BMW