The Story
I was working far from home and driving an old beat up f150 getting about 11mpg. Needed something to save on gas and stumbled into this car as a trade in at my work. Its a 2016 ex-t, 1.5t cvt (yes I know, not my first choice either.) Bought it intending to leave it stock as it was just to save money on gas.. but the platform is really quite fun. I have always been a Honda fan, and this generation flew under my radar for a long time. The first time I drove it I knew this would be a great daily. Fairly comfortable, nice features for the money, and 40+mpg without even trying. Told the used car manager I'd be taking this one home over the weekend and enjoyed every bit of the drive. Paid for it the next Monday and started to mod it a little bit here and there over the next few weeks and months. Small cosmetic bits, some better pads.. but it was really quite slow. That is when I started getting on the CivicX forums. I learned about Ktuner and how easy it was to tune these cars. Bought my ktuner V2.0 from TSP, got their "stage 1"tune included for free. Plugged it in and flashed my car when it arrived. It took less than an hour including the fumbling through menus and setup for the first time. I now had an extra 40hp and 60ft pounds of torque to the wheels, and man that really did make a difference. Just enough power to have a ton of fun on backroads and not get in trouble in town. Since then I've just upgraded what I felt needed improvement. Whiteline 22mm rear sway bar and some accord end links to help with turn in. Goodridge braided stainless steel brake lines and Motul rbf600, Hawk HP+ pads and some decent blank rotors to stop the brake fade every time I took it out for a night run. I knew I needed more tire from the start, but wanted to wait till an appropriate time to replace my stock setup. The stock height and body roll was also a pain point, so i ordered H&R Sport Springs and Whiteline adjustable rear upper control arms to dial in the alignment after lowering. I then ordered a set of 18x9.5+40 Konig Ultragrams wrapped with 255/35r18 Continental Extreme Contact DWS06+ from MartiniWorks with a plan to hit tail of the dragon that year. This car is an absolute blast now with just some pretty simple bolt on parts. Current plan is to trade for an Si or fk8, or keep this to daily and pickup another car to build. In the meantime I might throw an intercooler and downpipe at it. Excuse the brakedust, hp+ pads are super dusty and the fronts just dont stay clean for more than a day lol.
