Dyno-Tuning My Nearly-Stock Honda Civic Was Totally Worth It
Calling a Honda Civic with a laptop “the most feared thing in the car community” is mostly a joke—but it didn’t come out of nowhere. Some cars, certainly some Civics, can make a lot more power than stock with the right modifications. Engine computer tuning is what makes those mods work properly, and a driver who knows that is typically faster than your friendly neighborhood farty exhaust haver. But computer tuning can unlock meaningful performance improvements even without other go-fast parts.
I only have one engine mod on my eighth-gen Civic Si and it barely counts. It’s just a cat-back exhaust and a mild one to boot. I replaced the previous owner’s Skunk2 MegaPower potato cannon with a much more mindful and demure A’pexi WS2. It’s still significantly less restrictive than stock, but the sound is more melodious and less “help, there’s a squadron of angry bees after me!”
Getting the car custom-tuned was more of an exercise in satisfying my curiosity rather than increasing peak power. But a session of E-tuning and another on an actual dyno was hugely beneficial to my humble Civic. Now, I’d tell anyone interested in hot rodding their car at all to look into computer tuning before you start bolting up new intakes and exhaust pipes.
