B16A on a budget?

i got an oddball , well to me anyway, i've owned a few hondas but none for more than a week i think... I got this 91 civic wagovan in trade for my e30 325is....which i kinda really regret now in hindsight but w/e i'm gonna make the best of it . anyone have personal experience with b16's ? i have little experience and i know the basics but could someone point me towards decent parts? i'm kinda budget minded as always ,i would prefer to stay n/a and only looking to make about 155-60whp. it already has type r pistons , adj cam gears and exhaust.... it's b16a btw .... i've never owned a honda for more than a week and it's all kinda new to me. i'm not looking to set any speed or hp records , so far the list is , header, intake manifold , and a tune. maybe stage 1 cams and valvetrain and a bigger tb later... i want a reliable settup that i can dd without worries or weird idle . would that get me close to my goal? i gotta get more research time... really who doesn't know about hondas???

I have a 89 Civic Si that I race in ITA, same generation so I think I can give you some pointers. Get a Cold Air intake (NOT a short ram) The cold air intake will add a lot more horsepower. (lets say about $200) Even cheap eBay ones are good. My friend said his eBay intake tube got more hp on the dyno than his AEM tube. Anyways, get a cone air filter, it will act as a vortex and pull more air in. Buy a Hondata ECU for it, and get somebody to tune it ( around $600). Definately get a good set of headers, and see what exhaust is on it, they can make a big difference.

Good Luck, Steven

the exhaust is a "shop special" , basically just 2.5 piping with a resonator ,pretty straight and bend-less, idk if there's any hp to be gained from it. thanks for the pointers i suppose basic bolt ons add little hp, it's a good tune that will yield the best results . i'm just not into buying parts that will just look cool and not amount to much. would you even bother with afpr and high flow fuel rail with basic bolt ons like i have planned?

Sorry, idk what AFPR is, butwouldn't go with the High-flow fuel rail. look for a PGM-FI fuel injection system from a CRX/Civic Si in the same generation. The high-flow will just call for more fule, but the Programmed Fuel Injection works really well, and you're not straying from stock and leading to reliability issues.

Steven

Adjustable Fuel Pressure Regulator. but why would i need the pgm-fi on a b16a?

If it's already got the pistons and cam gears, it's almost definitely putting down 155whp. Skip the intake manifold--it won't do much of anything. Header will be worth another 3-5hp.

Smoothing out the fuel curves will net some nice humps in the powerband (and flatten the tq curve out bigtime).

Leaning it out a bunch at idle will help idle quality a TON after overlapping the cam gears (my intake is at +2.5 and exhaust is at -2). Easy to do w/ OBD1, impossible w/ OBD2.

AEM cold air will give a nice little bump in the 4.5k rpm range.

oh , awesome . some one is offering me ctr cams and a hondata s200 for $500, good deal ? would i need valvetrain to go with them? would the s200 be worth it or work out nicely?

That does sound like a decent deal--I don't know hondata, though.

I've heard that if you stick w/ the stock redline, you don't have to upgrade springs w/ the CTR cams, but that said, it doesn't sound like a bad idea to upgrade springs.

yeah , this is going to be foremost a dd so raising the redline will probably be out of the question, but the performance bug always gets the best of us and some insurance would be best, i'm going to really do some research on honda sites and see what the best options are.

I have heard good things about Hondata. Make sure you get a S200 or S300 though. Also make sure you get the right ECU to use with Hondata. They have a list of ones which will work on their website. It seems like with those mods already one the engine you should be at your horsepower goal. If you are going to change the intake manifold, I have heard good things about the Skunk2 Pro Series manifold.

yeah elsewhere people are recomending the ctr cams and s200 or s300 and header to get where i want to be.fo some reason i just like the way the stock airbox looks and would like to stick with that as long as possible , would this be a restriction immediately or could i make my goal with the stock airbox?