Well, this is true to an extent.

When the Honda scene first began, parts were OUTRAGEOUS. A simple header was 600.00, a set of Eagle H beam rods was 700.00. A set of cams was well over a grand. The demand to mod was there though, and people bought the stuff. As a result, TONS of aftermarket companies jumped in, driving the prices down via competition. Now, 10 years later, you can get a header for 40.00 (granted not a good one, but it'll make a little power), eagle Hbeams are under 300 bucks, cams are around 600, and so on.

The biggest jump for the Honda world, in terms of the average guy, is the low cost of entry level mods like suspension, wheels, and turbo parts. Turbo'ing Honda's in 2001 or 2002 required your own ability to fabricate, left limited tuning options, and wasn't cheap. Now, we have FREE engine management in real time and I could turbo a car tomorrow for 800 bucks easy and make upwards of 350whp with my eyes closed. The advantages of have tech savvy computer literate young guys building cars and using their college education to hack and decode honda ecu's.

The Honda scene has ELITE parts though, which would be similar to the Callaway brand of parts. Mugen and Spoon have wind tunnel designed parts. Mugen (Mtech) is in F1, and they make honda parts for civics! Stuff is mega expensive....still not as expensive as Callaway though, and they offer less expensive parts worthy of their name to get everybody a little something. We can have RACE class, elite, remote reservoir one piece coilovers for 3k. I think Penske C4 coilovers are more than that. We can have MEGA quality, fully adjustable coilovers from Tein or PIC for 750 bucks though.

I could go on and on, but the Honda world is every bit like the muscle car world back in the day, except now you have the internet to just fuel it to the max. There's plenty to be learned though, from a scene that went from nothing to MONSTER is 5-6 years. We can mod those cars into oblivion...custom control arms, coilovers, suspension braces, TONS of tasteful body mods (not talking big darth vader body kits), wheels everywhere, cams everywhere, custom height blocks, aftermarket heads, custom trannies,...our options are ENDLESS. If C4's were in the Honda world, there'd be a kit already comin out to swap the ZR1 powerplant and tranny into these cars..plug and play...guaranteed. We can easily swap a 2007 Civic Si K20a into an 88 Civic hatch...plug and play. Your talkin 220whp with kpro in a 2000lb car...6speed and all...OEM reliable.

I think being part of that is sometimes why I think things are so wrong here. There, you have cars that ARE NOT acceptable in stock form...you have to mod...period. That's why I think the enthusiasts drive to mod, is just as important as the aftermarkets job to inspire them. People here don't want to hear it, but the TRUE honda scene is something so tasteful, so clean...its amazing. If the C4 market was like that, these cars would be incredible. It's simply the result of us having nothing to start with versus Corvette guys who have an awesome car bone stock.

 

jhammons01, the last comment on parts from China hit it right on the nose
Our problem is as Americans we have a throw it away when it breaks mentality!
The C5, C6 will eventually become what the C4 is in parts availabitlity.
My thoughts and please don't get upset with me as it is my opinion,
We cannot compete anymore with other countries like China,Mexico,Singapore etc.
Our Labor is too expensive, Other countries have cheap labor and usually cheap quality.
But why the hell did our Politicians allow this Country which I'm proud to be in, get to this point? We should never have allowed our big businesses to go overseas to produce products or they should have charged them a huge import tax so when it comes back into into America it is similarly priced with our American manufactured products.
And I blame both parties within the last 10-12 years for screwing us up
But I got off the subject Sorry

 

??????? I am always puzzled when someone is shocked by the opinions of others?

It's a magazine article not a fatwa!! Mag guys get paid to hawk the parts and pieces of their a advertisers.

New cars? Big bucks? Old cars? .........not so much.


Franky, I don't see how mags stay in business?


TJM

 

Oh yeah, I forgot............... Ricer's are as bad as achne.

Please get some cream for that annoying problem

 

The facts are most after market products are designed and built for the 5 and 6. Someone here said, in another post a little while back, that is because they are the ones doing the mods. Well duh, they have the mods to do it with. we do not so much.

The mags always go with the latest cars. That's life. I have often wondered why we don't have more mods. I don't know why, but the ones we do have are pretty expensive in comparison to the value of our cars, so most of us won't justify it.

The article doing an Lsx swap, WTF. Oh yeah, that's exactly what we are going to do. That's one reason i don't subscribe to any mag. They seldom have articles on anything I am interested in and have the same mentality as a lot of the 5 and 6 owners. The newest and baddest that's where it's at. BS, hot rodding and vetteing is about the classics. They just don't get it.

But I DGAF. doesn't effect me none.

I would also add, back in the day I imagine there were tons of articles on them. just saying!

 

One of the big problems in the C4 community is haters on a pedestal.

 

Maybe some, but most of us are just car guys

 

You just nailed it. I believe a big part of us are just that, car guys.

I, at least, consider myself a car guy before I do a vette guy.

 

Well I simply stopped my subscription just after they started the CFORCE project....for many reasons.....enough said.....actions speak louder than words...