Have you ever lifted up the hood of your Civic and tried to trace the intake piping, from where it starts to where it ends at the throttle body? If you manage to trace it, what you will find is a convoluted, snaking mess, that seems to make no sense. It starts in the left corner of the engine bay, right beside the air filter box. From here, the plastic piping goes down out of the engine bay to the area behind the bumper cover, where it connects to a large resonator box. It then goes back up to the engine bay where it connects to the air filter box, passing through a thick paper air filter. From the air filter box it then goes to the throttle body through an accordion style rubber pipe that has a little box attached to it.

Why would a company like Honda design something like this?

Well, it is actually carefully designed like this to allow good noise suppression and to eliminate any chance of any debris or water from getting into the engine while being cheap to produce. Not a problem to Joe Average, but the huge downside as far as us performance oriented guys are is that it also reduces the power potential of the engine, because it is highly restrictive.

The engine has to work harder to pull the air in, the end result being that it puts less power down to the ground.

That's why we recommend the first mod. Anyone do to their Civic is to change out the stock intake plumbing and replace it with a good aftermarket intake. The after market intake will look great in your engine bay, boost power and give your intake an unbelievable growl that will make you want to wind the car out to redline everytime!!! When the VTEC kicks in the sound is indescribable.

A good aftermarket intake will use a K&N or similar free flow cone filter. K&N filters use an oiled cotton gauze filter material that allows air to flow through much more freely than the stock paper filter while the oil (which is statically charged) traps the dirt particles just as well as the paper filter. The conical design of the filter allows it to have more surface area as well, allowing the filter to flow much more air.

The piping of the intake should be made from large diameter mandrel bent aluminum tubing (or smooth plastic tubing) instead of the small diameter restrictive accordion style tubing that stock intakes use.

If the intake places the filter behind the bumper cover so that it is away from the hot engine bay it will produce even more power, because it will suck colder air form outside which is denser and therefore has more power producing potential.

An intake on a Civic can give anywhere from about a 3 hp gain to a 11 hp gain. A few years back Sport Compact Car magazine did a huge test of all of the different intakes available at the time. Most of them are still available now. To read the article, click here.

Our preference is for the AEM Cold Air Intake. We're not alone, everybody seems to consider it to be the best intake for the Civic. Only AEM intakes feature CNC mandrel-bent 6061 aluminum intake pipes that are zirconia powder coated for great heat resistance for more power. Also, the TIG-welded fittings and brackets with soft mounts give a perfect, factory like fit. As Sport Compact Car found out, they produce more power than al the other comparable intakes. What more do you want?

If you are purchasing an AEM intake make sure you get the cold air intake, this is the one everyone raves about. It will make more power than the short ram version, by sucking in cooler air but also the longer tubing length causes some resonance effects that boost mid range torque.

If you want to learn more about it, check out AEM's website here.

If you want to buy one, go to the Carparts Homepage . They carry the AEM Cold Air Intakes for the Civics starting at $221.33. Before you buy though, make-sure to check our coupons and deals page . It will show you how to go about buying form Carparts.com so that you can get further discounts that will bring the price below $200.00, pretty amazing for a genuine AEM cold air intake.

At the Carparts Homepage you can find some other intakes (DC Sports, APC etc.) that are even cheaper, but we truly think that you are wasting your time if you don't go for the AEM. They really are that good.

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