2017 Honda Civic Si Initial Review, Dyno Results, and 1/4 Mile Times
Say hello to the newest member of the JST family! I (Corrin) have been wanting to get my hands on one of these since Honda announced that they would be producing the 10th Gen Civics with the first factory Honda turbo engine. I know, most of you are thinking "but why didn't you get a Type R?"...trust me, I thought long and hard about it lol. After just a couple weeks of ownership, I don't even know where to begin to describe how much I love this car already! (Don't worry Ecoboost fans, Brian isn't deserting you!)
The interior on this car is probably one of my favorite aspects. First of all, it is huge...with room for all members of the family (I'm a mom, so I just had to throw that bit in there lol) The fit and finish is perfect, with materials that look and feel like a much more expensive car. The technology that is included with this car is beyond amazing...2 weeks later and I am still discovering what all the head unit alone is capable of! The seating position is perfect (I'm usually a fan of the way RWD sports cars sit as opposed to the FWD cars, but this one is very sporty!) And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the shifter in this car is literally the most amazing shifter that I have felt in a FWD car...It's almost like Honda actually cared about how the shifter feels when they were developing the car!
I wouldn't define this car as "fast" per-se, more along the lines of being balanced and peppy, but there is only one other car on this planet that I have felt the need do drive like a sports car everywhere I go (that just so happens to be my almost 10 year old RX8 R3). It definitely feels smaller than it is when tossing it around corners and through slaloms. Thanks to the factory LSD, the Civic Si likes to claw its way out of the corners when you get back on the gas. We tested the car in normal mode and then again in sport mode to find that the adaptive shocks are very useful, stiffening up the car enough to feel a definite difference!
If I had to pick a few things to complain about, I would have to point out that the clutch does seem to be a bit fragile (with reports of them slipping as more power is being added to the platform...we will find out for ourselves soon!) The clutch pedal also feels a bit spongy under normal driving, and there is a terrible rev-hang or hesitation between 1st and 2nd gear (could be traction control coming in to prevent torque steer maybe?) , but we hope to take care of that as well once we get started on tuning.
It is our goal to really push this new platform to find out what it is capable of from a track car standpoint (kind of our signature move, right) and I plan on campaigning it in the Global Time Attack Series (more than likely in Enthusiast FWD class for now). So far it has proven to be a fairly intriguing platform, with its factory turbo system, adaptive suspension, LSD, etc. We are pretty excited to get started on pushing this platform as new parts come out for them. However before we do that, we thought we would test it out in its stock form on our dyno and at the dragstrip to see what the Si is capable of straight off the showroom floor!
We had a feeling that these cars were going to be underrated from the factory, and it wan't much of a surprise when the dyno showed that the car was making 201 WHP and 209 Ft Lbs of Tq 100% bone stock on 93 octane. The car actually also managed the heat fairly well on such a hot day, with the first pull making 201whp, and all 3 subsequent runs making at least 199whp. We even saw 212lbs of tq on one of the later runs.
For a comparison to some of the other comparable cars that we dyno:
Fiesta ST stock=175 whp, Full bolt ons on 93=210whp
Focus ST Stock=230whp, Full Bolt ons on 93= 280whp
While at the dragstrip, we decided to get a weight on the Si. With exactly a half tank of gas and no passengers, she came in weighing an impressive 2860 lbs! Not bad for a new full sized sedan!
It was a pretty hot/humid night at the track (thanks to being located in GA, this is pretty much the norm during the summer!), but we were still able to squeeze out a 14.9 @ 93.6 mph from the Si. As mentioned earlier, the clutch has been somewhat of a concern for these cars, however, with over 9 runs in the course of an hour with a couple of flat foot shifts, the clutch held up remarkably with the stock power! The car did seem to be a bit sluggish (probably due to heatsoak), so we are pretty confident that she will probably be able to shave a couple of tenths off in cooler weather!
With the help of Ktuner, we will be throwing on a custom tune by Brian within the next week or two to see what kind of power can be brought out before adding aftermarket performance products! Check out our YouTube videos and be sure to check back soon for more updates as we go along!