Hey fellow CM'ers!

I've got a question for all of you, hope you can help.

I'm buying my 18 y/o sister a nice Christmas/birthday gift and upgrading her sound system. She has a 09 Accord Sedan 4cyl LX (probably on trim). A few years ago I bought her a head unit and amp, but it's time to upgrade her speakers. The head unit is a run of the mill Alpine and the amp is probably a 300watt Kensington, though I am not 100% sure. I want to upgrade her speakers to something decent, but not over the top. When I did mine years ago I got all Boston Acoustic, but I'm looking to spend about half that. I can get 10% off anything through my old shop.

If you would be so kind, I'm looking for advice on:

Brand, Alpine is good for about $100/120 per pair?
6 1/2 in the front with tweeters?
6 x 9 for the back deck?
No subwoofer

Thanks in advance. It's depressing to look outside at my car and not be able to drive it. Such is life in the big city I suppose.

The old gen7 forum was kind of around for a short bit. Thien pulled what he could before it finally disappeared. Its good to see you posting up in here. Too bad your CM is still down in FL while you're up here enjoying the single life. It'd be good if you pop in more often and share your knowledge with some of the guys that don't know the kind of things you've done. The more experience we have here, the better.

Haha I really don't know anything, just the experience. Most of what I did was fueled by Skippy. I will be more active around here and would love to hang with any of the NYC people.

If it were me, the best way to complete the swap is to get a MT tranny, ecu, engine harness and all the other little bits. Mike said the wiring was the hardest part. I'm pretty sure that swapping the engine harness would be easier than rewriting the AT harness.

It was a long time ago and feels like eons, so my memory of the actual process of it feels nonexistent. It was a trial and error of what parts needed to be switched and what didn't.

If the old Gen7 forums were still around, I bet some of it was up there.

Ya I'm alive! I got to see Tim over the summer up here in NYC. Sorry I missed you guys at the meetup that Friday, but single life and interns come first! 

Hey everyone. I saw I got a PM from someone asking for the 5AT to 5MT tranny swap list. The short is that I don't have it anymore, or at least where I can easily access it. I live up in NYC and left my car in FL. I've debated selling it, but to be honest I put way too much blood, sweat and tears into it to actually do it.

Anyway, sob story complete. My advice is that if you're going to switch from auto to manual, don't. Buy a new car, seriously. This was Skip's advice going into it and if I didn't have a custom stereo blah blah, I would have gone that route. I know Skip helped someone in FL do hers (keeping them anonymous) and it was no easy task. Mine took 3 months of actual work and countless hours of research and literal pain before that. The total bill with labor and parts was approaching 8K if I remember right (this was 6 years ago so bear with me). It was a combination of A rated junkyard parts and we kept the AT ECU. You have to manually rewire much of the car, so that is the hardest part. Your speedo will also be off, but you get used to that.

If you're using an EMS like Kpro it'll stop you out at 25 degrees of cam angle anyways, its just a little flat line, even if i put in a million degrees. I don't have a chart anymore because that blew up two laptops ago, but I do remember street tuning it and it would just flatline at 25 degrees.

I think its a cool idea, but waste of gas/money. If you're going to put stage2 cams, your buddy owns a speed shop, just go turbo and spend the money/time now.

Just adding myself to this squad now. Officially located in Charleston, SC now, not living in FL anymore although my mom and sister still live down there. You can add me to the squad and keep me in mind for any future meets.

I did 130mph over the bridge here in Charleston, my car only thought it was going 100 though

I had a girl in the car, it was 1am, forgive me for I like women clutching my arm going 130, windows down in the pitch black

There was no cars on the road

I still change mine every ~3,000 miles, otherwise Skip would have a conniption haha

just messin bud

Mase at Stage6Motorsports(Jacksonville,FL) and the rest of the FL area is great, Jason (Jdog) at Phantasm in NC, Raleigh mostly were both great tuners that I had wonderful experiences with. Jason had my car for about 12 hours of tuning, Mase about 2.

Here's what I have heard about CFT.  They build insane cars and their shop cars are ridiculous.  Their customer cars are not.  They treat their customers like shit and don't bother to put half the effort and care into people's cars that are paying them money.

That is so dead on true its not even funny. But I think unfortunately that's the case with most shops, they'll hook up the guys who work their, the shop cars, and their "boys", but will do a half ass job on everyone else. I've witnessed this first hand

My friend worked for like Central Florida motorsports which was a tuning shop out not too far away from UCF. They were good people, glad at least you came to some sort of resolution with that, I know skip hates CFT

What I meant is if I turn my car into more of a race car, it'll turn into more breakdowns which would mean that my mode of transportation to work and school for that matter would be less reliable. A bike would be my other form of transportation if it broke down, rather than a crappy DD. But I can only realistically afford one or the other.

One thing I've learned is that the more you modify your car the more breakdowns that it leads to and that means more $$$$$.

I honestly don't want to put out more than 450-500whp because then it becomes more of a fun/weekend car and I really enjoy driving my turbo accord everyday, that's something that will never change if it doesn't have to.

I'm just under that and I can't make it LOL

kinda got lost there

Let's not argue about what Skip's engine can or cannot make. If I make 450whp, so be it, w/e. It's more of a building block that I can go from there.

The whole point of this entire thread is to look for opinions, options, and thoughts. It seems more people are leaning towards the race motor because of the safety of the bike, which is understandable. To put it all in perspective financially, I make 6k a month now, and I only need roughly 2k-2.5k to live pretty lavishly and pay rent, utilities, insurance, etc. It's not like the money is burning a hole in my pocket, but I want to work hard and play hard too.

I really want the bike because it's a new form of entertainment and its a diversification in my life, like someone stated above

I'll add this in the main post but I already make 300whp on 8.5pounds of boost on a basically stock motor.

I was talking a little bit about this with Skippy, good luck with it sir. He definetly has done great work on my car throughout the years. His favorite beer is Corona, but he loves his Jack Daniels