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Should I reset my ECU each time I change the engine air filter?

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My first car was very weak. So most of my upgrades were to the suspension. I bought sways bars off old wrecked Trans-am/Z28 and other cheap things.

i.e. don;t waste a lot of money on a Civic. Do some small things that may help, as Jless pointed out good tires, and drive until you can afford a really fun car.
 
Changing plugs before 100k is worth it if you have firing issues, but I'd go OEM anyway. Civic or Porsche go OEM plugs, filters, belts, etc.

Never second guess the engineers of your car; if something was better for the same or less cost they would already have it in the car.

The obvious exception to the above is the Tornado fuel saver, which I've been using for years and put on all my vehicles. It even upped the mileage of the Prius by average 7 mpg.
 
Put me in the camp that likes to change plugs about every 40-50k miles, 100k interval be damned. Even if they do last that long, it can really suck trying to pull plugs that have been baked in for 5+ years of solid driving.
 
Skoorb said:
Changing plugs before 100k is worth it if you have firing issues, but I'd go OEM anyway. Civic or Porsche go OEM plugs, filters, belts, etc.

Never second guess the engineers of your car; if something was better for the same or less cost they would already have it in the car.

The obvious exception to the above is the Tornado fuel saver, which I've been using for years and put on all my vehicles. It even upped the mileage of the Prius by average 7 mpg.
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That tornado thing looks bad to me. It probably makes your car run lean. If you notice that much of a difference it probably means you were running rich to begin with.
 
Skoorb said:
Never second guess the engineers of your car; if something was better for the same or less cost they would already have it in the car.
Click to expand...

I always second guess the engineers of my cars, just because some of their decisions were influenced by non engineering factors beyond their control (marketing & PR mandates, time/budget constraints, NVH requirements, etc). There is always room for improvement.
 
DivideBYZero said:
You'd get more power* buying premium fuel.




*This will still be minimal.
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Not true. If the car is meant to run on regular, it will run best on regular. Higher octane fuel doesn't benefit a car not designed for it. Some actually run worse, my car will drop mpg a little if I put more than regular in it. Higher octane fuel resists combustion a little more than lower octane (hence why it prevents premature ignition, or pinging).
 
Look, OP, if you want to rice out your honda rice out your honda. Just know that *every single one* of the ricer mods will cost you a little bit (or a lot of bit) of power and/or driveability.

There is no practical way to take a car that was designed by a team of experienced engineers to be reliable and inexpensive to own and turn it into a performance machine. If you want something fast then look for a car designed by a team of experienced engineers to perform well under conditions you want.

The "high performance" civics you see are more of an ad to get fans of the brand to spend money on dubious performance parts from that rice shop. From that standpoint a $20,000 civic buildup to perform on par with a $5000 Z-28 is a good investment. For your everyday driver not so much.
 
Nothing wrong with building up a Civic, as long as you're an enthusiast with realistic expectations that:

-anything worthwhile will cost money
-often that cost will be as much or more than the car
-it will be a ongoing time consuming project
-it will affect MPG and reliability
-it's alot of work
-it will be cheaper and easier on another car that is already fast to begin with

-and above all, you don't care about any of the above and are willing to devote time and money exceeding the value of the car because you're a devoted enthusiast

That rules out 99&#37; of casual car owners who want to modify their one and only daily driver stock car for performance with air intakes and tunes and see tangible gains for < $1000. If you have to ask if it's worth it, it's most likely not, not for you anyway. It's a different mindset from a real gearhead who already KNOWS it's not worth putting a $3000 engine with a $1500 turbo into a $2500 Civic, but won't hesitate to do it anyway for teh lolz.

I know some cars can see huge leaps for less than that, or that you can throw a 100 shot on any car for $150, but I have to set the mark at $1000+ to get into the realm of actual meaningful mechnical parts considering there are some $500 intake pipes out there...

A filter or inlet pipe is not a performance modification. It is a hinderence and support mod only if you have something else that requires it.

modder 1 (the kind that pop into ATG more often than not):
-intake to improve performance, moar horserpowaz!

modder 2:
-don't want to waste money on a stupid intake, but the diameter and MAF size are starting to restrict flow to the blower inlet and robbing me of boost.
 
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To answer the original question: no you don't need to reset the ECU when changing the filter.

You may however have to retune the programming if an aftermarket intake is installed that changes any bends around, or reorients, the MAF sensor, or significantly alters the distance between the sensor and either the throttle or filter.
 
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SparkyJJO said:
Not true. If the car is meant to run on regular, it will run best on regular. Higher octane fuel doesn't benefit a car not designed for it. Some actually run worse, my car will drop mpg a little if I put more than regular in it. Higher octane fuel resists combustion a little more than lower octane (hence why it prevents premature ignition, or pinging).
Click to expand...

Erm, thanks for posting the obvious, I was being sarcastic.
 
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