Think about this for a minute. It’s Spring 2018, and you’re sitting at a stop light in your brand-new Civic Si. A Civic Touring pulls up next to you and begins flexing his muscle. It’s on!! Right? Well, the light turns green and you partake in a highly illegal but fun competition of endangering others on the road while proving your Si is better. But, you can’t even get into third gear without realizing that the Civic Touring is kicking your ass. How is this possible? You just paid a premium to own the Si, just to have it beaten by a lesser model, so what gives? Well, chances are, homeboy in the Civic Touring probably just left a Hondata dealer after having the new FlashPro tuner installed.

So, what is this FlashPro tune I’m talking about? Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s a special tuner that Hondata says can increase the output of your six-speed, non-Si, 1.5-liter Civic (EX trims and Touring trim) to 225 horsepower and 254 pound-feet of torque. That’s an increase of 51 horsepower and 92 pound-feet over a stock tune with a few other minor modifications like cold air intake and high-octane fuel. CVT models can get a power increase as well, bringing them up to as much as 214 horsepower and 220 pound-feet (yeah, it’s less, but that’s what you get for choosing a CVT over a real transmission, ya wuss.) Details of how the tune work are pretty scant, but the tune includes a nine-psi increase in boost pressure for manual models and a boost of three to six psi on CVT models. The best part is, the tuner will only set you back by $695 – not bad, right?

Why it Matters

The Civic Si is a pretty sweet ride with a look all its own compared to other Civic models. But, here at TopSpeed, we were a little disappointed that the new Si is only good for 205 ponies and 192 pound-feet of twist considering, especially since the Civic touring gets 174 ponies while the Type R will have just over 300. We even went so far as to call the Si a glorified grocery getter. Now, it looks like that’s even more true, considering you can buy a $21,600 Civic EX-T (in coupe form) and pay out $700 to get better-than-Si power. Of course, to get the full power increase, you’ll need things like cold air intake, an exhaust system, and high-octane fuel, but even on a stock setup, you can achieve as much as 23 horsepower and 50 pound-feet with just seven extra pounds of boost.

Considering the Civic Si is expected to start out in the “mid-$20,000 range,” it seems to me that you might be better off going with an EX-T and doing a few aftermarket mods – after all, you’ll end up with more power, and no stock Si will be able to touch you. With a true budget build, you can probably achieve the maximum output by spending $2,000 at most (and if you use eBay much less,) bringing the cost of an Si-beating EX-T (with the tune, of course) up to $23,600 – that’s still a few thousand less than what we expect the Si to go for. Not bad, huh?

Read our full review on the Honda Civic SI here.