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The Si recipe has always been a simple one: Take a Honda Civic Coupe or Sedan. Bump up the power. Stiffen the suspension and improve the brakes. Slap on a few aggressive exterior bits and maybe a spoiler. Take that, put it all together and you've got yourself a stew, baby.
OK, it's not so simple, but we're talking about the sort of modifications that a teenager would make to their hand-me-down base model given enough time and money, but as a turnkey solution with a warranty. This new 2017 Civic Si sticks fairly close to that recipe but has a few new tricks up its sleeve for this generation and an unexpected level of on-road refinement.
205-horsepower turbocharged engine
The Si is powered by the same 1.5-liter turbocharged engine as the Civic EX-T, but with a larger 20.3 psi turbocharger feeding it. Output is up to 205-ponies and 192 pound-feet of torque. That's a pretty decent 31-horsepower bump and a very usable fun bump for most drivers. It's still a few hp short of the Si's natural enemy, the Golf GTI's 220 horsepower.
(The aftermarket has already proven that non-Si turbo can be coaxed to 233 horsepower with a plug-and-play tuning add-on, so it stands to reason that the Si's larger turbo is just a retune away from similar gains.)
The 205 ponies we've got flow through a six-speed manual transmission on the way to the front wheels. A standard limited-slip differential makes sure that most of that power actually reaches the road.
Read more on CNET.