Alright, I know this sounds extremely lame. I've invested the last few years of my life to guitar. Now I'm tired of driving a 92' t-bird and my brother is driving a modded out mx6. I want something that I can race. Well, I'm thinking about getting a 96 Honda Civic with a 4 CYLINDER 1.6 LITER VTEC motor. First of all... I only know the very very basics of cars. But I really want to get into them. If someone could help point me in the right direction... Anyway. To be specific, its got a D16Y8 VTEC MOTOR, are those special? Its got a cold air intake, and carbon fiber hood and trunk. Um, lets see, Greddy Header, and catback exhaust with 3" piping. 5 speed JDM Transmission, under 20k miles on it. Should I buy it?

I don't know which of these things are good or not so great. And my question is, mainly, what some of this stuff is, and if there's a chance of taking a v8 in this thing. Is there really a lot of difference between a v4 and v8? I mean, is there absolutely no chance of competing or what? Thanks alot for any help anyone can give. I really appreciate it.

first of all, its an inline 4, not a "v4"

the civic you are looking at is not a particularly fast car, in fact, its a pretty slow car, it won't beat any v8's except for big luxury cars and full size trucks from the 80's. The D16Y8 wasn't a particularly special engine, only 126 hp, with the mods its probably at about 135 hp, still less than a stock focus and less than your T-bird.

if youre looking for speed, and dont have $25k+ to spend in mods, dont get a civic.