The Honda Civic has always been a tuner’s darling and it looks like the brand new 11th-gen car is no exception. Even though it’s been exactly five minutes since the 2022 Civic came out, people are already tinkering and extracting quite a bit more power from the car’s stock 1.5-liter turbo engine. Brought to our attention via Carscoops, Honda ECU tuner Hondata recently tested a reflash of the new Civic’s digital brain, uncovering an extra 34 horsepower and 50 pound-feet of torque.
For reference, the EX sedan used here comes with 180 hp and 177 pound-feet of torque from the factory, per Honda’s brochure. When Hondata put the untuned car on the dyno, it showed 162.46 hp and 163.63 pound-feet at the axle—not abnormal after accounting for drivetrain loss.
Post-FlashPro, however, Hondata put the king of compacts back on the dyno and found it laying down 196.78 hp and 213.65 pound-feet. Those are deltas of more than 34 hp and 50 pound-feet of torque. Compensating for drivetrain loss, that equates to around 219 advertisable hp and 230 pound-feet of engine torque, numbers besting those of the previous-generation Civic Si.
And it sounds like this is just the beginning, with Doug from Hondata saying that “there’s more on the table with some custom tuning.”
Granted, one shouldn’t be too surprised by all of this given that Hondata has done similar things to the previous, 10th-gen Civic, and the fact that this new car uses carryover engines, albeit slightly improved. Stock versus stock, the 2022 Civic’s 1.5-liter makes six hp and 15 pound-feet more than the outgoing model.
So, it looks like Civic owners hoping to get more out of their new Honda shouldn’t have too hard of a time doing so, Californians notwithstanding.
Got a tip or question for the author about the new Civic? You can reach them here: chris.tsui@thedrive.com