The echo of a sad trombone could be heard when Honda announced that the new Civic Si would only produce 205 horsepower from a turbocharged 1.5L four-cylinder. Fans were hoping for a bit more power and Honda's engineers say there is more power on tap. But there are two key reasons as to why the Japanese automaker did this.
The engineers said "you can tune more power into it, but all of that takes away from the durability of the engine," said Rob Keough, senior product planner on the Civic to Automotive News.
"Honda likes to build their engines to last hundreds of thousands of miles, so they're working toward that target."
The other reason comes down to price. Honda wanted to keep the Si affordable while adding some impressive performance parts such as a limited-slip differential and adaptive suspension.
"The Si has always been in the [price] range that it's in. We wanted it to be attainable and affordable, so our target for Si was really to come in at this price point with this performance level," said Keough.
For example, if Honda was to use a detuned version of the turbo 2.0L found in the Civic Type R, that would push the price to nearly $30,000.
Keough didn't rule out the possibility of there being a variant between the Si and Type R that would offer a bit more power. He also didn't rule out using a detuned Type R motor for this model.
"There's maybe other configurations and things that they can do with this motor," said Keough.
We have a possible name for this possible model, Civic SiR.
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
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