I think Mazdaspeed parts can get pricey. I know first hand that NISMO parts for my couple of Nissan are down right expensive.
Honda Civic MUGEN Si set for October release in the U.S.!
- Thread starter mikeyb
- Start date
I think Mazdaspeed parts can get pricey. I know first hand that NISMO parts for my couple of Nissan are down right expensive.
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- 2008 Mazda5 5MT Sport w/ Popular Package
Yup, mikeyb indicates the dealer sells those for $325 (wow) and they are for any Civic. They look very simple though. I guess I'm now used to the MazdaSpeed treat, by default they have a special "integrated" design for their i.e. MazdaSpeed3 cars
The Civic fog lamps as accessory:
MazdaSpeed3:
And that is what I'm talking about. Civic Type-R fogs (yes):
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- 2003 Mazda Protege 5
No, no, no, see Mugen is not a name brand. Most of it's parts are actually pretty rare and hard to get. You could compare Mugen to a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes as they're pretty uncommon and NOT your everyday name brand.
Mugen Motorsports (M-TEC Co., Ltd) (無限) is a Japanese company formed in 1973 by Hirotoshi Honda, the son of Honda Motor Company founder Soichiro Honda, and Masao Kimura. Mugen, meaning "Without Limit", is an engine tuner and parts manufacturer closely associated with the Honda Motor Company. Despite the family connections, however, Mugen is not, and has never been, owned by Honda. Things were complicated for some time as Mugen was owned and run by Hirotoshi Honda, who has been the major shareholder in Honda since his father's death in 1991.
The company tunes and races Honda vehicles in the Super GT championship, and, additionally, sells aftermarket parts to amateur enthusiasts. It was part of partnerships that won the Formula 3000 championship in 1990 and 1991, and that eventually lead to Mugen's involvement in Formula 1, from 1992 to 1999, and up to 2005 was the exclusive supplier of Formula Nippon engines.
Corporate history
The company has a strong racing heritage as Hirotoshi Honda began building his own racing car, in a workshop at his father's house, shortly before he graduated from Nihon University in 1965. Masao Kimura is a veteran with more than 50 race victories in Honda sports cars and single-seaters and worked for Honda R&D and then Honda Racing Service before he helped Hirotoshi Honda establish Mugen.
The company specializes in tuning Honda engines, beginning with the 1200 cc Honda Civic engine, but has since developed and can now design and build both two-stroke and four-stroke engines and manufacture many of the major components.
Mugen ultimately intends to build its own road cars and the first step towards this was the creation of bodykits for the Honda Ballade CRX in 1984. Since then, the company has produced a number of body kits for Honda machinery, culminating in 1992 in the Mugen NSX prototype.
Mugen was restructured in late 2003 following Hirotoshi Honda's tax evasion scandal, and a new company called M-TEC was established shortly in early 2004. M-TEC retained the right to use the Mugen trademark and is based in the current headquarters in Asaka, Saitama, in the northern suburbs of Tokyo and close to the Honda R&D facility at Wako, and will retain the company's existing staff but will be legally unconnected with the old firm. The newly restructured company is now headed by Mugen board member Shin Nagaosa. Nagaosa was the manager of the engineering division of the company and in recent years has been largely involved with running Mugen's NSX racing program.
Sportscar racing
In 1998, Mugen built four NSX models, two for the Mugen/Dome partnership, one for Team Kunimitsu and one for Nakajima Racing. The cars were fast but unreliable at first, until the Nakajima NSX scored the car's first win at the fourth round in Fuji. This was followed by three more wins (one of them by the Mugen/Dome team), which lead to a second place championship finish for Tom Coronel and Kouji Yamanishi. In 1999, the Honda took three more wins, one of those with the Mugen/Dome team of Juichi Wakisaka and Katsutom Kaneishi scoring a victory at the opening round in Suzuka and finishing the third best team in the championship. In 2000, the Mugen/Dome team was champion with Ryo Michigami, but the car's performance was limited by regulation changes and Michigami reached the title without a single win. Still, Honda won four races, one of them by the second Mugen/Dome car.
In 2001, Mugen concentrated once more in the JGTC, the NSX winning two races, and finishing second (Mugen/Dome) and third (ARTA) in the series. More importantly, in June, the company announced development of the a new 4.0 L V8, dubbed MF408S, for the main prototype class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and American Le Mans Series. At the time, Mugen acknowledged that international sportscar racing was a new category for them. The concept of the MF408S was high power, compact size, durability and reliability. Mugen chose a 4.0 L normally aspirated engine because they felt through their experience in Formula 3 that restrictor size was key to performance. The idea was to save fuel with a smaller displacement engine, since, theoretically, restrictor size will bring power in any engine to a similar level. The main engines in use at the time were producing around 600 hp, including the turbocharged Audi and Cadillac, as well as the larger displacement BMW and the Roush-prepared Ford. Mugen excluded a turbo as this necessitated use of intercoolers to extract maximum performance, which added to the weight and reduced performance.
2002 was a good year for Mugen at the track. The Mugen-prepared NSXs won five rounds, with the Mugen/Dome team winning two races outright, which gave them the Team's championship title. The debut of the MF408S was in a Panoz chassis in the 2002 Sebring 12 Hours, first round of ALMS.
In 2004, M-TEC decided to drop down to GT300 and help train Japanese drivers for GT500 speeds. By grabbing promising drivers early in their careers, M-TEC would then be able to mold them and have definite access to future champions. M-TEC driver, Hiroyuki Yagi, was sourced from the Integra Series. Giving the drivers experience was more important than developing the car to take the championship. To this end, M-TEC simply detuned the car for the GT300 class without optimizing it for the new power level. Winning the GT300 series by one point over the ARTA Garaiya was simply an unintended bonus for a dedicated, championship-level team.
Breaking into the United States is another goal for the M-TEC team and the Mugen name. Currently, the authorized dealer of Mugen parts in the US is King Motorsports. Team director Junichi Kumakura thought racing the NSX in the United States was a great way to promote the company in a previously unvisited environment. When asked what else M-TEC would like to accomplish in America with the golden NSX, competing at Sebring and Daytona were marked as attractive goals.
Mugen Official Site
Honda City Turbo's and The Beginning of Honda Endorsed Mugen Motorsports
The company tunes and races Honda vehicles in the Super GT championship, and, additionally, sells aftermarket parts to amateur enthusiasts. It was part of partnerships that won the Formula 3000 championship in 1990 and 1991, and that eventually lead to Mugen's involvement in Formula 1, from 1992 to 1999, and up to 2005 was the exclusive supplier of Formula Nippon engines.
Corporate history
The company has a strong racing heritage as Hirotoshi Honda began building his own racing car, in a workshop at his father's house, shortly before he graduated from Nihon University in 1965. Masao Kimura is a veteran with more than 50 race victories in Honda sports cars and single-seaters and worked for Honda R&D and then Honda Racing Service before he helped Hirotoshi Honda establish Mugen.
The company specializes in tuning Honda engines, beginning with the 1200 cc Honda Civic engine, but has since developed and can now design and build both two-stroke and four-stroke engines and manufacture many of the major components.
Mugen ultimately intends to build its own road cars and the first step towards this was the creation of bodykits for the Honda Ballade CRX in 1984. Since then, the company has produced a number of body kits for Honda machinery, culminating in 1992 in the Mugen NSX prototype.
Mugen was restructured in late 2003 following Hirotoshi Honda's tax evasion scandal, and a new company called M-TEC was established shortly in early 2004. M-TEC retained the right to use the Mugen trademark and is based in the current headquarters in Asaka, Saitama, in the northern suburbs of Tokyo and close to the Honda R&D facility at Wako, and will retain the company's existing staff but will be legally unconnected with the old firm. The newly restructured company is now headed by Mugen board member Shin Nagaosa. Nagaosa was the manager of the engineering division of the company and in recent years has been largely involved with running Mugen's NSX racing program.
Sportscar racing
In 1998, Mugen built four NSX models, two for the Mugen/Dome partnership, one for Team Kunimitsu and one for Nakajima Racing. The cars were fast but unreliable at first, until the Nakajima NSX scored the car's first win at the fourth round in Fuji. This was followed by three more wins (one of them by the Mugen/Dome team), which lead to a second place championship finish for Tom Coronel and Kouji Yamanishi. In 1999, the Honda took three more wins, one of those with the Mugen/Dome team of Juichi Wakisaka and Katsutom Kaneishi scoring a victory at the opening round in Suzuka and finishing the third best team in the championship. In 2000, the Mugen/Dome team was champion with Ryo Michigami, but the car's performance was limited by regulation changes and Michigami reached the title without a single win. Still, Honda won four races, one of them by the second Mugen/Dome car.
In 2001, Mugen concentrated once more in the JGTC, the NSX winning two races, and finishing second (Mugen/Dome) and third (ARTA) in the series. More importantly, in June, the company announced development of the a new 4.0 L V8, dubbed MF408S, for the main prototype class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and American Le Mans Series. At the time, Mugen acknowledged that international sportscar racing was a new category for them. The concept of the MF408S was high power, compact size, durability and reliability. Mugen chose a 4.0 L normally aspirated engine because they felt through their experience in Formula 3 that restrictor size was key to performance. The idea was to save fuel with a smaller displacement engine, since, theoretically, restrictor size will bring power in any engine to a similar level. The main engines in use at the time were producing around 600 hp, including the turbocharged Audi and Cadillac, as well as the larger displacement BMW and the Roush-prepared Ford. Mugen excluded a turbo as this necessitated use of intercoolers to extract maximum performance, which added to the weight and reduced performance.
2002 was a good year for Mugen at the track. The Mugen-prepared NSXs won five rounds, with the Mugen/Dome team winning two races outright, which gave them the Team's championship title. The debut of the MF408S was in a Panoz chassis in the 2002 Sebring 12 Hours, first round of ALMS.
In 2004, M-TEC decided to drop down to GT300 and help train Japanese drivers for GT500 speeds. By grabbing promising drivers early in their careers, M-TEC would then be able to mold them and have definite access to future champions. M-TEC driver, Hiroyuki Yagi, was sourced from the Integra Series. Giving the drivers experience was more important than developing the car to take the championship. To this end, M-TEC simply detuned the car for the GT300 class without optimizing it for the new power level. Winning the GT300 series by one point over the ARTA Garaiya was simply an unintended bonus for a dedicated, championship-level team.
Breaking into the United States is another goal for the M-TEC team and the Mugen name. Currently, the authorized dealer of Mugen parts in the US is King Motorsports. Team director Junichi Kumakura thought racing the NSX in the United States was a great way to promote the company in a previously unvisited environment. When asked what else M-TEC would like to accomplish in America with the golden NSX, competing at Sebring and Daytona were marked as attractive goals.
Mugen Official Site
Honda City Turbo's and The Beginning of Honda Endorsed Mugen Motorsports
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- 2008 Mazda5 5MT Sport w/ Popular Package
(iagree), I think it is the case. It seems to be like my wife's mini-people hauler, it uses the same round fog lamps as the Mazda6, MazdaSpeed6, older Mazda3 and the new 08 Mazda5 (I may be missing some (scratch)?), yet, the different lamp cover designs for each model makes them look so different/unique (thumb)
I think that red Type R (for ricer, j/k) is way hot and think the Mugen is a good effort but priced out of reality. Even if you charge 26k for the car, unless you just have to have a CIVIC, you are not getting enough car for the money.
The interiors are not luxurious enough and the power isn't there either. For a couple grand more (maybe), you could get a GTi and it's waaay nicer. If Mugen is such a good tuner, why didn't they put some more power into the car....or a lot more power?
If they charged 6k on top of the regular civic but they were dropping in a turbo/suspension, I would seriously consider it. Here in Tampa, they wanted 27k for an SI and some places wouldn't even let you test drive it. (hand)
The interiors are not luxurious enough and the power isn't there either. For a couple grand more (maybe), you could get a GTi and it's waaay nicer. If Mugen is such a good tuner, why didn't they put some more power into the car....or a lot more power?
If they charged 6k on top of the regular civic but they were dropping in a turbo/suspension, I would seriously consider it. Here in Tampa, they wanted 27k for an SI and some places wouldn't even let you test drive it. (hand)
Si vs. GTI is a much more complicated debate than interior quality. The GTI is much nicer but much heavier. It's personal preference. High revving + precision handling vs. Torquey turbo + semi-luxury interior. You can get a GTI for less than $26k.
Mugen is more than capable of putting power into this car, as evidenced by the Dominator concept linked further up. Putting a supercharger on this, however, probably would have bumped it up to $30k.
This isn't a race version of the Civic, like the Type Rs are. It's a limited edition factory ricer, that they knew a limited number of people would eat up and pay whatever they asked. They were sold out as soon as they were a rumor, and that, IMO, makes it a good car for Honda and for Mugen. For the people that bought them, hopefully it's rare enough to be a collector's item some day.
Mugen is more than capable of putting power into this car, as evidenced by the Dominator concept linked further up. Putting a supercharger on this, however, probably would have bumped it up to $30k.
This isn't a race version of the Civic, like the Type Rs are. It's a limited edition factory ricer, that they knew a limited number of people would eat up and pay whatever they asked. They were sold out as soon as they were a rumor, and that, IMO, makes it a good car for Honda and for Mugen. For the people that bought them, hopefully it's rare enough to be a collector's item some day.
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- 2003 Mazda Protege 5
I'm just looking at it this way...
If you buy a brand new stock Honda Civic Si, it's going to cost you $21,110 so lets do the math here:
*2008 Honda Civic Si - $23,000 (Tax, Title, and Registration Included)
*Greddy SP2 Exhaust - $556.99
*Tein Stech Springs - $252.99
*Progress Rear Anti-Roll Bar - $150.99
*18" Wheel and Tire Package - Around $1,600
*Body Kit - $949.00
Right there, you're looking at $26,509.97 for almost the same type of products. Only difference is you already get it all installed with a factory warranty and backing if anything doesn't work or breaks.
If you're going to spend the money on those common parts when you get the car, why not just get them included in the cost of the car with the warranty and have the rarer, but better tested brand? I could justify the price for buying this car.
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- 2003 Mazda Protege 5
Exactly, not even a full suspension that's actually been track tested and tuned to this specific car.
Yes, the bodykit is crap but I had to throw something in there to compare the price with the Mugen aero products (which have actually been wind tunnel tested). You're paying for the actual quality and performance of what you get with Mugen.
I think almsot everybody would take the Si with the Mugen parts and factory warranty over the stock Civic Si with bought upgrades. Don't you think?
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- 2003 Mazda Protege 5
Exactly. I was thinking that too but forget to mention it in my last post.
Ok, sum up the Mugen parts and you have a price point of 26k with the warranty to boot. Sure, if you can get an SI for 21k. As I mentioned before, they are asking 27k for an SI (in Tampa) because of the dealer markup. If you can get one for 21k, s***, go for it.
I test drove an SI and a GTI in one day (along with an Acura TL) about six months ago when I was still car shopping. I personally feel the GTi is in another league all together when it comes to how the car feels when driving and the luxury factor. The SI seems very geared towards the younger crowd and maybe that's why I just don't get it....anymore.
I did own an SI and I loved it but I was 16. Now that I am 30, it's all GTi or WRX or Evo but my final answer was the MS3. After 30 days of ownership, I am still liking it more and more.
I paid 25k out the door for an 08' MS3 GT with a MS CAI, 6 year warranty and the window etching. (outie)
I am really not knocking anyone's decision to buy this car as it's not bad looking and it would surely be fun to drive. I just couldn't see making the purchase myself based on cost/value IMO. Hondas are built solid and have earned their reputation for reliability. I just want to see them make a car (hatchback) that can truly compete with something on the level of an MS3 or better. I know there is the S2000 (which I like) but it's only a two seater.
I test drove an SI and a GTI in one day (along with an Acura TL) about six months ago when I was still car shopping. I personally feel the GTi is in another league all together when it comes to how the car feels when driving and the luxury factor. The SI seems very geared towards the younger crowd and maybe that's why I just don't get it....anymore.
I did own an SI and I loved it but I was 16. Now that I am 30, it's all GTi or WRX or Evo but my final answer was the MS3. After 30 days of ownership, I am still liking it more and more.
I paid 25k out the door for an 08' MS3 GT with a MS CAI, 6 year warranty and the window etching. (outie)
I am really not knocking anyone's decision to buy this car as it's not bad looking and it would surely be fun to drive. I just couldn't see making the purchase myself based on cost/value IMO. Hondas are built solid and have earned their reputation for reliability. I just want to see them make a car (hatchback) that can truly compete with something on the level of an MS3 or better. I know there is the S2000 (which I like) but it's only a two seater.
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Ouch. I'm done defending this car as "worth it" as a consumer. Still, They're all going to sell, so it's still smart for Honda and Mugen.
Short and sweet: If you want one of the 1,000 2008 Honda Civic MUGEN Si sedans coming to dealer showrooms, you will have to pony up $29,500 plus taxes and destination charges. That amount gets you a Civic Si that's been given the once-over by MUGEN, which supplies a track-tuned suspension, aerodynamics package, lightweight wheels, and a sport exhaust. A number of bespoke touches dress up the interior as well. As for the price, whether or not it's "worth" it depends on your level of interest, naturally. Something tells us that the first official MUGEN vehicle for the US market will have no problem attracting 1,000 people willing to part with 30 grand.
Short and sweet: If you want one of the 1,000 2008 Honda Civic MUGEN Si sedans coming to dealer showrooms, you will have to pony up $29,500 plus taxes and destination charges. That amount gets you a Civic Si that's been given the once-over by MUGEN, which supplies a track-tuned suspension, aerodynamics package, lightweight wheels, and a sport exhaust. A number of bespoke touches dress up the interior as well. As for the price, whether or not it's "worth" it depends on your level of interest, naturally. Something tells us that the first official MUGEN vehicle for the US market will have no problem attracting 1,000 people willing to part with 30 grand.
LASERBLUE135
Registered Pimp
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- Laser Blue MSP
Very smart marketing. Totally not worth the price,but yes people will pay it and the profit margin is $$$!!! for Honda.
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- 2003 Mazda Protege 5
I previously broke down the price if you will look back to the previous page. The upgrades are worth the price, all Mugen named items, and limited availability aside.