2007 Honda Civic Si Sedan First Drive

Nuts and Bolts


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TO THE POINT What’s New? Honda gives the Civic Sedan a performance boost with a more powerful engine, a sport suspension, bigger brakes, upgraded steering, and comfortable sport seats to attract more young, educated, male buyers.
Selling Points: Handling, braking, seat comfort, practicality, safety, predicted reliability, decent EPA fuel economy, great stereo, available navigation system, etc.
Deal Breakers: Lofty power and torque peaks, split-dash design
Our Advice: This car is immense fun to drive, blending practicality with performance, but you’ve got work it hard to play hard.

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Nuts and Bolts Though it makes almost 200 horsepower, the Honda Civic Si Sedan is torque-impaired and the power peaks just shy of redline, which means you must thrash this car to extract maximum thrills.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the 2007 Honda Civic Si Sedan is essentially the same as the Si Coupe, but with two extra doors, 59 extra pounds and a few unique tweaks. Honda’s 2.0-liter iVTEC four-cylinder engine belts out 197 horsepower just 200 revs shy of redline at a lofty 7,800 rpm, and cranks 139 lb.-ft. of torque at 6,100 rpm. If you’re in Honda’s target market for this car, you’re doing the math right now. These figures do, indeed, indicate that you’re going to spend lots of time thrashing on the engine to generate maximum power, and extracting every last ounce of motive force is gonna require some serious attention to detail – especially when the standard five-year/60,000-mile powertrain warranty expires. And if you’ve got a soft spot in your heart for polar ice caps, you oughta know that this engine is the only one in the Civic lineup that isn’t rated LEV II ULEV or better.

As in the coupe, those ponies flow to the front wheels through a six-speed manual transmission and a helical limited-slip differential. An automatic transmission is not a part of the Honda Civic Si equation, so if you can’t shift for yourself, maybe you should buy a car that just pretends to be a sport sedan – like a Chevy Cobalt SS four-door. Alternatively, choose the Civic EX, which is plenty more fun to drive than most people think while getting 40 mpg on the highway.

The Civic Si Sedan’s MacPherson strut front and double-wishbone rear suspension is tuned a little differently and gets a 1mm thinner front stabilizer bar to offset the weight gain over the coupe, and while Honda says the Si Sedan is a tick slower to accelerate than the Si Coupe, it promises that handling and braking capabilities are identical. Bright silver 17-inch alloy wheels are shod with P215/45R17 all-season tires and guided by electric rack-and-pinion steering, but for $200 buyers can select summer rubber in the same size. Ventilated front and solid rear disc brakes bring the Civic Si Sedan to a rapid halt, enhanced with ABS, EBD, and a stability control system. Honda has also tuned the Si Sedan’s exhaust differently for a more powerful note in the low-rpm range.