Might not be related to your questions above. My father in law just bought Civic 1.8. I took it for a spin on highway. The acceleration is good enuff, can reach to 190 km/j quite fast without much effort. However, the car turns me down on handling side. I am used to drive Gen2 which by far have the good handling for the car in its price range. The Civic handling is far from that. It feels wobbly at high speed straights, let alone in the corners. Need to do micro adjustments on the steering to keep the car straight. Quite frightening I might say. I am looking at either Mazda 3 or Jetta now.