Maybe they do, but Civic's are still slow. An EX runs the 1/4 at what, 17 seconds? An Si runs at 16?? That's slow, at least where I come from. Hell, my V6 Camaro with iron block, iron heads, runs a 15.2.... My little Scirocco runs a 15.4!!! It's got an iron block, only 8 valves, and mechanical fuel injection! That's old technology there folks.
Again, the car could make a million hp, but in the real world, how fast is it? I agree with you to a point, I love anything that makes good power and has some engineering appeal, and I guess Honda's are novel in that respect, but this whole scene where everyone thinks they are the new sport car is so messed up, when you have $1000 in mods to a Civic and they are running like 15.8's.....
Brendan