Hey guys,

I'm new to this forum. Getting a 2012 Honda fit as my first car. Any tips and or mods to make it even better?

Thanks.

 

Congrats on your first car. We just purchased a 2010 Fit Base and it's pretty much our teenage daughter's first car.

Here's my tip: Read your owners manual. There's a lot of good information that applies specifically to your car.

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

If you want better stability/ride quality/performance get a lightweight wheelset with a decent tire. 16" and bigger wheels are mostly for looks as they tend to sacrifice ride comfort, will run heavier in general, and are more likely to suffer damage from road hazards. Steering may be slightly more precise under high load. 195/55-15 on a 7" rim is about as good as is possible while maintaining okay speedometer accuracy (2-3% optimistic, depending on tire). Anything wider and you're generally creating unnecessary rolling resistance and possibly introducing tire rub.

If you want a sportier ride with typically some loss of ride quality and comfort lowering springs or coilovers, and a rear sway bar are popular mods. Swift springs are popular as is the Progress rear sway bar. With coilovers, the best you can afford are generally the way to go...though set up requires some adjustment and tuning. Avoid Ebay no name specials. Buddy Club and T1R come recommended. I personally wouldn't lower the car more than an inch or so. The Sport model probably doesn't need an additional rear sway bar. An alignment needs done after lowering springs or coilovers are installed...usually a month or one thousand miles of use after installation...whichever comes first.

Some folks end up looking for more power. Intake and exhaust mods can cost a lot, (cat backs and cold air intakes) though the performance gains are minimal. Some find the noise gains satisfying. A simple K&N filter might add a horsepower or two as well as gain a MPG or two. Modest boost in the form of a bolt-on Sprintex supercharger or HKS or Zage turbo kit can make decent gains, though tuning will be the challenge, and long term reliability will be compromised for a long term daily driver.

If you really want to make the car a track weapon and are very mechanically inclined, there is the K swap route...though the dash will probably never be fully functional, you'll lose the fancy monitoring systems and at the very least the tachometer. People have varied and diverse solutions for doing such swaps successfully, but wiring and hardware solutions are complicated, retaining AC can be problematic, and it takes a lot of pre planning, labor, time, and money to do correctly. With an extra 200lbs directly over the front tires chassis tuning can be a challenge. The people in the know in racing circles seem to be guarded about their secret sauce in that regard. Those using such swaps in street applications don't seem to care.

Everything else...dunno.

Short throw shifters with weighted knobs and lightweight racing seats are fairly popular. 🤷🏽‍♂️

There's a passenger airbag recall. Make sure it's been done.

Enjoy the car. Fits in general tend to be fun, practical, reliable, and economic cars as they come. They're very underrated as drivers cars...but save for the relative lack in power they're surprisingly sporty cars.