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The brand of cars under the Civic Badge has had a long history and today’s model would be the 8th. Generation and promises to continue its rule as one of the best compact/sub-compact Japanese cars. The first generation of the model came out in 1973 and was seen as a typical Japanese car that was very much underpowered for most Western drivers. Vtec was introduced in the fifth generation to cater to US drivers need for speed and has continued to grace most models of the brand as one of the most powerful engines in its class. Vtec technology or Variable Valve Timing and Electronic Lift Control is the first of its kind when it was introduced by Honda that uses an electronic sensor that detects a need for increased load that activates electronically a solenoid allowing an additional boost of power.
This first worked on the intake manifold for the first generations of DOHC engines but the later variants of the engine had the feature incorporated to both intake and exhaust manifolds. Similar systems have since been released by other manufacturers although using different names to differentiate, MIVEC for Mitsubishi, VVL from Nissan, VarioCam Plus from Porsche and VVTL-i from Toyota.
