Which Civic VTI - 1.6 vtec or 1.8 vtec???

From Brighton, 1 post

Hello there,
I've always been a huge fan of the 1989-1992 Honda CRX VTEC, 160bhp in such a small but practical body, i'd love one but they're just too old, rare and everything i've seen has been (because they take a thrashing from everyone who owns them) too ragged out to be my daily driver. So instead i'm seriously considering a Civic VTi for my next car, I usually spend between one and four grand (i'm in the UK BTW!) on my cars so i'm looking at something from 1995 to 2000. I want a fast car with a useful amount of space in the back that won't cost me too much to run, so I want a hot-hatch that doesn't drink fuel like a VR6 but that goes just as fast. Civic VTi seems like just the job, but there's two engine sizes available, the 1.8 vtec and the 1.6 vtec. The 1.8 has something like 180bhp and the 1.6 has around 160, but Parker's tells me the 1.6 is faster. Can anyone advise me what these engines are like, which one I should try to get? Or would you recommend I get a different hot hatch (i've considered Golf VR6s, Rover 200vi, don't want anything French!)
-Andrew (aka the lab rat)

From Soton, UK, 1 post

the older 1.6vti develops almost as much power but has much less weight, so is faster.

However I thought that was the 94 model, supersceded by the 1.8 vti from '97 - > but I've only just got my 1.8vti. The 1.6 I know about is just coming up to 199K miles with just a head gasket replacement in it's lifetime, thrashed every day. Honda engineering huh?

The 1.8 seems nice enough, just got mine, not quite as free revving as I was expecting but pulls well up to the redline at 8k. Cheap at under £3K, some examples for under 2 grand knocking about if you look hard enough, but those could well be dogs.