I wish there were more hatchbacks where I lived, I always dreamt of having one as my first car. Congrats! I'll list a few things you can do from cheapest/free modifications to the more costly.
1)Start off with cleaning. Good wash and wax, then a steam clean in the inside, maybe take out the seats too just to clean it thoroughly since it still has those old dead skin cells of the previous owner! Simple green is great for interior panels and many other parts of the car. Use a tint-safe glass cleaner for the tint (you don't want ammonia based cleaning products on your tint, it'll ruin it). Wd-40 is actually a good cleaner for the engine bay because it eats up the gunk, just grab a can or two and spray around. Try not to get it all over the alternator, any of the belts, or flooding the distributor or sensors. Then wipe clean.
2) Sand down and spray-paint those windshield wiper arms, maybe get new blades if they're bad
3) If you grab some spray-paint, also try to look for some high temp paint that can be used to paint the valve cover and heat shield: (assuming yours is in need of one) [there are many online DIY tutorials for this)
4) Tune-up, new spark plugs and wires, distributor cap and rotor, air filter (a washable one), fluids (oil, coolant, brake, power steering, transmission, clutch too if it's manual), brake pads and/or rotors. Reason for this, because it's your vehicle, you need to maintain it or have a shop do it and you now can mark down your own service intervals and be happy you have a good running car, unless you know the previous owner took good care of it. You can save hundreds of dollars by doing simple jobs yourself and have shops do the more technical or things you don't feel comfortable doing.
5) Maybe more in-depth tune-up, valve adjustment, timing etc;etc;
6) Be sure it runs right and reliable before you start throwing money into mods.
7) I'd start with new tail-lights; try to source out some 99-00 hatch tail-lights that look like
this or just get a 96-98 stock which is
this
8) If you want a tachometer, go out to a yard or look on classifieds sections and grab or 96-00 Civic LX/EX or 97-01 CRV cluster it's a very simple mod, just a few screws and plugs to plug in. If you want, there are modifications to get an S2000, Integra, or 2001-2005 Civic Cluster into your Civic.
9) Maybe a front lip (CTR or SiR style)
look forward to some pics and progress!
