what else can i do to a 97civic ex besides exhuast and air to make it...
 

...faster and have more power?

You can buy a nissan SKYLINE GTR 34 engine and put it in the civic.Or you can install turbo and apply Nitrous Oxide.

Its not just a simple answer. Theres mainly three paths, wait 1 more, but its not really suggested that you take the 4th. The first one is the most expensive. But how fast or nice a car depends on how much money you have. So the most expensive option is the swap, engine swap that it. The three basic, actually m swaps are LS, B-Series, GSR and every civic owners dream, a k-20. All of those swaps can give you a lot of horsepower. Espicially the k-20, just allllllloooot of money. The next option is TURBO! or boost. Its a little expensive, but if you know what your doing, and build your engine well enough, you can get a lot of PSi out of any turbo. Next is NA the most common, as it is the cheapest. But you don't get a lot of horsepower. But the basic things you can do to your civic, NA, is the usual, Cold Air intake, Headers, Exhaust, and maybe a new ECU.

get out and push should help