1996 Prelude Si h22a4 swap and cosmetic upgrades.

Alrighty, while I won't be starting the prep for the swap for a looong time, I figured I might as well set up the build thread, and just update it as I go along.
So lets get started!

First things to come were basically all just free cosmetic upgrades that I'd come across.

-18 inch Konig wheels with Federal 215/40r18 (these tires are RETARDED expensive, changing wheels immediately once these tires are gone)
-some lightly smoked "ebay" tail lights.
-Weighted HKS shift knob.
-Smoked corner lights, blinker lights, and pretty much every other light on the car aside from the headlights themselves. I'll buy some one-piece headlights when all the performance upgrades are done.



Now for the temporary bolt ons that I decided to buy for no damn apparent reason, considering I knew I'd be doing a swap.

This is what I was dealing with when I purchased the car, bone stock.



Hated looking at that rusty turd Honda calls an exhaust manifold, so I purchased a cheap stainless header from Megan Racing, I've heard their products aren't that dependable, but it's not my permanent header, and so far, I've got nothing but good things to say about it. Plus, unless you're going Mugen, or some other extremely expensive brand, you're not actually going to notice a huge power difference between the stock header and an aftermarket one. It'll probably sound a little better, look better, but that's about it. Again, obviously this isn't going to really give me any power gains, to me this was basically a cosmetic upgrade.





Out with the old and in with the new...





Next came the air intake, decided to go with an AEM intake that I found for a really good price.





and then after I replaced my radiator, I was done spending money on stuff I didn't need..



After all of that was done, I started looking for exhausts, and a buddy of mine gave me a steal on a full stainless flowmaster exhaust.

Things to come,
-h23a vtec frankenstein
-Hondata s300
-Crower stage 2 turbo cams (starting to have second thoughts on these)
-Skunk2 Pro Series Cam Gears
-Skunk2 H series Pro Series intake manifold
-Crower Valve Springs
-Ferrea .5mm oversized turbo valves
-Crower Titanium retainers
-Skunk2 H series 68 or 70mm pro series throttle body
-Skunk2 Vtec Solenoid and S2 solenoid cover
-Skunk2 H series cam seals
-JE 87.5mm (+.020" +0.5mm bore)Pistons (9.0:1 compression)
-Crower Forged rods
-GO Autoworks Catch can
-full tuck along with battery relocation and repaint of the bay while swapping the motor
-Rosko Racing fuel rail and rdx injectors
-Accord R lip
-short shifter
-JDM fenders with side markers
-Carbon fiber hood and trunk
-Fully adjustable coilovers, still trying to decide on what brand, suggestions are more than welcome!
-Pull and repair the small dents, and repaint.


will update as it comes along.

Thanks for checking out the build, any suggestions on things I should do are welcome, and will be considered.

-Jay

Looks like it is coming along very nicely. I like the looks of it so far and look forward to more progress. As far as suspension, I do not know about Preludes but I've always liked Tein suspension as a relatively inexpensive good quality part.

I've been looking at some Tein setups but they seem a little spendier than some others I've seen. But I guess you get what you pay for, and Tein is a top quality manufacturer, I imagine I'll probably end up going with one of their setups.

Yes they are a top quality product and I have learned first hand about getting what you pay for. I have tried to cheap out on some parts and failed miserably. So now I am playing catch-up and replacing what I bought. Definitely go all out whenever possible.

Got a nice set of wheels on that! Plans for future look good aswel, good luck with it!!
As for the coilovers, it all depends on how much your willing to spend. My mates got a set of Meister R Zeta-S on his civic, top quality but they are a bit pricey!

I would have put the link up to the site but I cant as im a new member, you should check the site out though!

Yeah, I've been looking around and the price differences between Tein and some extremely low quality manufactures, isn't significant enough to me to convince me to go with a cheap brand. Right now I'm looking at Tein, and Megan coilovers. What's your guys opinion on Megan? Their claim is that they build quality performance parts, for an enthusiast on a budget. And they also state that the coilover setups they sell, are the same ones they use on their formula drift cars, so they can't be that bad right? I dunno, people say all of their products are of lesser quality but, everything I've bought from them before, I've been extremely happy with; performance wise as well as pricing wise, but I haven't bought something as... drastic... as a full adjustable coilover setup, so I don't wanna just take a chance. I won't buy their coils without seeing some solid reviews on them, but I was just wondering if you guys had an opinion on them.
Thanks guys!

I have no real experience with Megan but I have chosen not to buy since the only place I have really seen their product is on Ebay. Not saying anything bad about Ebay, just that you have to be really careful what you get. If Megan is sold other places I would ask them about quality of the products and get the sellers perspective, unless of course they are completely rude and just try to sell you the most expensive thing they have. I have had issues with that before smh.

I don't plan on going through ebay for my parts, will if I end up having to as a last resort, the top rated sellers are usually pretty legit. It's a motorsports shop that can order them for me, but I've been doing the research online. I dunno, I'm still leaning more towards tein.

Just go with what you feel more comfortable spending your money on.

Well, the time's finally come. I got my motor yesterday. Couple problems here and there with the block, having it inspected, was told just at first glance it shouldn't be hard at all to fix. (small chip on bottom of one of the cylinder walls, due to previous owner throwing a rod. hard to see in the photo but it's not deep at all)
The head is completely clean. Valves all look good, not a damn spec or flaw on it, and the intake and exhaust is ported, which I didn't know until I went to pick it up.
I'm from Oregon, if you follow U.S. college football, you know there's the University of Oregon Ducks, and the Oregon State University Beavers. Me, I'm a beaver fan, obviously the ducks are our rival. Our colors are Orange and Black....
..the previous owner obviously was a Duck fan...



There's the valve cover


Head


Pretty damn clean


close up of the valves, all of em are nice and straight.


There's the flaw in the block.

It goes without saying that it's going to get a new paint job.. and as for all the internals, minus the crank shaft, they'll be getting replaced, I have the old ones, but they're in pretty poor shape, not due to use, but due to how they were stored when taken out of the motor.

Will update when I start to get stuff goin, might be pretty slow at the start.

Looks pretty sick. and yeah, id change the color of the block. that's hideous. As far as a place to get parts, or at least start looking, i would suggest andysautosport.com. I've used them before, and the service is pretty good. i havent bought any performance parts through them (yet) but i plan to. I have bought part of the body kit and the headlights on my 2001 Eclipse from them. If you have any questions, check out their facebook page and they'll get back with you in about a day or so. i had a question about a carbon fiber rear hatch and they tracked down the info from the manufacturer and got back with me, so yeah, i'd say their service is great.

Yeah that's where I ordered my Header and Down pipe. They're priced pretty good, but they don't have the type of internals I'm going with. I'm going to be super picky about alllllll of my internals, and I'm building this motor to boost about 12-13 pounds SAFELY, and plan on it staying reliable, so I'm not cutting any corners.
But alot of my accessory purchases will be through them. (:

Yeah, it's always good to be picky about internals. from what i learned in auto mechanics, you want reliability. and reliable internals is a reliable motor. AAS (i thought) was pretty decent with pricing as they're a warehouse in a nutshell. once i get my 13B, i may still use them for engine stuff.

Yeah their prices were waay cheaper than anywhere else I looked for the header I bought.

Lookin good so far can't wait to see the build going. I have not bought from Andysautosport but have looked at them a few times for purchases, but I am extremely impatient and always end up buying locally. Do most of my shopping with Vivid Racing out of Phoenix AZ.

Thanks! I can't wait to actually get to work, end result should be AT LEAST 350 whp. Buying injectors rated for 380-425 hp just in case.
Andy's surprisingly gets their stuff shipped out pretty quickly, I only buy used parts locally, makes it easier to... settle.. a disbute if something isn't quite what they said it was. As far as new, I'm willing to wait to get a slightly lower price, the shops around here usually take a cut off the top, of course, how else would they make money. But like I said, cosmetic upgrades and minor bolt on type stuff, Andy's is an awesome place to get that kinda thing. And their customer service is pretty good too.

Well I had my block inspected today.
My guy said it looked totally fine, and that the small chips would get taken care of when I have the cylinders bored. So it looks like I'll be looking into all my boring before I start buying all my new parts. Gonna bore the valve cylinders over either .5 or 1mm. Same for the piston cylinders, .5 or 1mm, haven't decided yet. Once I have that done I'll start piecing everything together and buy all of the little missing pieces, which shouldn't be much. And then comes time to order the parts, which adds up to about 3,000 dollars. I'm getting tired of just looking at it and not being able to do anything with it, so I'm thinking about painting the valve cover and getting the green paint off the head. Might do that tomorrow, I'll post pics if I do.
Well that's all for now, will update when I have more info.

it is always good to hear that someone is getting to work on something. I have been broke for as long as I can remember and just get to work on my car every now and again. Sounds like it's gonna be awesome.

Yeah that 3000 dollar price tag doesnt include any cosmetic accessories, or any of the turbo kit. So... I've got some more saving to do. But I'm glad that I know it's alright to go on with the project, I was waiting until I could get the block inspected before buying anything, if it was wrecked, I was just gonna abandon the project, sell the lude, and buy a hatch. But.. it looks like I'm stickin to it.

thats good that you can still go with it, but a hatch would have awesome too, i love my hatch.

Yeah, I kinda wanted to go with a hatch, but everyone around here has them, the prelude is way heavier, but I wanna build this one to be able to put all the hatch's in their place around here haha. And most people look at the Prelude as the red headed step child of honda. I always have a thing for the underdog.

I have always liked the Prelude also but I just love my hatch. All Hondas are good I don't care what anyone says.

Yep, I don't discriminate against any Hondas, or Nissans or Toyota's for that matter, funny how the Nissan fans HATE us though. Oh well. But I'd definitely say that the lude and the ek hatch are my favorite hondas

The main thing I don't like about Hondas is that they're too common, Everyone's done something to them, Honda skimped in the performance department, and they never really attracted me. I like the Prelude to an extent, but I'd rather have my Eclipse or a 3000GT VR4. Keep up the work man.

Hondas being too common is kind of a bad thing since it makes all of us enthusiasts look bad for owning one. I have always liked Honda regardless of what some the other people have done to bring down the Honda name.