My Prelude Project Thread

[Confused]

25/02/2007

Yesterday I was stripping down the green one some more.

At start of the day:

And out we go!

There's a bit more room there now to get the rest out!

Dashboard, heater, wiring coming out:

Here's a lovely sight - 4.4 litres and ~400bhp of VTEC goodness!

Tune in this time next week for more!

 

[Confused]

Feb 26 2007

I then started thinking about the side-light section, which was the one part of the standard headlights I didn't like design-wise.

So, I wondered what it would look like with the sidelight lens tinted, so that it follows the dark/black theme I'm going to have with the rest of the light unit.

So I used a bit of tinting film on the sidelight lenses and tried it out (with some help from my mum) to see how much light I'd get.

Once I was happy with that, I finished up the projector surround plates, and sprayed them black:

 

[Confused]

03/03/2007

No piccies today!

However, I finished strupping the wiring etc out of the donor, and due to a slight mishap and forgetting to tape up a hole in mine, stripped out the sound deadening from the donor too!

I then put mine back in the garage, and started putting the sound deadening and wiring loom back in.


I'll probably be posting the same pictures I have already, but in the opposite order soon!



12/03/2007

Another update...

Spent Saturday cleaning and installing the following:

Heater core, blower & air-con evaporator.
Clutch pedal & master cylinder
Accelerator & Brake pedal, brake servo and master cylinder
All brake pipes reconnected to master cylinder and ABS unit.
Installed air-con pipes from evaporator to front panel.
Rubbed down, rust-treated and painted front and rear cross-member.

In addition, every bracket I've reinstalled has been rubbed down, rust-treated and resprayed! Most nuts and bolts have been replaced with clean ones, too!

My spoiler has also been returned to me, complete with a LED brake light, and straightened out from where it was twisted due to having been repaired badly in the past. The "feet" have also now been moulded to fit my boot lid exactly, with an even gap either side to the bodywork.


No piccies, as I was so engrossed in just doing it!



19/03/2007

Another update - this time with pictures!

Here's how the engine bay now looks - slightly less white as there's things in there now!

General overview:

Driver's side bulkhead - brake/clutch system, vacuum pipework, strut brace bracket, which necessitated the clutch master cylinder bracket being adapted and it moved elsewhere!

ABS system, fuel pipes, air con pipes, clean & non-rusty crossmember

Air con pipes, rest of wiring loom including a load of relays, washer bottle lid (as it's held by the air con bracket, I needed both to line up the air con pipe

And all the wiring and heater system back inside

There's not much more to go back in the engine bay before the engine does - so next job is to start to clean up the engine/gearbox, and get the clutch/flywheel swapped, and change cambelt and auto-tensioner unit.


So next weekend you'll hopefully see some graphic engine pictures!

 

[Confused]

21/03/2007

Just got off the phone with my dad, yesterday evening he did the following:

Swap cambelt auto-tensioner.
Install new cambelt and balancer belt.
Clean up & paint rear side of engine.
Clean up and paint inlet manifold.

I also had a delivery today

BMC CDA 150-85 and a Pipercross Breather Filter (came as a pair from eBay)

Now to try to find a place to fit it - according to JohnnyB it's quite a bit larger than his BMC CDA, and he struggled to find a place to put it :?

That's sitting on top of a sheet of A4 paper, as a size reference...!


21/03/2007

Just had another call from my dad, he's swapped the flywheel, and upon comparing the new clutch with the one that came out, the new friction disk is 8mm smaller than the old one.

Upon checking the part number of the clutch kit I've been sent (HCK1000) with Exedy's website, it's listed as being for a 98-02 Accord 2.3L. Exedy list the KHC03 for the Prelude.

So I called GripForce Clutches in the States, and they said categorically that it is 100% compatible, and the HCK1000 supersedes the KHC03, and that the friction disk has been shrunk by 7mm.

Needless to say I'm still not convinced, so will be contacting a couple of UK suppliers of Exedy clutches tomorrow to see what they say, so I may need to get an additional friction disk of the right size. This does mean that my dad can't mate the engine & gearbox back up again tonight, as he'd planned on.

Just as I thought it was all going so well.


22/03/2007

I called Exedy today, and they confirmed my suspicions - the clutch kit I've been sold is not compatible with my car.

Therefore, I have had to purchase the correct kit from another supplier, which will be delivered tomorrow.

Once Gripforce Clutches open today, I shall be calling them and demanding that they give me a refund for the incorrect clutch they have supplied me, and that they will be paying for it to be shipped back to them. There is no way I'm going to let this stand, especially as they told me on the phone yesterday that it would be compatible!

 

[Confused]

25/03/2007

Got another clutch delivered on Friday, and took it up to my dad's on Friday night.

On Saturday, the rest of the pipework in the engine bay that can only be accessed with no engine, was cleaned and installed!

Then I finished cleaning up the engine, and gave it the final coat of paint.

Then came the time I'd been waiting for! It was time to put the engine back in!

And here it is:

I've also had a call from my dad this afternoon to say that the engine has been fired up!!


Video linky!

 

[Confused]

07/04/2007

No update here for a couple of weeks, but don't worry, we have been busy!

Have cleaned up and painted the alternator, air con compressor and rest of pipework, power steering pump, fitted all including belts.

New radiator fitted, (with brackets cleaned/painted) and filled up with coolant.

ECU fitted with "Spoon" chip from a guy on PreludeUK (to give me VTEC in first and no speed limiter, as I had with my UKDM ECU!)

Cruise control actuator/bracket cleaned/painted and refitted.


And paint has started going on!

Passenger wing, bonnet, boot lid & numberplate surround primed, and underneath of bonnet & boot painted white.

All the sealant on all windows (windscreen, rear quarter and rear screen) removed, bubbles of rust on roof/around screens treated, and primed.

Wings/bonnet/boot lid installed to car.


And now of course the obligatory piccies!

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[Confused]

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[Confused]

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Coming along really quickly now!

 

[Confused]

24/04/2007

I was browsing on eBay one day, when I came across a set of smoked Lexus style lights, thinking I'd continue with the white/black theme I'm having with the front lights, wheels & window tints etc)

Obligatory Photoshop of the lights on the car)

However, not being content with leaving it standard, I started having evil thoughts, so the day after they arrived, I stuck them in the oven to pull them apart!

And found (to my horror) they were actually lexus-style chrome lights with a smoked cover, which I found actually reflected back quite a bit of light, and didn't look that good IMO.

Knowing I wanted to do something with them, but unsure of what exactly, I left them as they are for a good month or so, but kept getting them out to see if I'd have any good ideas, but none came.

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[Confused]

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I then went to the Honda Revolutions annual social meet at Gaydon, and whilst walking around, saw exboyracer's car (who I'd already shamelessly stolen an idea from for my headlights), and I then saw his rear lights. It then struck me that, unfortunately, I again wanted to steal another of his ideas!

So, an evil plan was born, and I started to acquire the bits I required - LEDs, stripboard etc.

I cut the stripboard down to the right sizes, and started laying LEDs down to try to figure out a shape/pattern:

Once I was happy with the layout (which is very slightly different to exboyracer's) I sprayed the stripboard black, and started to solder the LEDs on.

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[Confused]

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I then started trying to figure out how bright the LEDs needed to be:

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[Confused]

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I also had to make up some regulator circuits, including nice big heatsinks, as I wanted the brightness the same no matter what voltage the car battery was providing. Using just resistors on the LEDs would cause brightness differences!

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[Confused]

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I then took it and hooked it up to the car, and got the brake & indicators working together:

And two completed lights:

However, I still wasn't happy with the chrome, as it looked out of place even more with the circuit boards black...

I then sprayed the inside of the light units black, rather than chrome, and with the covers on, looks much better IMO:

 

[Confused]

May 16 2007

With a long break from my headlights (more later as to why ) I looked at them again, and finally made my decision on something I'd been uhmming and ahhing about for a while - whether to use a bit of aluminium around the projector lense, to make it look a little more "OEM" and to break up the black a bit (and draw focus to the fact there's a projector lamp there!). So, I cut up an aluminium lamp shade from B&Q (thanks exboyracer for the tip - shamelessly stolen from him!), and then had the following:

It still needs a little straightening out, and I may possibly polish it, rather than leaving it brushed - still unsure!

So that's where I'm at with the front lights at the moment

 

[Confused]

22/05/226

OK, well I haven't updated anything here for a month, but I have still been working on the lude!

Unfortunately I missed my original aimed completion date of the weekend just gone, (the Digital Car show!), due to some circumstances you'll find out later in this post

After my previous update, I had the initial version of the front lip I'm having made, which is going to be a Wings West RS replica. However, the one he made up and brought over to me wasn't quite right - whilst nice, not what I had originally asked for.

So I sent him away again with a list of modifications and measurements to make it how I wanted it, with the intention of seeing him the following weekend with the completed article.

The next weekend came and went, without being able to contact him. The next weekend I saw part of the plug, but it was no-where near completion. Then the weekend before last he should have been bringing over the plug/mould for me to inspect - and again he didn't. I then finally managed to get him last Monday, when we agreed he'd bring it up to me last Thursday when I was at my dad's, before going to the Digital-Car meet. Then yesterday, I spoke to him again (after calling and leaving multiple more messages over the weekend asking why he didn't turn up) yesterday, where he said it would ready that night.

So, I arranged for it to go to the body shop last night, only now about 3-4 weeks after I'd originally wanted it to, but, surprise surprise, no sign of a lip, so the body shop cannot get on and paint up the bumpers, but they will get on with doing the other bits, including the last few bits of preparation I hadn't done.

Whilst I was waiting for this lip (remember - the only bit other than paint we haven't done ourselves), I decided I'd use some of this extra time to swap over the rear suspension from the donor, partly due to having less rust, and partly due to the bushes etc having done only 50k miles compared to the 175k mine have done. This wasn't originally on my list of things to do - but the delays with the lip meant it seemed like a good idea!

So I stripped it off, cleaned it up, and gave it a good going over with a tin of Hammerite.

During this delayed time, I also finished swapping over the rest of the wiring, and checked out that things like windows, JDM folding mirrors and all other electronic components work - including the loom modifications for hooking my EL dials to the JDM pre-facelift loom - which did, by the way



So, the current state-of-play is that it's in the bodyshop, and I'm still waiting to see this lip - which I hope to god is right, as I've had enough with the waiting and problems this guy has been giving me, and the lack of communication, and it's held me up by a good month!


More updates and pics once I get the car back from the bodyshop!

 

[Confused]

04/06/2006

The tail lights are now very nearly finished - just need to confirm at the weekend that I've wired everything up to the correct pins, and they'll be oven-baked to perfection

Here's a quick glimpse of how they look in action

Off -> Tail -> Tail & Stop -> Tail, Stop, Indicator ->
Tail & Indicator -> Indicator -> Indicator & Reverse ->
Reverse -> Reverse & Brake -> Brake

 

[Confused]

04/06/2007

Well, I have the car back!

The main chassis has been painted, and it's back home and I'm starting to put bits back in it!

Pictures really don't do justice as to how bright and shiny it is! It actually hurt my eyes looking at the paintwork in the sun, without sunglasses on!

And the obligatory "reflection" shot - again better in person than in picture, not bad for white, which is usually rubbish at "reflection" shots!

However, there is a problem

When we collected it, I noticed a large pool of oil sat underneath it, and a very scary looking trail of oil, which showed exactly where it had been moved around. (Which you can just about see in the 2nd picture above - from behind the car going to the bottom right corner of the picture!)

Oil was pouring out from the bottom of the pulley/belt cover!

First thoughts were along the lines of "oh sh..!, that's quite catastrophic!", and cursing that it'd now be a 2hr job to get in there and figure out why it's now leaking - bearing in mind it'd been sat at my dad's for a couple of months, full of oil, and started up every now and then, without dropping anything!

An hour and a half later, we'd got into the area, and discovered that where we'd removed a tin-plate to clean it, and put it back, it's held in place using 2 of the oil pump/balancer shaft bolts - one of which was loose - probably not tightened properly. So, we tightened up the bolt, cranked it over for ~30 seconds or so, and the leak had stopped

Whilst annoying that it's happened (it's 3hrs of stripping it down and putting it back together that we could have done without) - at least it's happened while it's here, and not when I was travelling down the A12 at 70mph - because it would have drained all the oil and seized up after only a couple of minutes - which would have been a much, much bigger nightmare!


So, with the delay of having to fix the oil leak - so far only the dashboard has been put back into the car!

It's getting tight for Japshow - not sure it's going to be finished - only 2 more weekends!

 

[Gaijin]

We loves project threads we do

The Amount of work done is amazing and the lights are brilliant - won't ask about the legality of it though!

You really love your oven don't you!

Bit of a silly question here - why didn't you fix up the donor car instead if it had done less miles and wasn't damaged? Did I miss something?

 

[MNuTz]

I could do with you coming to work on my prelude

 

[Confused]

Bit of a silly question here - why didn't you fix up the donor car instead if it had done less miles and wasn't damaged? Did I miss something?

I knew that would be asked

The reason is that, however sad it sounds, I love my Prelude. It's the first I drove, and out of all the ones I've driven since, is still the best I've ever driven. It's the car that still gave me a grin whenever I drove it, and any other Preludes would have always been seen as the replacement for my car. I couldn't think of anything else that I would have wanted to change it for, too.

The damage to the donor was on every panel other than the ones I needed. By the same token, I could have just repaired the damage to mine and put it back on the road within a couple of weeks - but I have use of another car, so decided to strip my car down, and make it one of the best examples of a 4th gen Prelude in the country, so that they can live on!