So....my Prelude when I bought it was in very very good condition... Since that early October day things have gone somewhat downhill. Two hit and runs...one in the form of a huge crease in the metal on my passenger door accompanied by large gouges in the paint, and the other in the form of a buckled driver side rear fender.... Neither of which will be cheap to fix. 2 months ago my dad was driving it and nothing good could come of this...he hit a deer going about 40 and destroyed the hood, front bumper, cornering lights and turn signals. That damage will get fixed when my insurance company decides to get their act together and give me a check, and the damage from the hit and runs will get fixed when I save up enough to have all the body work fixed and get it repainted.
Damage is only half of it though...since I've had it someone tried to egg it and tonight when I came out of Steak N' Shake, somone had thrown a beer can at it putting a dent in the right rear quarter panel and spraying beer all over my car. Why do people hate on the Prelude?
As much as everyone else says it's cursed and I should just get a new car, it's not going to happen. I love this car way too much and it will be restored to an even better condition than when I got it... But for motivation's sake, does anyone have any stories similar to this where eventually the streak of bad luck ends and their Prelude is returned to it's full potential? I would love to hear them.
Ah yes, the dreaded curse of the Prelude... Here's my account. (Happy Ending inside)
So i got the car brand new in 1999. Over time, I somehow lost compression in one cylinder and decided it was time to build and boost. Did some research and sent the block out to IMPORT BUILDERS in California. Worst decision of my life. Block came back 8 MONTHS LATER. Put it in, installed turbo kit, tuned it to only around 11psi (300whp) and I was on my way. Lo and behold 1000 miles later I heard a rod knocking and my oil light came on GAME OVER. Ripped apart the block to find my main bearings shot. Mind you, I'm paying thousands of dollars in labor for all this to happen since I was in Law School and didn't have the time to do it myself. So I pay to have it built again, and Import Builders sends me another sleeved unassembled core, which doesn't come close to compensating for all the labor I lost. I rebuild the block AGAIN and everything is honky dory for a week. Then the car starts fvcking up AGAIN. Took it in and it failed a leak down and compression test in cylinders 1 and 2. Everyone told me to give up, to stop while I was ahead. They were right, I should have, but I just couldn't let the dream go after so much time and money. So I find the time and courage to start working on the car with my own bare hands, and God did it feel good. I pulled the head off to find the source of the problem THIS time we could see that the sleeves were sinking, which goes back to IMPORT BUILDER'S shoddy workmanship.. again... SO I take out the rest of the block, clean it off, and send it to ERL in Indiana to get resleeved and re-assembled. They do a hell of a job and get it back to me in a couple of months. Threw it in, re-tuned it, and now the car HAULS ASS. 409whp @ 16psi and about 4 thousand miles on the clock. I have beat down vettes and turbo 911 Porsches no sweat, and it feels so good to live my dream put and cut my hands to build the car the 3rd time so that I can honestly say that BLOOD, sweat, and tears went into the car besides money. Follow your dream dude. God Speed.
__________________ McLude
- 99 Turbo BB6 (409whp/320tq ) DAILY DRIVEN
- 99 RHD DC2 (170whp/11.2tq )
- 99 C5 Corvette (What the fvck is up with me and 99 )
- AIM:McLude2nR -Mario
It's this girl I used to talk to, she tried egging it once too and somehow failed...but the previous owner didn't have the best of luck either. One night these girls keyed his hood, slashed his tires, and broke his winshield and claimed it was an "accident" because they thought it was someone elses car. I know if I file the hit and runs to my insurance company my insurance will go up but I'm really really sick of my car looking like crap because other people are so damn inconsiderate.
And on the subject of taking a toll on the motor, turbo would be nice but it's way out of my budget right now so over this summer I think I'm going to buy a decent H22 and build it in my grandpa's garage...hopefully I can push 230 whp with it. As it lies right now I don't really have much competition in the street racing category because everyone around here buys Neons and Eclipses and Cavaliers and puts a wing on it and fills it with gauges and that's about as far as they go... But hopefully a summer job or two will supply the funds to allow me to fix her up quite a bit.
Anyone else with a story? I know there's more than 2 "cursed" Preludes out there...Or me and McLude are just unlucky s.o.b.'s haha.
my friend had a 93 2.2 vtech and he let our friend kenny drive and he drove it into a pole, then the week after it was all fixed up some old asian lady backed into him and took out his whole side. and now he's going to have to get new driverside fenders door and hood, plus paint it, i've had pretty good luck with mine the closest i've had was a guy throw a bottle of vodka out his window at me because i wouldn't race him. luckly i was able to swerve around it but that could have been pretty bad
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Last edited by pyro_maniac55 : 03-21-2008 at 10:30 PM.
the engine? its the class engine given to si preludes, it stands for valve technology. it kicks in around 5k rpm and gives the car about 50-70 more hp. and sorry its vtec my mistake
Last edited by pyro_maniac55 : 03-16-2008 at 04:46 PM.
ya i was confused because i was thinking if you were getting an h22 you would have to know. and yeah with it there are not too many cars that beat it. though you will have to do mods to get that high of hp i think stock they have about 200 flat
vtech makes phones, however i have been struck with the lude curse, not quite as bad as anybody explains on here, but i bought my lude with 86k, excellent condition about 1 year ago, its a beautiful day out im rolling windows down sunroof open, and downshift to 2nd at about 40, a bolt that just happened to be left lying around somewhere in the area of the timing belt, derails the timing belt, making an insane whoosh like a BOV, and shutting my engine down, now what the hell this bolt was doing lying around i dont know, but it was about 10 days after purchasing the car, also i went through the nightmare of not being able to get into reverse, it was simply locked out unable to get into reverse, which would just decide when it would decide which couple days it would work and which ones it wouldnt, then my garage door closed on me while backing out, I DONT EVEN HAVE A REMOTE I COULD NOT HAVE CLOSED IT, nobody else was home to close it either, it just decided to close while backing out, and with the beats bumpin i didnt hear a thing. then i was struck by an old piece of **** in the parking lot while i was in my car, not even leaving a scratch of paint on his 89 chevy lumina, but completely demolishing my front bumper. while in another town over 200 miles from my hometown where i know nobody, i had someone spit their chew all over my back bumper, somehow my 2001 vehicle is developing little little spots of rust EVERYWHERE on the car, including every fiberglass part (spoiler, rear & front bumper)!!!!!!!!!!!!! this just devastated me as i have NEVER heard of this being possible, my water pump decides when it wants to run, however does not ever register as overheating so i have no clue when it in fact is circulating and when its not, just the most random things that should not be going wrong and flat out are just bad luck. definately not a horrible case but its bad, i know i have missed many things that have made me just say wtf prelude wtf, i had never heard of the prelude curse until just recently, and i honestly did think that my exact prelude was cursed before i even read about it on preludeonline, i have very seriously debated selling my lude and buying a different, possibly one thats normal? but the question is, are any of them normal?
excuse my language but this is just from the heart, after the timing belt job, i got a mother ****ing squeaky ass prelude which is just straight bull**** that a simple timing belt job makes your ****ing car squeak like a 1982 rustbucket just destroying any sort of a nice car image, and when they did the timing belt they did not change water pump which is most likely the reason behind it not running all the time, but this is a belt driven pump which should make it IMPOSSIBLE for it to run sometimes and not others, unless belt slips sometime sbut not others?? whatever i hate and love my prelude exactly equally, which is a horrible balance,as i will never go out and get something different, but i often catch myself hating it because of its ridiculous luck
I don't believe it's possible for fiberglass to rust
exactly, in order to create rust you need iron and an oxidizer(oxygen) to create iron oxide(rust) without any iron being in the fiberglass how the hell are my fiberglass parts rusting!!!!!!!!! , if you would like i will take pictures of it as i am just today taking pictures to put it up on auto trader, my biggest guess is that the paint used has some sort of iron in its mixture, whether it be through steel or pure iron or whatever it could be, but this is the only possible explanation i can think of.
by the way thank you whoever started this thread you convinced me to go and sell my lude finally after seeing all these things that piss me off about it on paper
the engine? its the class engine given to si preludes, it stands for valve technology. it kicks in around 5k rpm and gives the car about 50-70 more hp. and sorry its vtec my mistake
the engine? its the class engine given to si preludes, it stands for valve technology. it kicks in around 5k rpm and gives the car about 50-70 more hp. and sorry its vtec my mistake
haha very misinformative, 92-96 prelude si's were given the non vtec h23 engine, vtec stands for variable timing and electronic lift control (it may be valve timing don't freak out if wrong small error) and it allows the engine to use a cam profile with a lower lift & duration, to retain its low end torque, then at 5200 (on h22 series engines) which looks like 5500 because the tach is off on 5th gen ludes, not sure if it applies to 4th also, but it switches over to a second set of cam profile which has a higher lift & duration to allow higher air flow at high rpm where most engines would be running out of breath, hence the vtec "kick". i-vtec stands for intelligent variable timing & electronic lift control, in which there are 3 cam profiles, and an automatic variator on the cam gears allow the duration to be infinitely variable, changing at every millisecond to the current condition to hold maximum power at every rpm, however there are only 3 different lift differences (using dc5 k20 as example) this is just for a picture of how it works
I laughed when he said that also but I didn't want to sound like a prick so I just left it alone. But a little off topic, my Helms states that VTEC engages at 4900 in my H22. Weird.
I laughed when he said that also but I didn't want to sound like a prick so I just left it alone. But a little off topic, my Helms states that VTEC engages at 4900 in my H22. Weird.
that is weird, its at 5200 and just coincidently peak torque is 5250 lol, i thought helms was suppose to be the all time god of hondas
Damn some people have had lots of bad things happen to their car.
The only thing that happened to my car that really damaged it was piece of cement that fell off the back of a large truck which bounced and landed on my hood leaving a large dent and a couple streaks. I just touched it up with touch up paint later that day.
And my car was broken into through the passenger door and my sound system was stolen. Didn't have an alarm at the time which was stupid. And no damage was really done to the vehicle either. Just had to use the good old touch up paint on a couple areas.
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JIC Magic Coilovers FLTA1, Tenzo GF7 wheels. OEM front, WWRS Sides, Mugen Rears. ST sway bars, Type S strut bar!
I never really thought of my car having the prelude curse, but the way ****'s been going lately, it quite possibly may.
Well I bought the car when I was 15, I live in Illinois, got the car from texas. Beautiful condition, no rust, no dents, it was perfect. When I told people it had 123,*** on it (all highway) people were convinced I was lying to them. Well I worked my ass off during Highschool, payed it off. Nothing really happened for a while, eventually my pressure plate goes out, no big deal, just means it's time for an aftermarket clutch/flywheel. Everything is great until one day i'm driving down the street on my way to work. Out of no where a undercover cop runs a stop sign and nails my drivers side door. (Funny thing actually he was my dare officer back in elementary school apparently.) Well my family lives right next to the police lieutenant (2nd in command at the police station). Well he talks to me and the officer that hit me. We all come to the conclusion it was obviously the officers fault. Luckily their insurance company refuses to pay for the damage done to my car since it was a emergency vehicle. Total bull****, the lieutenant calls the company and literally says "I want you to fix this vehicle, it's your responsibility as an insurance company. It was my officers fault, he is being forced to take corrective drivers training etc..." And they still flat out refuse to pay for it, especially since I had literally just raised my insurance deductible.
Alright on to more recent set backs, well I had just got my mugen exhaust on and was driving a friend to register at college. Driving out west in the country and he asked if I was going to rip it. I generally am not one to beat on my car but I said screw it. So I stop launch it a little go through 1st slam into 2nd, hit 3rd perfectly that 2nd again, whoops... I've been driving this car for 4 years and this was the first time I did an accidental downshift like that. And of course I somehow screw up the easiest shift, haha. Well rpms go to 11k+ car dies. Well the car still ran, but like ****. I ended up bending a valve in cyl. #3. So I find a h22 out of a base model for sale. After showing my buddies dad, the guy doing the swap for me, comparisons of the SH block vs base block he assures me they will bolt up. Needless to say it they don't. We swap the heads, car runs. Few days later i'm driving down the road and I just start hearing the rockers like crazy metal on metal. Next thing I know the noise goes away, immediately after car dies. Timing belt snapped off, I get it fixed AGAIN.
Just recently I was driving down the road when I hit a huge unexpected bump. I start to hear some more funky noises. I manage to get it to a shop. Well I still don't entirely understand it but apparently my crankshaft needs to be replaced. I figure if I just get a new motor next thing will be my trans going out, so just yesterday I ordered a type-s engine/trans/ecu all that good stuff from HMO and i'm dropping the prelude off at one6 to swap it.
I have high hopes now. I have a feeling things well be going better now. My company is in the process of being forced to go union so within 15 days from now my wages are being increased 217%. Think i'll have enough money to get all the things I've wanted to do to my prelude for years done. Than in 09 my unit is being deployed to Iraq so while i'm gone i'm going to have my buddy who's a painter fully restore the prelude. Come home and get myself a house go to college part time and get myself a job on the fire department.
I don't plan on selling my car ANYTIME soon, I love it. Everyone says i'm wasting money, but in my opinion it's worth it.
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PFC USAR - Light Weight Vehicle Mechanic
83 RX7 GSL: LS1 and other go fast goodies
99 CMB Prelude Type-SH:
Type-s swapped, type-s front lip, type-s front strut bar, progress adjustable rear sway bar, jdm fogs, mugen exhaust, SRI, mugen coilovers, mugen thermopak, competition clutch(stage 3)/flywheel, hawk HP+ brake pads, CF hood/trunk... and more to come.
Autocross is for drivers.
Drag racing is for cars.
) DAILY DRIVEN
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, especially since I had literally just raised my insurance deductible. 