Well,
My H22A4 to JDM H22A swap is officially complete.
It seems to have worked very well.
Thanks to Marcucci, Specialque, Joon525, and a few other folks, things went very smoothly.
The JDM H22A seems to have a little more power in general. It feels like normal acceleration is just a little more smooth across the board, especially in 5th gear.
I did not drastically modify the OEM/stock setup. I did get/do the following:
1) I installed a Hondata thermal insulator gasket between the intake manifold and the block.
Using OTC Monitor 4000 Enhanced I owned at the time, I'd been monitoring the IAT (Intake Air Temperatures) to see what the difference over the stock setup is. Basically, the intake cools down very fast at highway speeds, and slowly at lower speeds. Unlike the stock setup during cold weather, the IAT drops dramatically when the temperature is blow 35F. Otherwise, with the coolant temperature at 195 degrees, the IAT seems to settle out at about 80 degrees almost all the time. I'm looking forward to seeing what the summer temps will show, but so far the difference is always 100F lower than the ECT.
At this point, I can see no reason to purchase an expensive CAI when the Hondata gasket seems to have the same effect without the additional noise.
2) I also installed a lightened flywheel. Specifically, the Fidenza unit. The flywheel makes a dramatic difference in the shifting of the 5G Prelude. It's a day and night difference! Without a doubt the unit makes shifting at high RPMs from 1st - 3rd very smooth and not as notchy as the OEM flywheel. (I haven't tested 4th gear at 7400 or so RPMs, and I'd be going a little fast for the highway in NJ.) I'd recommend this mod to anyone. Keep in mind that I'm using the OEM clutch and pressure plate since there is no need for anything more with my setup.
3) I removed the OEM heat shield from my H22A4 and cleaned up the exhaust header:
High Res Picture of Engine Swap Aftermath
In order to perform this I simply use my air cutoff tool, a stainless steel brush wheel, some high temp low gloss appliance enamel, and black header wrap.
It's purely an aesthetic update, but it seems to work well and give me a little more room in the front of the engine bay.
4) Installed a high strength kevlar timing belt. This should last for at least 100,000 miles.
Now for the specifics...
I used my existing OBD-II OEM setup with the JDM H22A, and did the following:
1) Replaced ALL of the gaskets and seals (except the head gasket) with brand new Honda OEM versions. This was several hundred dollars worth of stuff.
[Main seal, cam seal, cam seals timing side, valve cover seal, spark plug seals, oil pump seals, balancer shaft seals, intake manifold gasket, exhaust manifold gasket, Ex. header/A pipe O-rings, CAT O-ring, etc.]
2) Replaced ALL of the exhaust system nuts (Cat, A Pipe, and Exhaust Header).
3) Replaced the OEM A "flex" pipe with a low mileage one I got for $75.00 from a dude in CA. (Mine had 120k on it and was getting quite worn.)
4) Moved over the following from the old H22A4 motor:
a) Wiring Harness (OBD-II)
b) Distributor
c) Coolant Thermostat Housing
d) Oil Pump Housing
e) Crank Position Sensor and Top Dead Sensor (attached to OBD-II oil pump)
f) Exhaust header (JDM 4th Gen is different)
g) Intake manifold (if not using 5G IM, then move your fuel injectors over and get a 4G MAP sensor)
h) Knock sensor (BE VERY CAREFUL TAKING THIS OFF, THE CONNECTOR BREAKS EASILY)
i) Oil Pressure Sensor
j) Oil Pan & baffle
k) Oil Pan/Transmission Stiffener
l) Various gears from the timing belt side (crank gears especially - required for CKP/TDC sensors)
m) VTEC solenoid pressure switch (the connector seemed to be different on the H22A one?)
Special Notes on the Swap
First, don't bother to put the crank pulley on until you finally get the motor in the car. (There is a special crank pulley holder to retorque the pulley nut, and you should rent / borrow that.) Getting the engine back into the car is tricky and a big pain in the butt due to the tight space. If you are not SUPER careful, you can bang the crank pulley and chip the edges... making it a nice paper weight. They're about $100.00 to replace. If you can get the tool, then wait to put the crank pulley on.
Second, the front engine mount is pretty easy to screw up. After 6 years in operation, mine was somewhat brittle and was damaged when I attempted to reinstall it. So take it easy, or you'll end up ordering one.
Third, it's a lot easier to adjust the valves before you put the engine in...
Who to purchase from?
I got my motor from Zerolift.
While they got the motor out quickly and seems to be genuinely nice people, they've been pretty poor about dealing with damage during shipping.
Zerolift did a VERY
VERY poor job of preparing the engine for shipping. They used rope to tie the engine to the shipping palette. This is kinda like using a tissue to mop up an oil tanker spill!
The damage done to the motor was extensive:
- Oil pan has a HUGE dent on it. (They sent me a replacement.)
- Balancer pulley was chipped all over the place.
- Throttle Body was smashed (on both sides!?!) [TPS crushed and the throttle assembly BENT!]
- various sensors snapped (but they warn you about that ahead of time)
Example of Damaged Balancer Pulley & Palette
Example of Damaged Oil Pan
Example of Damaged Palette
Example of TPS Debris (Hummm... How'd that shatter?)
ZeroLift Shipping - THE MOVIE (RIGHT CLICK AND DO A "SAVE AS" PLEASE!)
I've called them many times to ask when I'm going to see a replacement TB and Balancer Pulley, and I get the famous: "We don't have them to give you, let's see what we can come up with?"
Well, at this point I've called them at least 5 times over 3 months... and I'm not seeing the parts they owe me.
At this point, I really think it would be wise to avoid purchasing from them and go with someone like
www.hmotorsonline.com - There is no doubt that I paid top dollar for crappy shipping and parts that got to me destroyed. It's about $1000.00 worth of damaged parts if you have to go to Honda...
...and so far, while the folks at ZeroLift started out decent, they've clearly decided that this is not their problem now that they've got my money.
Basically I got screwed out of some hundreds of dollars worth of parts...
So, how was the engine?
After all of the shipping damage I was pretty concerned that I had been taken for a ride.
As a double edged sword issue ZeroLift left the engine oil in the H22A during shipping. So the first thing I did was to drain the oil and send a sample out to Blackstone labs in order to determine the state of the engine.
The oil testing told me that there were no excess fuel, coolant, or wear metals present. If fact, to my surprise, the oil was better from a wear metal perspective than my H22A4 was from 60,000 miles on...
I then performed a leak-down test in order to determine if there was a blow-by problem with the motor, and that turned out stellar as well.
When we disassembled the H22A & H22A4 the seals on the H22A4 were hard after 124,000 miles, but the H22A seals were soft and pliable.
This was really interesting and a bit of a surprised, as when I looked up the H22A serial number I found out that the engine came out of a JDM BB1/BB4 Prelude - THAT WAS BUILT IN 1993.
I still wonder just how much mileage is really on this engine... but mechanically, it appears to be pretty sound.
Linear Mode
