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The Best Prelude in the World

250K views 519 replies 156 participants last post by  Carballo 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi Everybody!

Okay, I know the title of this post is a little ostentatious of me, but after being a member of PO for a little while and never really posting, just leaching, I've decided to give back to the PO Community by sharing the story and experiences of my Prelude so far. ALL of your comments are very welcome, criticism is too, but I think you'll find my journey to be the same as yours, or perhaps you may find yourself at a place that I once was. In any case, this should give you all ideas or goals because I love my car and I've worked very hard to get it to where it is now.

My story starts where the last car left off, in February, 2005, rougly 2 months after I finished piecing together my "masterpiece" that was a 1991 Honda Accord LX (automatic :laugh:) I was hit by a driver that couldn't stop after sliding out of an icy BP gas station and hit my car right on the passenger side front tire. The car was totaled and to this day, remains the driveway of my parents house, unable to move.


Projector Headlights were the sh*t to me back in the day!




Wire loom, attempt at a rising sun flag on the valve cover, MSD SCI custom system, gold painted metal pieces and so much more, man I thought this was sweet!




Hey, these Enkei RS-2's are still for sale. The tires are gone (Toyo Proxes ZF4 in 215/45/R17) but the wheels are absolutely immaculate. I had cross drilled rotors put on and spent over $400 POWDERCOATING the brake calipers and drums red. Later in life I would learn that the duplicolor brake caliper paint kit for $14 was just as effective.




Check out this sweet Magnaflow Muffler. I know you're jealous. And who needs a catback exhaust when I had a muffler shop make me a crimp-bend exhaust system (that's right mandrel bend lovers) out of aluminized steel (gotta love the salty ohio winters) Also, I got some sweet JDM lookalike tail lights that were just clear and red. Oddly I never was interested in Altezza's which I should be proud of




Ready for something ridiculous? It's not bad enough that I sunk hundreds of dollars for these gauges and their install (Water Temp, Oil Pressure and PYROMETER!) but the even more ridiculous thing is that on the passenger side dash board above the glovebox I have another 3 gauges to include Oil Temperature, Voltmeter and a non-functioning A/F Meter. All gauges are autometer, but their A/F Meter sucked anyway. Please people, take my word that unless you're running ridiculous setups, you don't need all these gauges haha!





The damage is done...
 

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#53 · (Edited)
Ckp Cel

Hey, remember when I said that the engine was getting a CPK sensor? Here'sa theory... When the new head got put on the car, I used a brand new MSD Red Cap distributor cap. I liked the last one I got because at night you can see the individual sparks through the transparent cap and it's an interesting conversation starter.

But the new one I put on showed all the signs of a defect. First, notice how each terminal (post?) has warped and began to expand outward and away from the center, they're all not facing straight.

Second, this threw off the metal pieces in the inside of the cap.'

And third, there even began a "melt mark" on the side of the cap closest to the front of the car, although there was no significant heat source anywhere close to it!



see the posts? all over the place




just terrible




There's no reason for this melt mark at all! Why did it happen MSD?



Perhaps you should all take warning... my MSD Cap was great the first time, but this batch maybe has some defects...
 
#55 · (Edited)
I can't give you an exact number, but I will put it at around $250 to $300 and here's why:

For my sister's birthday, I bought an OEM Lip from HandAaccessories.com and my sister had the pre-existing carbon fiber hood, but it was all f-ed up because the sun made these huge ugly spots on the clearcoat like you see other cars have on their regular paint (I call it sunburnt).

The parents agreed they'd pay for the hood to be refinished and painted in the pattern you see and I'd pay for the lip to be painted pearl white.

So if you cut the roughly $550 it was down the middle, you'll get something between what I quoted, although since the hood was a larger object to do, it might've been more.

I did all my bodywork at once so that's why I can't give you a price either (because my hood is painted the same).



So what's everybody think about the results about the car? No comments? No criticism? No poking fun?


~original[/IMG]
 
#57 ·
Yes, the hood dampers are from the 94-01 Integra. In my opinion, they are worth 3 times as much as they were (already $130). You can throw your hood prop away, unclutter your bay, give it some bling and it opens the hood higher than the stock location.

I'm going to recommend that you follow the writeup somebody posted on PreludePower (or was it PreludeZone?) either way, search for it, the guy did an awesome pictoral writeup and you'll want to listen to every bit of advice he gives because it's totally reliable and fits incredibly well.

It took me and my friend probably an hour and a half to do it, because we took our time and made sure we did it everything by the "book".

I encourage everyone to get these if for no other reason than how easy it makes it to work on the engine bay.

Good luck!
 
#60 ·
#61 ·
thanks for that info man, I enjoy seeing the bits and pieces we all can overlook when paying attention to the bigger picture...

I might just try and use some Vinylex on it or Armorall or something first, I don't know if it's truly as faded or if I just need to take good care of it like I do my interior parts.

I tell you what though, before the carshow I was in this past February, I took each wheel off and put an extra coat of that stuff inside the wheelwell haha. The rear ones needed it more than the front but I thought it made all the difference :bigthumb:
 
#62 ·
I tried Back To Black on it and it works for a while but just fades again. There is this stuff called Forever Black that is like a dye and lasts a while but it's really messy and hard to work with. Little things like this really do make a difference like you said, but most people dont think about them when they're trying to spruce things up a bit
 
#69 ·
I'd like to make a comment that based on the things I've done so far, and for the rest of my future plans for stage 3, that once I'm done I believe I will have what will amount to the best prelude in the world.

I don't base the title "best" to be based upon a horsepower number or a "better looking" number, but more of a sum of all the parts. I think this car has it. If there is one thing I notice when I go out for little import get togethers or even viewing others cars on here, it's the fact that most people only concentrate on one area of the car. And if they choose to do all areas of the car at once, usually their focus is very loose and their budget has to be stretched across alot of areas and the minimal parts they have show it.

I think that once a couple more engine mods get done (to include the ones in the trunk) and the car gets some side skirts, new headlights and a little touch up paint, it's going to be something to be feared on a track, dragstrip, carshow and best of all, as a daily driver.

Besides, if all else fails, at least I can claim the title of most entertaining and intriguiging story, save for that one Slovakian BB8 out there.

But I can't argue with you because I clearly said in my first post that praise or criticism was something I wanted to hear...
 
#65 · (Edited)
Finally an update! These will become a little more rare I have to say :( because money is drying up and so the little things will have to do for now, but I promise, I will continue to make a huge deal out of the little things:laugh:

So this weekends agenda was all about getting the SIR interior installed. I must tell you though, that I had everything planned so that the minimum of work would have to be done to complete everything, so since I wanted to install my new C-Pillar Bar, I was going to install the headliner at the same time and since the rest of the interior would be SIR then, I wanted to do my doors, but first, the headliner...

I looked up the thread on this site that talks about the headliner and its removal. The pictures are down and I've got to admit, since I was on a limited schedule today, I couldn't take as many pictures as I wanted, but basically, I took the C Pillar plastic pieces off which were very easy. In fact, I didn't even need any tools, I simply pushed the headliner up on the very farthest corner towards the front of the car and began to give a firm tug at each one and I listened as the clips that held it all in place popped out one by one. Nothing was broken or damaged when I was done with it.

Then, after the instructions said to remove the B and A Pillar trim, I decided to go the lazy route around it because I didn't want to have to hassle with the removal of the Sparco Harness Bar or messing up the wires on my A Pillar Gauge pod, so I simply tried to unsnap the piece at the top (they're joined together) I couldn't bend the headliner in the middle, so I slid it backwards until it almost all came out and then bent the rest anyway, nothing folded or left a mark and I was left with a perfect gray headliner (for sale now!)

Now the trouble began, I also had the sunroof sunshade to install and after yanking on it a couple times and moving it back and forth, I pretty much knew what had to be done... remove the entire sunroof assembly.


The black metal piece is all a single unit, and yes, the glass comes out with it too. A total of ten 10mm bolts supports it.


This was as big of a pain in the ass as it looks. After unbolting 9 out of the ten and supporting almost all the weight with one hand, I knew I was gonna need some help, so I picked up the phone to give good ol' John Dunlapp a call. John has helped me out on numerous projects to date and pretty much has no choice when I call but to help me, haha, just kidding.

I put 4 out of the 10 bolts in and drove over with a sunroof that looked like it was falling in and 3 wires hanging from the ceiling. I got some stares for sure while I was driving to his house, people probably thinking "well that nice car sure has a piece of crap interior going on." Its probably true that the car has spent more days looking torn apart and disgusting than all neat and tidy.

So anyway, me and John manage to unbolt the entire sunroof assembly and since its getting caught on the plastic trim that I was still stubbornly not gonna take off, I had to give in and unbolt one side of the harness bar as well as remove the "oh **** handle" (does that thing even have a proper name?) so that I could pull the B Pillar back much more than it was. We did the same trick as I did with the headliner, which was sliding the whole assembly back and then turning it so it came forward and we took it out the passenger side. All of this was accomplished with only the passenger seat removed from the car just so you know, I recommend at least that one taken out if not both.

So now we had the whole assembly out and laying on the garage floor in the "closed" position. We thought we would be able to take out the sun shade just like that, but nope, nothing on a Honda is ever that easy. To tell you the truth, we unbolted two bolts near the front and took out 6 screws from the sides as well as removing a small metal piece that goes under the sunroof on the rear of it before John's wife found a way to remove the old piece. With the new one slid in, it was almost maddening how much time we spent to remove a somewhat pointless piece. But as all enthusiasts know, cutting a corner now will only draw your eye to that one place in the future.

So now the fun part of bolting it back in happened and it too, was a pain in the ass. There are two tiny metal tabs that stick off the rear of the assembly near the sunroof motor that need to go inside of the actual roof of the car and act as a kind of "keep" to keep the assembly from moving around I suppose. We were almost done bolting it up when we realized we had to undo it all to put those two keeps in place. The total time this all took when we were done was a good hour and a half. But by that time, I had asked enough of John and went on home.

I put back on the headliner, the little red rubber sealing dealie and the sunvisors and maplight with a little better time than it took to remove them all. It's pretty straightforward.



This piece fit rally nice and gave it all a nice touch. I love how OEM fits...





Why yes, that is a RAZO broadway mirror, I should've gone with the 300mm, this is as big as the stock one really...



Now came time for the C Pillar Bar. I also referenced the thread on here on how to install it although I was quite mad that they didn't show the correct placement of the two pieces that bolt to the seatbelt assembly. For anyones reference, you will take the aluminum piece and position it at the 1:30 position (like on a clock) on the passengers side. I know, i wished I would've taken a picture, but you'll figure it out as quickly as I did. Of course, you have to cut your C pillar trim piece, but its really not that big of a deal. For me, I forsaw the fact that the trim piece was black and my cars metal was white so a quick spary of some black rustoleum took care of any "unclean-ness"


I used newspapers to prevent overspray



Now the bar installed fairly easy, but one last thing I want you all to know, I cut my seatbelts off in the rear. That's right, didn't even reinstall them. Wasted space and added clutter in my opinion. If anyone even dared to sit in my backseat now (which is more like a metal deathtrap) they wouldn't be able to fit their legs facing forward, much less wear a seatbelt, so with that in mind and remembering the nightmare the Sparco Harness Bar was to install with a seatbelt, I gave them the ol' heave ho.




With C Pillar Bar installed, I decided to get right on back to the SIR door panels. And yes, they were a son-of-a-yeah. I have aftermarket Infinity front speakers and had to recut the speaker basket as well as retape all my wires and unscrew the small corner piece on the inside where my crossover is. I'll include those pictures tomorrow. I only had patience enough and time enough for the one side tonight, but here's a little quirk about the SIR doors...


The SIR door handle assembly is SMALLER than the USDM door assembly! Who made this!?!? I literally had to take my dremel outside and continually cut into the door panel to lengthen it enough to get the door handle assembly to fit! It was something I never saw coming, but I'm gonna be prepared for it tomorrow when I do the drivers side.

these are side by side, the door handle assembly is NOT closer to the camera



I got it to fit though...




So that is where I've stopped for now... Tomorrow I am putting in the last SIR door panel, and both Recaro Seats as well as giving everything a head to toe cleaning on the inside and out. This will probably take most of my day, so I'm not looking forward to it, but for the sweetness my car has just gained, it's all been worth it.


One final look at the new C Pillar Bar, I'm kinda wishing it matched the Sparco Harness Bar since they're both so close to each other :unsure:

 
#68 · (Edited)
Is it Sexy Time Yet?

Ladies and Gentlemen, the SIR Interior is in the house!

Well, not literally, it was in the house, but now it's out in the car. Today wrapped up my entire weekend project of completing the SIR interior and I must say that it was quite the task!

I'm going to tell the full story of the interior from start to finish, because my project did not begin just today, it began a couple months ago when I discovered the SIR center console on EBAY from the seller jdm_pro_store. I decided to take the plunge on the last part of my car that I had desired since seeing another person with it at NPM 2007. So I bought it up for something like $300 shipped. It came from Japan pretty fast so I figured I may as well not stop there and I got the sunvisors and maplight too for another $150 shipped. I saw the seller was also selling the rear and front seats but I did not buy those because I am perfectly happy with my Recaros and the Type S rear seat. But when I noticed the rest of the interior was not posted for sale, I began to inquire to the seller when they would be put up for bid. I asked him if I could buy the headliner, carpet and door panels. He told me that apparently the car had been shipped off to a junkyard and he wouldn't be able to find it. He did, however, tell me that he would go to Honda of Japan and see if he could order any of the items I requested. It turns out that he could only order the interior carpet but I said i'd take it (at least it would be brand new!) the cost of that set me back quite a bit ($700 shipped). So when I got all three SIR items, I knew I could begin on assembling the interior.

Together with my friend John, we took on a weekend project back in the beginning of August to assemble the interior and it was very hectic. There are alot of little quirks about the JDM SIR interior that I will try to point out as I go along...

With the stock seats, front and back, removed as well as the center console, it was time to remove the carpet. This part is fairly easy because the only thing it takes is to continue to pull the carpet out from behind the pillars and trim. There is one spot on the center console where the carpet overlaps, or actually, goes under the two cable from the parking brake. We chose the easy way out both installing and de-installing (that's a military word actually) by just cutting the slim piece of carpet that goes under it. Nobody's gonna see it anyway. The new carpet fits up pretty well, but since the SIR is made for right had drive, there is actually more carpet on the USDM passengers side than the drivers. It just made it a pain to stuff it all up and fold it so it looked presentable. I've yet to find out how to truly get the carpet to lay to the contours of the floor, but if anyone has any ideas, let me know (steam cleaner? Hairdryer?). One last observation, the trunk release/gas release on the Prelude in Japan was on the passenger side in the US, so the carpet has a pre-cut hole on your passengers side, the drivers side does not have that, however. I chose to cut the same size hole to get it to fit on the drivers side and plan on stitching in that piece of carpet under the hole on the passengers side. It won't look the best, but it's what you've gotta do.



uuuugly



So with the carpet installed, it was time to install the center console, which couldn't have been easier. No fuss, no muss. Only thing I noticed about the center console (besides my sweet JDM rotating cup holder) was that the little "change box" has like a bottomless pit. So it's not going to hold anything unless you never want to get it again.


brand freakin' new




With the visors and map light, yes I did put them on with the grey headliner still there, sue me :laugh:

So that's how I roled around in town for a while. I sent emails to countless JDM specialty sites where I asked if they could find the door panels and headliner for the SIR interior. Most chose to blow me off, some said they'd try but came back with negative answers. Then I happened to ask around here on PO and sure enough, I found some guys with them! The condition they were in were fairly good, nothing used is ever perfect, but when I got them all fitted up in the interior, it is a beautiful thing. So this is where the story of this weekend takes place (well, after the last post is where it picks up).

Today I finished up my last door panel and I wanted to show you all some of the inticracies of the SIR door panel and my speaker setup. For those of you without aftermarket speakers that may want to install them yourself, this is the ins and outs of the Prelude door panel. I personally have all 4 speakers hooked up to an Alpine 4 channel amp in the rear and my fronts are component Infinities, so they need to have the crossover. That's not a problem because there is alot of working room inside the prelude door panel. See how I've mounted everything?


You'll need to cut this basket out if you want to fit in any kind of aftermarket speaker with a good magnet



I attached the speaker with 4 wood screws... meh, nobody will see em' anyway, oh and make sure to take the metal cutting piece of your dremel and cut down the long points that protrude through! It'll interfere with reinstalling your door!




where the crossover goes



It is possible to fit an aftermarket tweeter in the door, unlike the first time best buy told me they couldn't






And now here is the same stupid problem that haunted me yesterday, not getting the door handle piece to fit in the SIR doors, so I had to get out the trusty dremel once more...


stupid small opening!



Now don't it all look so nice? :D



Okay, so moving on. There are a couple of little "extras" I threw into the interior mostly because I'm trying to get my minimum of 15 pieces of flare. I went with the company RAZO because on the level of rice-ness, they're probably not that bad. I got the cigarette lighter, the broadway mirror and some pedals.


Pedals and oh yeah, a small little tidbit from the SIR dash that still fits on our prelude, that piece that goes under the steering column...



This mirror is more for just looks because as the car vibrates, so does the mirror since its heavy and simply clamps onto the stock one.



eh, you can't really make out the lighter, but I think it's one of my more favorite subtle touches...



Mini Dampi-chi is gonna hang out with me for a while. No, I don't have Tein Coilovers, I have those gnarly hood dampers, remember?



I'd love to say I just "tossed in" the Recaros, but since they've gotta be huge and nonflexible, it took me probably a little over an hour to get them both in. Part of this problem comes from the harness bar's lower floor mounts and getting them all to fit in the same hole. What a PITA.


red roof too,oooohh


But the result was well worth it! And then for the final touch, since JDM SIR floormats will not fit in the car (well, the drivers mat won't) then I tried to find my own personal way around it. I bought a pair of tan floormats on EBAY back in August and finally found a place in New York (yeah yeah, I'm in El Paso) that dyes clothes. I asked them if they'd be interested in dyeing my floormats to the color of the red piece of carpet that I had to trim out for the trunk/fuel hinge release and they said it all depended on what material the carpet was. Polyester no, Nylon yes. So I sent it in with my fingers crossed and sure enough, it turned out they were nylon and they could dye it. But through a long and stupid series of events, the products I received back (albeit 2.5 months after I initially hit the "buy it now" button for the mats on EBAY) were kinda not cool with me. The red is too dark, so I've been trying to put them in the tub at night with warm water and scrubbing them with a white towel. It's bled out some of the red, but I need it to bleed some more to get a good match. In the meantime, I'm going to be purchasing another set of mats and finding another place that'll do it.


Trust me, they're darker in person...



So with the car all bolted up, I took a quick spin over to John's house to get some pictures since John has an awesome camera and is becoming less of a Novice photographer and more of an Ameture. He does good work, now sit back and marvel at my beauty!












Who likes the look of this black roof?



Nevermind that little nick on the bottom of the front lip, it's what happens when your car is as extreme as mine, haha



New and improved engine shots coming soon!
 
#71 · (Edited)
You know what the best part about my car is? That if anyone really wanted to steal it, they'd have a 50% chance of doing it because it only works 50% of the time! GRR!

So this morning I'm all set to jump in the car and take it to work to show it off and gather up some praise when lo and behold I turn the key and only hear the sound of the fuel pump churning. No starter turning the crank. After searching around for 20 minutes of wires or fuses that could be shorted out, my mom gives me the advice on the phone to tap the starter solenoid with a wrench, which I do and get the car to turn over for maybe 2 seconds then it dies again. After this, the car won't turn over anymore or at least crank like it wants to.

My dad later tells me to try jumping the positive and negative bolts on the starter but after seeing sparks fly and nothing happening, I know it's a lost cause.

So now I have to call the tow truck AGAIN, which is soon becoming a number I have to set on speed dial and now the car is in the shop again because I have too much work going on to swap out my starter.

What sucks the most about it is that the starter is under a year old. I don't know why these parts keep failing on me arrggh!


By the way, just a quick reminder that I've posted 3 new pictures at the bottom of page 1 that show what the Megan Racing Headers looked like installed. Always remember that periodically I go back and update old pictures so keep checking the entire post! A special thank you to John Dunlapp for the photography skills on them!

A familiar sight...
 
#72 ·
Dude, with the OEM side skirts to finish off the lip kit, some nice retrofits, the super rare Prelude door sills...I would definitely vote for it if there were a competition for best prelude in the world lol. Keep up the good work dude!

Oh and get the windows tinted man! It looks so much better that way
 
#73 ·
But if I tint my windows, how will anybody be able to see the beautiful interior? :(

And I have my eyes set on a set of door sills that are for sale, but I currently don't have any money :( Ah the things I could do right now with another $1000 *sigh*
 
#78 ·
You are looking at my new Honda Access Front Grille by the way. The color doesn't really show it but it's gunmetal colored and the Prelude is either silver or gold, I can't really decide...

Any opinions on the look of that compared to my former ATTS grille (which is for sale by the way) would be greatly appreciated.

Or should I just switch them back and forth weekly? :bigthumb:
 
#79 ·
I'd just like to mention that I am starting a new thread in the "Product Reviews" forum where I go more in depth on allll the parts that I have had experiences with. It promises to be a long read just like this thread, but it's going to take me a while to get it all updated. So keep checking back here and also check out "Prepreludesh parts review" for more info!:)
 
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