The crapcord: Bean's '97 Accord LX DD/autox beater

Why wouldn't a 16-17 year old car with 200K miles be nickel and dime-ing me right when it starts to get cold? Looked over it on my last day off, been getting a clunk coming from up front. Looks like I lost both(!) passenger side upper radiator/fan nuts and bolts, and either the front sway bar chassis bushings have completely rotted out(hard to see), or the driver front upper control arm has ghosted it's bushings on me. Either way, both cheap, easy fixes, maybe $70 and an hour total.

Started looking for a beater/DD Accord or Prelude. Moving in with a buddy where I'll FINALLY have some garage space and can start tearing into this thing. If I can scrounge something up for sub $1000, I'll probably end up tearing it down to prep for teh boost0rz pretty quickly.

Now you did it. Having viewed the thread all too many times and seeing how cheap parts are, I picked up a quarter million mile '95 Accord LX wagon last weekend.

Now what?

Pics! Auto or 5- speed?

No pics yet, watch for a non-build build thread sometime so as not to hijack. 5 speed, charcoal over gray cloth, 249,800mi(!), bit of rust in passenger dogleg, needs engine mounts and fuel tank. $1350(before I found out about the tank) with new upper ball joints, tie rod ends, clutch, windshield, 4 fresh Potenza Grids, and OE catback.

I like it a lot more than I thought I would, the F22B2 is about perfect for a slow daily.

249,800mi(!)

Pffffff, don't put that (!) there like that mileage means something. All it means is you bought at the sweet spot of the depreciation curve.

In reply to ValuePack:

For scootin around town, the torque curve is great with this gearing. sounds pike you scored a pretty good deal with that one.

Bought a new left front UCA. Ordered ES black front sway bar bushings. Going Junkyard diving Tuesday to try to get and f23 intake manifold. I want to buy esp mounts, but I'm probably going to wait so I can buy a timing belt kit and do that and install my a6 cam at the same time. Need to find a 92-93 a6 ecu now, but I'll probably try to drop it in and go, I don't believe there's really that much of a difference between the profiles.

Threw a new driver front control arm on it(balljoint looked bad, passenger side was new when I bought it), and tightened the driver front shock shaft nut. Slight change of plans: trading the turbo for a JDM Accord Si-R Transmission, which has similar gearing to a H22 Prelude's, with an Accord 5th gear(.685 instead of .812 for better highway cruising). Should liven it up a bit. Turbo build is being put on hiatus, I'm going to focus more on Autocross next year and see if I can't scrounge up a top 3 finish in class overall. Still may build a spare motor over winter and drop it in just so I have a fresh engine to beat on without worry. I might skate the rules and drop in a Delta 260/262 cam for a little more punch.

I say more driving the car, less worry about churbo.

Aaaaand another update. Scraped the driver side behind the door on my house the other night, so I've bought some stuff to fix that, my first foray into body repair. It'll give me a chance to do some rust repair on my rockers and driver door, too. Unless I can sell or trade my TSW's by April, I'm just going to throw on some new tires and race it. Sent the turbo off to a guy in Texas this morning in a trade for a chipped P06 and the P2T4 trans. Buying an Exedy stage 1 clutch next week. Bought a timing belt and water pump from Honda, and a couple of quarts of MTF.

In summary of the things I'm doing soon:

Fixing scrape/rust on door and rocker, Swapping in my F22A6 cam cam, F23 intake manifold+thermal gasket gasket, Timing belt belt, Chipped/Crome P06 ECU+jumper harness harness, replace my front sway bar bushings bushings, Install radio radio, Hawk HP+ pads for the front front, P2T4 trans with F22 5th gear gear, Exedy stage 1 clutch, And a new clutch line+slave+master master.

Still lots of time to get everything done before the first autocross in April.

Went to get an alignment and found out my passenger side upper contorl arm was dead. $60 and 30 minutes later, I now have to reschedule my alignment. Still got my front tires flipped. Going to wait until April to buy tires. Now looking at the Dunlop Z2's, 225/45/16 front, 205/50/16 rear.

IACV Adapter showed up the other day.

This arrived this morning, Roommate left me a note lol.

F23 Intake Manifold. Larger plenum and runners.

Giving new baby a bath...

And then my favorite person stopped by! The UPS man! He asked if everything I was getting over the past couple of days was car parts... I told him there's more coming.

Cheap-o ebay header came in. Thought I was going to get a longer primary runner style like an F23 header, turns out to be just another DC knock off. Lots of porting to do at the head flange(LOTS), a little bit of touch up on the primary-secondary flange, and a decent amount of cleanup work to do at the collector. Took the following measurements for anyone wanting to know diameters, lengths, etc. All measurements are pre-porting. I really suggest taking a grinder to these things, LOTS of steps everywhere that need cleaned up. Still not a bad buy for $60 shipped for LX owners.

Head flange ports:

• 1.75" width

• 1.25" height

Primaries:

• 5.25" circumference

• 13" primary length

• 1.67" diameter(as calculated)

• 2.19 sq in area(calculated)

Secondaries:

• 1.75" diameter

• 6" circumference

• 22" runner length(measured from flange to collector merge point)

• 1.9" calculated diameter(close enough)

• 2.8 sq in area(calculated)

Collector:

• 2"

Head flange:

Primary to secondary mid-flange:

Secondary flange:

Collector:

Of course, it came with crappy gaskets, which will be thrown into the garbage. Going to use OEM Honda gaskets everywhere. Would be interesting to see how everyone else's headers measure out. I think the F23 style longer primaries(probably at least 5-6" longer) will actually produce more gains than this will.

Haven't had time yet to work on porting the exhaust manifold, but the intake manifold turned out great! Filled the four FIA holes with silicone, and the big port/nipple as well. Not sure if I needed to do the big port/nipple, but I can easily remove it if necessary. Dish soap, scrubbing and a coin op power wash got it looking good enough for me. Had a couple offers from some friends to sand blast it, but I think it's fine how it is. The EGR ports were NASTY! Scraping the old gasket material off was much easier with after the parts were soaked. Ordered new gaskets for the exhaust manifold, will get the gaskets for the intake next time I run to Honda.

Another successful day at the junkyard. Got a 94-95 grille and a prelude shifter yeaterday. Did the shifter swap yesterday, absolutely love it. Slightly shorter throws, about an inch or so shorter lever length. Painted the grille and the second 94-95 lip this afternoon that i got last week when i snagged a replacement passenger window trim. Total cost for the shifter, lip, grille, and trim? $35 :-) as soon as it gets to be a little warmer, going to throw the lip and grille on and blackhousing the headlights.

Sooo good. Before, the boot was tight going into each gate and there was a good inch gap or so from the top of the boot to the bottom of the lever. Much improved.

A tisket, a tasket, i haz some gaskets!

Did the headlight housing black, put the front lip back on, and installed my 94-95 grille. Much better looking.

Hey, stop making me troll craigslist for one of these, my daughter ran my 96 Bonneville SSEi into a ditch and i'm on the fence about fixing it or sending it on to glory (salvage yard). Great job by the way, definitely watching this thread with interest. Know anybody who wants a running parts car?

06HHR wrote: Hey, stop making me troll craigslist for one of these, my daughter ran my 96 Bonneville SSEi into a ditch and i'm on the fence about fixing it or sending it on to glory (salvage yard). Great job by the way, definitely watching this thread with interest. Know anybody who wants a running parts car?

Doooo eeeet! AS I've stated in other threads though, I really wish I would've held out for a 98-02 Coupe I4 with a 5-speed. There's a really good looking green '00 at a dealership south of Cleveland I've been eyeing. My '98 EX V6 coupe was the same color combo.

A couple money shots.

In progress of the intake install:

All said and done.

A couple glamour shots by Deb, since it actually got warshed. First autocross of the year on Sunday, STC looks to be just myself and an 04 V6 6-speed car that's much more prepared, but I'm 90% sure I'm a faster driver! VERY EXCITE!

Car needs to be detailed pretty bad. Going to wait until I get around to fixing the not pretty side.

Man i like these.

Its a great car. A bit heavy, but great to DD. Easy power with the right mods. Easy to fix, too. Finding a clean, rust free one thats been maintained is tough. Seems the Acura CL cousins hold up better.

Upper A arm. Lower is a bit different than the civics, has a perpendicular control arm and a radius rod that runs from the control arm to the front of the subframe. I could get more camber using an 88-91 Civic upper a-arm with a sliding balljoint, but theyre a little on the short side so it gets pretty aggressive. Otherwise, there's offset adjustable upper bushings or a rotatable balljoint, both of which i dont like and takes clearance to almost nothing above the balljoint. The upper arm sits pretty close to the inner fender as it is. I need to get it on an alignment rack and figure out the front toe, too.

That header looks really good.