The v6 6 speed sedan Traccord

NIce, might put those on the list for my TL if it stays long enough.

Did V6 models come with different seats? My wife has a 2005 four cylinder model, and on cases where I've driven it, the front seat starts to hurt my back after about 30-45 minutes. I think it's from a poorly designed adjustable lumbar support.

In reply to MadScientistMatt :  

I am not sure.  My seats are leather, 8 way adjustable, and fairly comfortable for me.  I don’t need a pillow in the small of my back like I needed on my previous Mazda 6 or Mercury Sable. 

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

There are a couple of different seats though I think they're related to trim level more than cylinder count. 

Update:  so the rings are definitely toast in cylinder 5.  I think I’m going to bite the bullet and get a new engine.  

So i started browsing around, and I found a manual trans and engine from an ‘04 Acura TL with 100k miles on the set.  The transmission has the limited slip diff, compression is good on the engine, and it also comes with a bunch of extras.   basically everything needed to swap an auto accord or TL to a manual -shifter cables, shifter box, clutch pedal assembly, master and slave cylinder, an oem j pipe and precats, TL axles, and some other stuff.  The guy wants $850 total.  I’m supposed to pick it up Monday.  I figure once I get everything swapped over I can probably sell the leftover goodies plus my own transmission for basically what i paid for it.  

That's a bargain. The LSD six speed alone is worth more than that. 

No kidding.  I really can't pass up that deal.  hoping there's no hidden issues and everything works as intended.  I can't test the 3rd gear grind/popout or anything of that nature until I install the thing.  

i may be interested in some of the unused items when you get to that point.

Today I pulled the intake runners off the Accord and started porting.  Again, I’m  not trying to make them huge or go crazy, but I increased the size around 1mm and gasket matched them to the manifold side.  the stock runners have thick casting marks and a super rough finish so I got rid of all that.  

Then I cut the plenums off my intake manifold so that I can port the manifold runners.  I used a sawzall.  Not the most delicate approach but it worked lol.

  Not sure how I’m going to reattach the plenum once the porting is done, but I’ll tackle that when I get there.  Probably some combo of an RTV silicone gasket, a couple of tack welds and some jb weld.  Yes, I’m doing all this instead of buying an $60 ‘07 and later j series manifold, which are lighter, split in half and are far easier to port.  I should do the $2000 challenge, it’s pretty much how my brain works anyway. 

Monday is D Day for acquiring the drivetrain swap.  I’m stoked.  My plan is to get everything installed and running on the stock j32 throttle body, manifold and runners and then add my ported ones on once I verify it is all running properly.  That way I’m not introducing possible ecu confusion due to excessive air flowage on top of any other potential issues resulting from the swap.  Plus I want to do a before and after butt dyno.  

Also:  I’m aware that on the list of thing the Accord really needs, more power is pretty low on the list.  It can barely use the power from the 3.0.  The LSD should help, but Once I finish porting everything i am planning on fabbing an exhaust and then that’ll be it for power mods, at least for a long while.  Porting is free so that’s mainly why I’m messing with it now.

Drove 2 hours into Charlotte, NC to pick up the engine and tranny today.  Pulled into a shady neighborhood, address takes me to a ramshackle house with a collection of random car parts in the back yard.  And there on one side sits my Acura TL engine and trans.  The guy says it’s been sitting there for about a year.  Oh boy.  

But, he had it sitting on a tarp and covered by a tarp.  So that’s something, at least it hasn’t been in the rain for a year.  I asked if he minded me checking some stuff out, and he said have at it.  So, I pulled the coils, plugs, oil cap, dipstick, and intake manifold.   the coils and plugs looked super clean, spark plugs were tight, oil wasn’t dirty and no metal shavings, and inside the valve cover looked super clean from the bit I could see from inside the oil cap.  The intake manifold wasn’t as clean, but over time the grimy crap from the PCV and EGR makes most j series manifolds kind of dirty inside.  Supposedly this thing has been compression tested, so I decided to make a leap of faith and buy it.

  So I said, ok how are we going to get it in my truck.  A problem neither of us has contemplated to this point.  

After an hour of total comedic mishaps that I wish I had recorded, involving using a half broken car jack and some rotted 4.4s and the engine nearly falling onto our legs at several points, we called an audible and somehow this guy has a friend right down the street, who is home on Monday at noon and has an engine hoist ready to borrow.  sketchy but I’ll take it.  Engine hoist finishes the job, somehow nothing is damaged, and I finish securing it to my truck bed with a rope that... suddenly looks very skinny if I have to lock up the brakes. 

Anyway, I made the drive back, very carefully, and here it sits in my driveway.  

I think you're going to like that. 

Nice score! I can never seem to find the lsd trans variants when I am looking. The lsd is neigh unnoticable during normal driving but shines like diamonds when blasting out of corners. 

Also, I have never bought a used engine that did not come in an old tire, on a pallet, or both. ​​​ 

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

In reply to Nugi :

Car-part.com always has a few of the LSD trans.  Of course they aren’t cheap.  

So I’ve been thinking about what I need to do for preventative maintenance while this thing is out of the engine bay and everything is accessible.  All fluids, obviously, timing belt and water pump, spark plugs, and what else am I missing?  I will need new axles, and anything I should do to the transmission besides add new fluid?  I have never actually done an engine swap, read plenty of forum posts and watched lots of YouTube vids but should I be paying attention to anything in particular?  

The one concern I have is that the coolant system is open and has been drained for a very long time, I’m a bit worried there’s some dirt and maybe some bugs in the coolant lines.  Not sure how to do a flush without it actually in the car.

You can run a garden hose though it and see if anything gnarly comes out. Honestly, it's probably not a huge concern as long as you're not finding mud dauber nests anywhere else on the motor. Do the accessory belt, tensioner pulley, and any motor mounts that might not be great. Or just all of them. Your biggest issue will be electronics. Are all the plugs for all the sensors the same? It would be nice if it's plug and play with the proper computer for the engine. Do you need to swap computers? Do you need to re-program for the key immobilizer? Re-vin the computer? 

Have I mentioned that one time i installed an engine i had already gone through into my car only to find out it wouldn't complete a full revolution due to... mud daubers? Actually i've been bit more than once by not spinning an engine at least a full revolution before assuming it's 'not locked up' and installing it.  Anyway the interplay between bugs and my car hobby has been an interesting ride for me. I can't find the scar i used to have on my knee from a whole nest of wasps so at this point i guess the scars are only mental and i still live in the country and work on cars so... you'll probably be fine! 

I found one mud dauber cocoon nesty thing on the motor.  And a whole ton of spider webs and a few ants and grubs.  The coolant system is the only bit that was open for bug access; the intake and exhaust track are luckily both sealed.    

The swap came with an ecu, a set of keys and a full ignition from the donor vehicle as well as a full wiring harness.  However, the j32 will run on my stock j30 harness and ecu.   I am thinking I will just do that instead of messing with swapping over the ignition and harness and ECU.  Also, that way I can sell the ignition/harness/ecu.. No idea what kind of coin I’ll be able to get for that stuff but I suppose ill find out.  

Today I removed the timing covers and popped the crank bolt loose and removed the extremely rusted crank pulley from the new engine, and discovered something strange.  The crank sprocket has no timing indicator marks.  I mean none.  Zero nada.  All j series crank sprockets have timing marks.  I am truly befuddled.  

It also looks super shiny, almost like its new And/or not stock.  The TL crank is forged, not cast like the accord’s 3.0 so maybe that’s the difference.  At any rate I don’t have a clue what to do about the missing timing marks.  If I remove the timing belt and turn the crank for any reason I’m royally screwed.  My only thought is to set the cam sprockets to TDC and then make my own mark on the crank sprocket, and hope the engine is in time.  Which it should be, I turned the crank a bunch of times and there doesn’t appear to be valve contact.  And at some point in the past this was a running engine.  

Ah the joys of engines with no available history. 

Looks like in your case the pointer is basically an extension of the crank key. So, just point the crank key straight up and you're good.   

Turns out Vigo is correct and the crank key is the timing mark.  Different than my Accord but it works.  Thanks for the assist!

I made some good progress getting the Accord engine ready to pull today.  Looks dreadful but a lot of the mess is the wiring harness, and I think I’m going to use the harness that came with the TL engine, which is already hooked up and ready to go.  So this whole mess will come out with the engine.  I need to take apart the suspension, disconnect the fuel line and mounts, drain the oil and tranny fluid, and I think this baby is ready will be ready to pull.

I was able to finish most of the intake manifold porting this weekend.  It’s taken me a long time because there’s so much surface area, and it all needs to be sanded hard.  The stock manifold is CRAP for airflow.  The casting marks are huge and everywhere and the finish is absurdly rough, and none of the port shapes are optimized for flow.  Hopefully this will be a big power adder.  

I have been traveling for work the last week, so work on the car has been minimal.  I did accomplish 2 things:  1st I started jb welding the intake manifold plenums back together.  Not having actually welded aluminum before i figured JB weld was the safer bet.  I used rubber bands to secure the plenums to the manifold, supported the manifold between some tall boxes and then just added some spot portions of the metal-mixed-with-bonding-compound 3900lb/sq inch jb weld.  So far it’s worked like a charm.  I’ll have to go back and add more jb weld, and then make sure there’s no vacuum leaks, but the whole process has been easier than i thought.  

The other task I accomplished was fabbing an EGR bypass valve.  The EGR on j series Honda’s is known to clog up and cause engine problems, and it also seems to gum up the intake tract quite quickly and heavily.  A blockoff plate is quite easy to fab and install but will throw a code. 

I copied a design i found online, using a thick block of aluminum and some precisely drilled holes and openings.  I forgot to take a pic but I’ll throw one up shortly.  Here’s the original inspriration thread: https://www.v6performance.net/forums/7th-generation-honda-accord-2003-2007/195314-bye-bye-egr-3.html#/topics/195314

an EGR bypass, custom made, is $100 online.  A 3/4” thick block of aluminum is around $20.  Still too expensive.  So, JB weld to the rescue again.  I sawzalled 2 pieces of 1/3” aluminum off the broken safety cage I have at work, cut the pieces down to size on the bench clamp, JB welded them together, let them dry for 2 days, and then went to work with a drill.  It’s ugly but it should be functional.  

Here’s some pics of the intake manifold back together, as well as the EGR bypass I made.  

Edit:  I just finished reading the entirety of the frankenferarri thread and I am furiously fighting off feelings of wanting to go hide in a culvert and never post on GRM again...

In reply to Number1Gaza :

the only way you get better is by doing.  sometimes failing.  always learning

also, I thought the MDX magnesium intake manifold was the 'hot ticket' for these things?

Cool build!