Yuta

I am planning of rebuild the engine and I want every major component to be as reliable as possible.

My current 4 speed manual transmission is working flawlessly, sometime it is a bit difficult to get in reverse. But I think it is normal. My concern is if I have a rebuild engine and a new clutch, I would like a new/reman transmission to match reliability.

Option 1: reman 5 speed tranny, which would run about $700. It is a little too much for my budget. And what am i going to do with the old 4 speed tranny?

Option 2: Rebuild myself. Rebuild kit is about $200. Question is if I have time and what if I mess up? Is it easy to do? Anybody has done that? Looks like you will have to replace a few bearings, seals and sychronizers.

Option 3: Pay shop to rebuild it. Anybody knows how much it would cost?

Option 4: Leave the current transmission. Worry about it when it goes bad......I don't know if I like this option. I want get everyting done at one shot and I don't have to worry about it latter...

What's your opinion?

v4lu3s

If your transmission works fine I would leave it be. I am at 300,000 miles on my original transmission. When I rebuilt my engine 25k miles ago i just changed the trans fluid and kept going.

After two teenage girls learning to drive stick on it (back when it was new...) and my 50k miles of beating the hell out of it its starting to lightly grind at times, so i watched craigslist and picked up a rebuilt transmission WITH an M-Factory LSD for $500...the LSD is worth $800 alone...at some point I will put it in...

4drEF

How about finding a 5 speed for cheap and rebuilding it while your current transmission keeps the car in operation?
Then you can take your time. However, if you don't have the tools and the instruction from a Helms book looks complicated, then you might want to skip trying this on your own. Once you get the case off, it can go sour pretty fast if you can't stay on top of what needs to be done.

I would try to stay with genuine Honda parts if you can.