bradley

Hey guys, my hatch is coming along and I decided that I would love to use tougher Accord axles than the skinnier Integra axles in my car. I decided the best way is to just go ahead and convert to 4x114.3 using some Accord hubs, but there was no writeup on this, so I decided I'd plunge head-first into the swap and try it out.

HUGE note before I begin:
THIS WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU GUYS WITH A D-SERIES. Accord axles are splined to fit in a B or H/F series tranny, there is no alternative for D transmissions so this is completely useless unless you have a swap!



Tools and Parts Needed:
-1990 to 1993 Accord knuckles (hub, spindle, and rotor -- both sides)
-1990 to 1993 Accord UCAs (Upper control Arms -- both sides)
-1990 to 1993 Accord LCAs (Lower Control Arms -- both sides)
-1990 to 1993 Accord CV shafts (both sides)
-Bench Grinder or Hand Grinder
-32mm, 17mm, 14mm, 12mm and 10mm
-Flat blade screwdriver
-BFH




Let's get started!

My car is a 1990 Civic STD, so I have no front sway bar. A stock sway bar will bolt up to the LCAs in the same place, so just save your sway bar bushings/bolts when you undo it.

I got knuckles and LCAs from a 1993 Honda Accord LX. First thing you should do is remove your upper ball joint, sway bar mount, and tie rod end, smack them to pop them out and then undo the 14mm bolt that holds the stock LCA in place. Plop the Civic knuckle on the ground and get ready to fab up the new assembly.

My Civic knuckles are big brake knuckles from a '94 Civic EX, so they are bigger than stock, about the same size as the new Accord units.





First thing you should do is install the stock Accord UCAs (or if you have some aftermarket UCAs for a civic or CB accord, they work too), and then you can work on the hard parts of the install.

I cleaned and painted my Accord LCAs.

(NOTE: These were bent, turns out. I got a couple new LCAs and UCAs to match, painted them both, and installed them later. Your LCAs should be straight like the Civic LCAs, these were damaged by either a **** poor tow job or hitting them on something. The car they were on was stupid low.)



Now, here's where the bench grinder comes into play. I ended up having to take a VERY small amount of material off (less than 1/16th inch) so that the strut would fit on the Accord LCA. If you're not 100% sure about how much to take off, grab your strut and keep test fitting after EVERY small grind. That's what I did and I ended up with a PERFECT fit.





Next, bolt the LCA into your car with the 14mm bolt that came out of it.



And then test-fit your strut to the new LCA:



After that, you're almost ready to slump the new knuckle on. Check the ball joint on the knuckle and replace it if it's bad. Do the same for your upper ball joint.

One thing I noticed is that the Accord tie rod is a LOT longer than the Civic one:



But no worries, the Civic tie rod ended up being a perfect match for the Accord knuckle. The ball joint is the same size. Whew!



Once you get the knuckle bolted up, you have two options as far as brakes. My EX brakes fit over the caliper so I went that way. The other way is to use the Accord caliper and bolt your brake line to it (Bleed your brakes afterwards!). If you use the bracket that matches the caliper, ANY caliper will bolt up to the knuckle as the bolt pattern is the same across many Honda cars. Integra calipers may clear as well as my EX ones did.

My brake line ended up being short after putting my caliper back on, and won't bolt to the knuckle.





After taking some slack out and bolting it to the strut I don't think it'll be a problem with an axle in there. If I feel differently after getting everything together I plan on using two longer bolts with a spacer under them to hold it in place. I think she'll be fine though. Alternatively, the Accord brake line will allow you to bolt it there, but I didn't want to open my brake system up and have to bleed it out again. This will be the way I go eventually, since it's the proper way to do it.

After getting it all mocked up, admire your OEM-looking fitment:



Then tighten everything up, put your cotter pins in, and all that jazz. You now have a 4x114.3 88-91 Civic/CRX.




About the Axles:

I am using 90-93 Accord half-length CV shafts for my car. I've had them mocked up with an F22 transmission and they worked great, and currently the car has a B16A tranny in it and the axles work great in it as well. They are thicker than Integra axles by a small margin and I think they will hold up much better to power, plus they are abundant as most people don't snag them from salvage yards because nobody uses them for anything.



I haven't got the rear converted to 4x114, I plan on trying to use Accord stuff for it as well. I'll post some info on it when I get around to doing that.

Good luck.

24TEN

iTrader: (2)

Good stuff

Just curious, since the Accord LCA has that bend in it does this result in the bushing being twisted to compensate once everything is installed? Aside from that, how does the knuckle itself compare to the Civic knuckle in terms of geometry and overall dimensions? And will that difference (if any) be able to be compensated for with off the shelf camber correction parts?

bradley

The bushing does bend but it has been holding up fine, the amount of flex in the bushing is negligible in the end. Knuckle is identical in height and placement of the ball joints, the camber should be near-as-makes-no-difference stock dimensions with stock UCAs. (it was for me).

The only difference was that the tie-rod arm on the spindle is slightly longer for the Accord knuckle, but of course, any time you do suspension work you should have an alignment done

Everything sits pretty and stock-looking with traction bar and adjustable radius arms. I currently have some set of knock-off wheels of some sort on the car with dual pattern, so I run the front on the 4x114.3 pattern and the rear on the 4x100 so it doesn't look silly with two pairs of wheels.




EDIT:

I thought I should add, another thing about the Accord knuckle is that it has a much larger bow in the upper ball joint runner. I'm thinking this will allow for a wider high offset wheel, but I've nothing wider than 7" to actually tell if it's a noticeable gain in backspace area. I was worried about the amount of bow originally, but fully unloaded suspension still gives me a good 10mm-12mm of clearance between the knuckle and strut spring.

Canadian_EF

This is good stuff. So, technically, couldn't you use Prelude 5 lug knuckles since they are a direct swap for the CB accord?

If so, I'm really interested in this. Poor-mans (ME!) 5 lug swap. I've even got a set of Accord axles that just had the boots replaced...

v4lu3s

are you sure you did not buy bent LCA's? I had a 1992 accord for 11 years and had a LOT of suspension work into it, and the LCAs were not bent like that. IF you even go on eBay and look at the images of the 90-93 accord lcas they are angle but NOT curved.

It is a great work up though I personally would want to change to the accord knuckles simply because i always hated changing rotors on those due to being required to remove the hub/bearing assembly as well.

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

Good writeup...
however, just because you can "DIY" doesn't mean you should.
I actually like guys who think outside the box and try new stuff out.

I'm posting this no to put you down. I'm posting this to make sure you or others who are thinkin about this modification have additional views on it.





In this case, I don't see any advantage to this at all.

Pros:
1) easy to find axels at junkyards over D/B series axels
Lifetime warantee axels at autozone are $70ish each... it really doesn't get better than this. Putting on old axles from junkyard you deal with rotty boots & rust on shaft/ends & time/labor taking it off.

2) bigger axel shaft diameter
If your making the case that the accord axles are stronger, it would benefit everyone to know what the axle shafts diameter difference is between F vs. B.


Cons:
1) must get alignment done
2) must have adjustable camber kit
3) must be willing to cover to 4x114.3 wheel
4) possible that if the complete hub at junkyard is too rusty, you "may" have to replace with new bushing, ball joint, rotors, calipers & rusty bolts.


My biggest delima with this modification that it's unproven if slightly thicker axel shafts translate to less broken axels at the track, to make this modification worth it. Many people including myself use stock B series axles with 400-600whp with very few cases of breaking axels.

The case could be made for Kseries axle mod would would be cheaper & has been proven.

As for brakes,
I'm a advocate for ef owners keeing ef (DX/SI) knuckle and just upgrade to eg/ek (ex) or DA/DC larger rotors, use t23 bracket & itr/legend/crv/accordv6 calipers.... $100-$200.
Aside from the noticable improved brake upgrade;
this will allow for most 14" rims clearence, and for drag racing events when you want to throw on some 13's lenso, you just have to swap over to dx/si rotors/calipers.


No hard feelings sir.
Good job on the write up... it does help add to the tech on this form.

Charlie

bradley

Charlie, I agree with all of your pros and cons, it's not something I'd recommend for everyone either, I just wanted to try it and see how it worked. It turned out alright for what I'm doing and I think it should be fine, but it'll take some time to know for sure. I do have to correct you -- this doesn't require a camber kit in the front, the dimensions of the spindle are near identical for top and bottom ball joint placement, you will have no more camber than stock.

And yes, I did notice that these looked strange two nights ago, in comparison to other prelude/accord LCAs, I grabbed them both off of the same car and they are bent a bit (They are supposed to be angled but not this bent), so I went to the pull-a-part and picked up a couple more -- they are much straighter. The car's a major work in progress, so I'm not in a big hurry to get it all going.

I will be trying to locate and swap on some 5x114.3 knuckles and I will let you know if it works, I got a chance to eyeball some and they look VERY similar.

The reason I did the swap is because I was H2B and the Accord axles work, and I got the spindles for free as my father owns a salvage, I traded him some parts around for them. The only thing I had to buy was two new LCAs from a pull-a-part (mine were bent, I've no idea how). I plan on eventually putting a lot of power through the car so I wanted a thicker axle without having to pay big money.

Whether the swap is worth it or not, we'll see. Two new Accord axles cost me about $120, two Integra axles cost me about $150. Not much savings but it was free for the swap and slightly cheaper for the axles. Meh.

91 EF DX

The lcas could have bent from the car getting towed, thats where alot of towing companies hook up at.

89ED

i just thought of this 4x114 on my ef swap 5 minutes ago. itr wheels lit the bulb. so googled it like a good little boy. i want to stay d series and he said the splines are different. are the cylinders that are splined in which the axle slindes into interchangeable? and is it unanimous that drilling the hub and rotor to 4x114 is a bad idea?

EF_2

thinking about doing this set-up, but i was just wondering if i need to change anything else if i use the accord caliper ? such as prop valve or any lines ?