I just acquired a 97 prelude with over 130,000 from my father. He was the second owner and had it for the last 4 or so years. It is almost all stock and in great condition. So.... what should I do to it?

I like the looks and don't want to start mucking with that, but I do like performance improvements and am capable of doing just about anything myself. The only vice is money.

Anything relating to performance I would be interested in. Handling, braking, acceleration are probably the starting points. Not real interested in NOS, though.

So let the suggestions begin:

 

lower it
Intake
Header
Exhaust
those are good starting point

 

Here ya go--https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1029795

 

:Chuckles: " He said N0s!" hahaha

I say - make a plan first.

Figure out if you want to boost, or if you want to keep it n/a.

Do some reading of the essential links thread.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TheKINGPin &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">:Chuckles: " He said N0s!" hahaha

</TD></TR></TABLE> haha

Yea i would say do h/i/e first, then go from there. Is the car only going to be used as a daily driver?

 

yeah... mostly a dd to get me my 30 miles to work daily.

But before I bought it from my Dad we went over the the local SCCA practice event and wore down the tires a bit. I huge rainstorm hit when we started and we got to run full out in some places with 2"-3" standing water because it was raining so hard. It did real well!!! I wouldn't mind racing it some more, but this does need to stay as my reliable dd.

Questions:
I think the CV's may be starting to go out. Is factory the best replacement or are there better?

What's the take on bilstein shocks?

 

i like my bilsteins.

 

hwo mechanically inclined are you? since you asked "what should i do to it" it seems liek you aren't very car-smart. i'm not bagging on you, i'm not a great mechanic either, but I just started getting into cars not long ago. this and other sites will help you get the work done yourself, just research about what you want before you go for it, cause listening to only one person coudl definatly backfire on you. I was all ready for my h23 - jdm h22a swap and realized I needed another $300 approx for a header/downpipe. ($271 shipped for dc 421 ceramic). I got it at a decent price compared to what it coudl have cost me, but since I didn't really research much besides the vtec wiring part, it was $271 more than I thought I needed to Spend.

enought with my ranting.. just decide what changes you want and look into it to find all the options you have.

 

How mechanically inclined am I? You draw an assumption to that from one simple statement?

Well, to answer you... I have been rebuilding and tuning engines since I was 10. Starting with your basic 3hp B&S and moving into cars. My last endeavour was a '95 Toyota 4Runner. I aint no pro, but I have gotten my hand rather dirty over the last 20 years.

As for deciding what changes I want to make... That would explain my question of, "What should I do to it?" I'm just looking for what others have done and what others suggest instead of going at it blind.

For instance, I have had great experience with bilstein shocks, but I can't find much talk about them in this group. They all go with KYB and the like. I liked my Koni's and KYB's on my civic but they weren't nothing on the bilsteins I have ran. So I'm kinda testing the waters of this group to see if they know the tested results or just following the hype.

So far I like this board, though. Thanks for those of you keeping this one going and I hope to contribute much in the future. I also hope to be able to do some mods in the near future.

BTW - this is one prelude that will never get riced out but will hang with the best of 'em. I hate the way those ricers sound. Even with my Civic Si hatchback I installed the reverb tube which made it sound great instead of that blatty tin can sound.

 

Anybody have any problems with the third party CAI available on ebay?

 

i wasn't trying to be a dick, it's just the way it sounded to me, and probably more people too. when soimeone asks "what shoudl I do to it?" it seems to me like they don't know what they are doing. maybe it's because people usually do intake header, exhaust, pulleys and then as kon here if they shoudl go turbo or n/a... not "what shoudl I do to it"

ebay intakes fit alright, may require some trimming, but the bends i've seen sometimes crimp/flare the tubing. get one and have it powdercoated and it will look alright

 

don't worry mate... no offense taken.

I gots my own powder coating oven so there should be no problem there. I deffinately want one that was made with a mandrel bender. I know of a local fab shop that is about to get one anyways, so headers, exhaust, intake, ect... could be all custom here real soon. Kepping my fingers crossed for now.