hey all, i spent a little time looking around, as i'm sure this topic has already been covered, but i cant seem to find anything ... which probably means its sitting right on a front page, or stickied somewhere, and my head is likely to get bashed in for asking, but in any event, here goes

I poked around here almost a year ago, asking about converting my 98 SH type prelude to a non- SH, so i wouldnt have to deal with the pain in the butt which is ATTS when i finally went FI. i got a great quick response, and its still something i'm considering. But i'm also considering just getting the downpipe modified to accomodate the ATTS system, and buying a premade kit. my question, basically, is for anyone who HAS installed a kit on their prelude, SH or otherwise. i'm basically wondering about quality, is there any one brand that sticks out as being reliable, well priced, and overall, safe to run on stock internals at 6-8 psi ?

my eventual plan is to either buy a second, non SH prelude to work on in my off time, or just an engine, if i go to the trouble or removing my ATTS system, which i will actually take the time to properly build and reinforce, so i can go the much higher PSI route, without destroying my car immediately. in the meantime, i hate my prelude being simply stock, its a great, GREAT car, and it comes so close to holding its own against so many different supercharged or turbo'ed cars, and i'd really like the satisfaction of getting the supposed 75hp + gains off 8 psi or so.


so, to sum it all up,

premade kits: what brands ? or should i go to the trouble of piecing together my own ?

safety (for the engine) : is it REALLY safe to run 6, 7, 8 etc, psi on completely stock internals ? if not, would 4 psi or so give me gains worth paying the 3,000 ish that all the kits seem to run for ?

SH specific: how much of a hassle, REALLY is boosting an SH ? does the ATTS system really shut off at 300 hp ? should i bother removing the ATTS system ?

and just out of curiousity: i love cars, i love working on cars, but when i went to change the fuel filter on my prelude while i was on leave, it was in such an @ss backwards location, and drove me almost insane, would i realistically be able to install a turbo kit myself, over the weekend ? then take the car to a local exhaust shop to have the downpipe modified to accomodate the ATTS ?


thanks in advance, i've got about two weeks till i get back from Iraq, and my (%%^&$%$ (%$*) wife is out of the picture, so i'm going to have a lot of time to kill, although money will be a definate part of the picture, since i'll have maybe 5k, instead of the 20k i should have after this deployment


oh, one last question, and i feel kind of retarded asking it, but as much as i love taking things apart, and working on my own car, do you guys think it would be worthwhile to pay the local honda dealership whatever ridiculous fee they want to do a complete once over on my car, looking for ANY problems i might not know about, before i do anything else ?

thanks again all.

 

Don't buy a kit, piece one together yourself. You'll be much happier.