Hai,

I'm a Dutch user, so natually I drive a european Honda. I currently own the Accord Sedan from the Rover factories produced 1997.
As far as I know it has a F18A3 engine, as mentioned on the chassis. This car belonged to my late Grandfather and I thus want to keep driving it until it's beyond my budget to maintain.

Today I re-adjusted the valves and discovered that three of the 16 exhaust valve-adjust-screws were at their absolute limit when I was done, projecting a remaining lifespan of this engine of about 30000km, i.e. about a year for me.

-----EDIT:-----
Initially forgot to mention it sports a so-called "LPG/G3" system. Something probably not to hip/hot in the US, but reasonably well known in Europe. It's Liquid Petrol Gas gets vaporized with an external vaporizor 'powered' by the engine coolant, after which it is lead through the throttle valve system.
(German "Auto Gaz" - AG - DGi - Type system)
Thought this might influence the possibilities what with single and multipoint injection and all that, I'd prefer to keep LPG as it saves a lot of money over here.
-----END OF EDIT----


Now my questions for you are:
1. Given I have experience in basic maintenance of cars as well as repair, rebuilding and tuning of motorcycles (smaller grade of toy ;-) ) and a good deal of mechanical tinkering on other things: Is replacing this engine I should want to undertake, or is my car doomed come summer 2011?

2. Does anyone know with 100% certainty what engines will fit this car? Am I tied to F18A3, or can I broaden my search, possibly giving better deals than: None found locally.

3. What are common pitfals/mistakes when replacing an engine, specifically this type or car? I work best by avoiding known mistakes whilst employing insight and preferably a manual to do the rest.

Warm fuzzly regards and all that stuff,
Hope you can help me!

Asmyldof!

 

1. If you want to make more power you will need to pull that engine out. Yes you can build that engine to make lots of power but as you stated LPG saves you money and if your trying to save money you definetly dont want to build it.

2. An h22 will fit in your car no problem also the f22b. You will need different mounts but most manufacturers make them for our cars.

3. ??? not too sure

 

can you post pics of the car and under the hood, I'm really curious to see what the LPG system looks like in your car. The only engine I've ever seen that was a dual fuel ran on diesel and lpg not gasoline, like I said thats all I've seen. lpg needs a higher compression to ignite, Don't you guys call it petrol when we call it diesel? that might be why it's a 1.8 and not the typical 2.2L I've seen cars like a euro Nissan skyline that had a diesel 3.0L engine in it. Let us know, and I'll ask my buddy who imports those cars and what he can find out.

 

I'll retract my thoughts it's a gas 1.8L engine.

 

Okay,
Although there is nothing essentially wrong about fixing up and maintaining a 1997 car, it's gonna cost money. And as you wrote, you want to keep the Liquid Gas installation operational for cost-cutting.

If cost is a major issue in de equation, scrap the car and get a newer one with better milage per gallon. That ultimately saves you money the best.

On top of that, I would not recommend swapping the engine yourself, since I glean you don't have really much experience here. Swapping an engine is maybe not too complicated if you got some engineering skills, but you also want to add the Liquid Gas installation to the engine. You need a qualified expert to do that, otherwise you risk gas leaks and potentially an explosion under the hood while working on it or driving later on.

All in all, considering the price-tag for the engine, the expert installation of the liquid gas and all other future work your older car is gonna need, you'll be spending triple the actual remain-value of the car, just to keep it running.

And as you state, you got a motorbike, so you're not losing all your transportation. Even if you need to save up for a bit longer than your car remains alive, the bike will get you where you need to be.