A cold front hit my area in the past few days. While driving home, my car started leaking oil profusely - the oil light came on, 10s later my engine churned, made some unpleasant noises, and pretty much blew up. It's a 2001 Prelude SH 120k miles.

Before this incident, I planned to trade it in for a new car. Many parts on it are still good - suspension, tranny, belts, new a/c compressor, as well as interior, exterior panels etc... basically everything but the motor is in good or great condition. What should I do now - is it even worth trying to trade it in? Any help/advice is appreciated.

 

If you really want to get another car you might recover more value by selling the prelude to a private party who is up for swapping or rebuilding the motor. The only twist is finding another SH motor since I believe the SH block is a little different than base models due to the ATTS unit. Someone would probably do a complete motor+tranny swap. Have you determined where all the oil leaked out? Hole in the oil pan?

 

maybe find a used h22 block, or smoething, and pretty much replace the pistso or rod bearings or whatever blew up, just swap all the internals. or just rebuilt it

 

Options are to rebuild... sh motor (assuming that you didnt put a rod throught the block)
Buy an imported motor, Type S
Or buy another h22, and manual transmision. (literally making it a base model)
Or sell it for whatever someon is willilng to pay..

 

buy new engine or sell as shell

 

If it only ran 10seconds with no oil pressure, and you were driving at normal low RPM.. I'd just do a rebuild. I'm sure the rods, pistons, crank, cams are all fine.

Why did you loose oil pressure in the first place???

If you just wanna trade it in, fix the oil pressure problem and see if you can get it to at least run. Probably just seized up.

 

Thanks for the replies! Yes, unfortunately it is a Type SH model, and the ATTS unit means the tranny is a little different and would require some fabrication to fit a base model on there..

The engine went bone-dry. I found a TON of oil on the snow/ice right behind where my car died. Just got back in town - I haven't opened it up yet. It's a shame, too.. tranny and clutch were replaced at ~30k miles from factory and the car ran very well. I have a v-afc in there, as well as a CAI..

 

If you're trading it in, find the cheapest SH engine you can to put in there.

www.carpart.com

 

It's been a few weeks. What did you decide? Your car was worth about $4K trade in before the engine blew. Now it's essentially worth nothing to a dealer. A used JDM engine for your car is going to run you $2.5K-$3.5 (Red Top Type S long block and tranny).

At this point. Since you dont want the car, I recommend you sell it yourself and maybe you can get 2K for it. What type of vehicle are you looking to replace your Prelude with?

I have a 98 base with 240K and I just trashed another engine. It's frustrating, but I am not selling my car. That car is classic. If I were you I'd just keep it and fix it myself, unless not having the 2K you could get is going to break you.