Okay so I bought this prelude in Nov. of last year for a steal at $1700 with 167xxx miles.



it had its fair share or problems to say the least...
no title (had just been totaled out by insureance for wheels being stolen and left on jack stands)
needed break and lamp inspection and smog test done to have new "salvage" title issued
all sorts of cel codes
paint and body in kind of rough shape.

i drove 4 hours to pick up the car and when driving it home it over heated once sputtered every so often while at high way speeds and jerked really bad when taking off(like a kids first time behind the wheel of at 5speed) it rained and i found that once the wipers are turned on the only way to stop them is to turn the car off the horn honked while braking and the front right turn signal didn't work.

i finely go it home and parked it for a few weeks.
once i had the money I started to work on it i pulled the codes and from what i remember the cat was bad the tps was out of wack and some misfire codes.
I bought a almost new oem cat, fuel line from filter to rail(mine had been paced together from 3 different lines, starter and various interior peaces for $120 from a guy that had flipped his prelude.

i installed the new cat fuel line and starter and cleared the cel. it stayed off just long enough to get it smoged. the cel literary came on no more then 5mins after i left the smog station for the tps. i then took it to the brake and lamp inspection site and thought it was going to be a pain but it wasn't at all the guy looked at the car then asked me if everything worked. i said yes then he gave me a certificate saying i passed. the next day i went to the dmv and got it registered. the issued me new plates and said i would have the title in the mail within 2 weeks.

fast forward 3 months and the cel is still on the horn still honks when breaking and FR turn signal doesn't work. then it started over heating in traffic. i investigated and found the radiator fan wasn't turning on. i traced the fan wires and found in the right wheel well that the wiring harness was sagging and rubbing on the tire. 3 wires had been completely worn through and a few others frayed. i cut out and soldered in new wire. all the weird electrical problems were gone.

fast forward 2 months and the cel is back on for the cat again. i dropped the cat and the thing is all broken up so i buy a test pipe and do the spark plug defouler trick and the cel is gone.

fast forward a month and the abs light comes on. the car still stopped fine so i didn't care much about that.

fast forward 2 months and the cel coming and going for the tps ever since i bought the car really stared to bug me so i decided i was going to fix the tps once and for all. when i went to adjust the tps one of the wires came out of the back of the plug. i went to the junk yard and cut one off an accord and soldered it in. tried to adjust the tps and couldn't do it so i bought a used throttle body with properly adjusted tps and installed it. after getting on the highway with the new throttle body for the first time the cel came on for erg system.

fast forward a month and the cel starts bugging me again so i stared trouble shooting. fallowed the wires from the egr solenoid and find in the left wheel well more frayed wires i thought for sure this had to be the problem so soldered in new wire and the abs light went off but the cel remained. i then tried to fix the egr by sucking seafoam in the intake to clean all the carbon build up. i blew so much smoke out the tail pipe that i thought the fire department was going to show up. the car ran much better but the cel was still on.

fast forward to yesterday and the cel is still on for egr so i pulled out the egr port plugs and cleaned the ports and valve. i didn't do a super good job but i got it good enough that i could pull a pretty thick piece of cloth through the ports. then i poured some seafoam in the ports and put the new plugs in. drove the car about 15 miles on the highway and then stopped for some food. when i stated the car the cel was back for the egr.

I am really getting tired of looking at the cel and want this problem fix but i am lost on what else to try. did i not clean the ports good enough? is it possible that the throttle body is causing the problem with the egr, i ask that because the cel for egr came on only after the used one was installed. please help.

 

Could simply be a bad egr valve. Idk about obd2 but obd1 cel for egr only comes on during certain driving conditions 40-60 mph light steady load. So if it is coming on immediately at start up it is an electrical issue, valve, connections, wire, PCM

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a wiring issue. How do I test the egr valve to see if it's any good?

 

Yesterday was my day off and I wanted to do something to the prelude so I decided I was going to do the gauge rings. I go up early and went to the store and bought the paint for plastic in white (base coat) and the metallic silver. I pulled the gauge and got the rings out and cleaned them with a cotton ball and some alcohol and painted 3 base coats and 4 color coats. I was going to clear coat them but they look shiny enough without it.



Because that only took like an hour and it was still before 9am I decide I was going to try to wet sand the carbon fiber hood that was in terrible shape. I went to the parts store and picked up some 220 400 800 1000 and 2000 grit sand paper. I first started with the 220 but it wasn't getting through the clear coat fast enough so I dug through the garage and found some 80 and 140 grit paper. I figured 80 would be to rough so I started using the 140. I got impatient with how long it was taking so I decided to try the 80 grit and it was doing a pretty good job. At this point it was almost noon so I took a shot break to eat. Then I got back to work. then my wife decided to come out and help around that time I decided I wasn't going to have enough sandpaper to do the whole hood so put I piece of tape down the center of the hood and we continued working our way to it. We finished getting through the clear with the 80 grit then went to the 140 down to the 2000. I got to say it looks 1000 x better than it did... but half the hood took over 6 hours to do.




Here’s some of the other side (Before)



My current "Harvey Dent" hood

 

Keep up the good work!