Hello,

I am new to this Forum. I have recently purchased a 1995 Honda Prelude SE(H23A NON VTEC).
I don't believe I can upload pictures yet so that will have to wait.

A little bit about the car. I bought this car used for $2000 a little over a week ago. I have been itching to work on a car during my free time and happened to have come across this car in my very city of residence on craigslist.

The previous owner has had the car garaged for the past 2 years and only recently got it running 6 months ago. Apparently he had bought the car without a timing belt and damaged valves. The car's body and engine block(original) have 219,000 miles on it and 3,000 miles have been put on the rebuilt head. Minus some oil leaks, the engine runs great.

Any rust the car had the previous owner had sanded down and painted over.
All electronics work perfectly, sunroof and all.

 

Ok, so first things first. I have a general idea of what I would like done to this car.

I'm going to rip out the entire interior and lay down new carpet. At the moment I am going for all black with red stitching theme.

Exterior will be painted all black, window tint, and smoked taillights.

Engine wise I have not decided if I want to do a turbocharged H23A non vtec or just swap in a JDM H22A + LSD tranny. Leaning towards the latter due to relative ease.

All suspension components will be upgraded/replaced as this car is currently completely stock and all bushings and boots are worn, cracked, ripped, or destroyed.

 

I want to tackle the interior first as it would be the cheapest and easiest to do. I currently still live with my dad and until I graduate college(hopefully end of 2013) I wont have my own garage to do an engine swap in.

Before I get started on the interior I wanted to fix some mechanical issues with the car. The driver side axle is shot.
Complete exhaust system is garbage.
No power steering due to fluid cooler line being completely rusted off.
And oil leak coming from oil sending unit. Possibly other locations.

New axle: $60
New power steering line: $80
New oem exhaust + o2 sensor: $1200

The car is much quieter with the new exhaust but still fairly loud since apparently I need a new manifold also.

I've decided not to worry about the oil leak or manifold as I will be pulling the engine out at some point and can worry about those issues then.

I have not replaced the power steering line yet as it's a PITA and couldn't wait to get started on the interior.

 

I am going look at a 95 lude tomorrow. She just needs a master cylinder, but I won't know much more than that until I go check her out. Good luck on yours, hope to see pics of her soon!

 

Reserved for interior work.

I have pictures of everything i've done while ripping my interior out. Just can't upload until after 15 days.

In a nut shell:

Seats, side panels, dash board, and carpet have all been removed.

I have a sound system I plan on wiring into the car while interior is out. I will be putting the amps and subs on a carpeted board where the rear seats sat. Not 100% sure how i'm going to do this yet but have a general idea.

Lots of sawing and sanding ahead i'm sure.

http://www.stockinteriors.com/
I plan on getting my carpet from this site unless someone has a better option?

http://redlinegoods.com/
Redlinegoods has shift and parking brake boot along with arm rest and door inserts for the 4th gen prelude. I will be doing black leather with red stitching.

For seats I am currently leaning towards corbeau A4's
I can get both seats and custom brackets for about $900 from www.racing-seats-usa.com

I would love to get recaro sports seats but as they're $1500...each. They're a little out of my price range.

The interior color of my prelude is black and beige(zzzZZZ). I plan on painting the interior plastics black unless I can find actual black pillar panels and such.

I'm also researching into a steering wheel swap but I have yet to find a definitive option for 4th gen preludes. So I may just be stuck with the stock wheel.

Once I am able to, I will have pictures up showing my car and everything I have accomplished.

 

Oh shoot we got a newb rocking a prelol'd. No jk I rock a 3rd gen. Good luck man! Don't let trolls like doood get to you!

 

Yeah, trolls seem to be "in style" on the internet these days. Mostly people that get picked on, and need to feel superior without the chance of a physical confrontation. Lol

 

Haha, you guys respond fast.

I am a complete noob with Honda vehicles in general. About 5 years ago I worked as an oil changed technician at a Honda dealership so while I have some experience with hondas. Most of what i'm doing I'm learning through research and general car knowlege.

I have previously owned a 1998 nissan sentra which i've done moderate work too. My current daily driver is an 05 5speed v6 mustang. I know I know, not a real mustang but it was all i could afford.

 

The prelude better become faster than the stang

 

I'm fairly new to honda too. My first car was a 93 Mazda Mx3, which I crashed, and now I have a 94 civic, b18 swap with b16 vtec heads. but... I either spun a rod or locked up the crank, so I'm selling her to a fellow honda lover, and getting myself into a prelude to see what all the fuss is about. lol

 

They are fuuun

 

Honestly my first choice was to work on a CRX. I plan on autocrossing and the lighter chassis makes the crx a perfect canidate. I just couldn't pass up this prelude that was in such good condition.

So now here I am, working on making a daily driver/auto crossing machine out of a prelude

 

Mine handles great

 

Haha I've seen all the videos, and looked at all the numbers, but it means nothing until you get behind the wheel and feel it. I'm hoping for the best. Not like the other day, when I rove a BMW 5 series, and couldn't even get the back tires loose, and was steering with what felt like a steering column made of mashed taters. lol

 

Yeah, I'm wanting to make a street/strip. Are you planning to leave in the 4ws?

 

Couple of my new sound system components for the car!

2 10" kicker subs

2 kicker amps 1-2channel and 1-4channel

2 6.5" mids

2 tweeters

 

New center dash air vents, center console stereo frame plus painting my interior plastics black.

Pictures aren't great as they were taken at night against black trash bags so everything is reflective.

 

Next step I plan on taking card board to template the back seat area so I can create a wooden platform for my amps and subs. Afterwards i'll be able to throw carpet over everything.

I also plan on installing corbeau A4 racings seats w/heating and a JDM auto climate control system.

 

Great Fn work so far man. With re: to painting the interior plastics, i
have found that as long as you get a quality paint for plastics
they work great too. Yours look to have come up well. And i
completely hate beige too, so good to see you went for black,
but hey each to his own. If you love beige go for it. Re: mounting
the sound system where the rear seats were, i reckon making
up a board to fit the space and make it nice and flat, then laying
on some carpet should work fine. i am considering the same in
the future though not to mount any equipment, just to make it,
look neat. Either that or just paint it black. As always good
to see a prelude getting some love. GL with your project man.

 

Decent amount of work done today!

Removed the rest of the panels around the rear windows and ceiling to access seat belts for removal. Removed the ceiling to either be painted using vinyl paint or replaced with a black piece if i can find one.

Was also able to install my tweeters into the little speaker vent thingies located in the corners of the dash. This turned out really well!

I'm not sure what to do with the sunroof yet. I think i'm going to have to remove the unit completely to paint it black. Also on the outside the sunroof isn't complete flush with the roof of the car. Hoping I can fix that at some point.

Also removed the door panel so I can install my new Kicker Midrange speakers and to replaces/paint the beige pieces of the door.

 

Small update. I haven't been able to do much else to the car because I ran out of money.
Good news is, it is refund season which means I have red Corbeau A4 racing seats on the way plus black molded carpet for the car.

I need to purchase a few bits and pieces for the dash and that should be it. I will be able to start reassembling everything. Assuming I remember how...

 

nice. keep it up.

check out my build thread. i havent started yet. but the rims are for sale

 

A little at a time,nice.

 

New seats and carpet are in! I will be working all weekend to try and get these installed.

I have to old carpet read to be removed. Had left it in there while i waited to buy new carpet. Now that the new carpet is in I will be able to use the old carpet aligned with new carpet to cut holes.

While I have the old carpet out I will take this time to install all the wires I will need for my speakers and amps. I would like to install my own speaker wire into the doors for my mid-range but not sure if it will be doable yet. I also need to drill new mounting holes into the door for my speakers.

In the above pictures you see that my sunroof is still beige along with the lining around the edges. This needs to become black. Not sure what i'm going to do yet. Also the roof headliner is beige. I may try and paint it with vinyl paint and see how that turns out. I'd rather obtain a stock black headliner but am not sure if such a thing exists. All i have managed to find so far is gray and beige .

I should have a decent update on this project this week depending on how much i'm able to get done.

Goals:
Install wires
Install new carpet

I will wait to install seats until I have the dash back in and assembled. I still need to swap out the LEDs inside of it and fix the vent system. Center vents didn't like to blow air. Think the wire that controls that needs to be adjusted or something.

P.S. I have new door inserts, shifter and hand brake boots, and the armrest cover coming in! Black leather w/red double stitiching.

 

NICE SEATS!!!! WOW