Hey guys I have a 2000 Accord and i'm trying to think of what would be best power/cost wise. I'm new to imports (I'm originally a muscle car guy and I'm used to huge V8s) and I'm lost as to which route I should go. I have seen a lot of people swap out the F series engines for the H22 but I'm not sure if it's worth swapping out the J series for the H22 since it is a smaller engine. I guess what I'm asking is, what is the J series capable of? Is the engine itself worth investing time and money in to? I never hear anything about the J series so I don't have a lot to go off of. Any advice is appreciated, thanks for taking your time to read and/or answer.

 

The transmission is the issue with that generation of v6 accord. Myself I would look into a transmission swap and boost the j.

What is your budget and plans for the car. How much of the work are you looking to do yourself?

 

Which Trans should I look for? I don't have a firm budget as of yet, I'm just feeling everything out right now and trying to get a general idea of what the cost will be. Also I'm looking at doing as much as possible by myself and with my buddies. I like doing work in house, I have a pretty nice garage so I may as well use it lol. Thanks for the reply btw buddy.

 

Oh and as far as plans I'm just looking to have a sporty daily that I can run down the strip every now and then. Pretty much the same thing I used my mustang for before I sold it.

 

Is your car a 4cyl now? And manual transmission? You don't even mention what you have...

The F series motor does fairly well with boost, alternatively you can go H22. There are two million guides on how to do each. Something to note is if your county/state does emission testing and such you are limited as going OBDI for tuning purposes kills your OBDII port.

If you have a J series V6 already, the transmissions are known to be bad. I wouldn't mess with it much personally. The car is 18 years old (1998-2016), there are a ton of threads on what you can/can't do. I suggest you start with those.

 

@Muffin, I think he has a J30 already as he mentions whether its worth swapping out for the H22.

@AccordDJ, You already have a decent mill for a DD, a good exhaust and intake would wake it up and make it sound magnificent. The 2003+ Accord Coupe V6 was available with the 6-speed stickshift and a 240hp version of the engine you already have, if you could find a complete powertrain, that would make the most sense to swap.

 

So to reiterate and add to what was already said....

I'm under the impression that your car has the J30A1 from the factory. Couple fun facts about that. This was basically the beginning of the J series engine and Honda hadn't really gotten all of the bugs out of it, nor had they squeezed all the performance they could out it. They're still pretty stout engines from the factory though. The weakest point on them is the transmission. They are plagued with issues and known to fail. Adding power will just expedite the failure. Also if your car is a V6, the engine mounts will be totally different from the 4 cylinder variant of the car and make swapping an H22 much more of a chore so if I were you I'd throw that idea out the window since it wouldn't really be worth it.

There are some things you can do to make the car faster but it all depends on how much you like it and how much you want to spend money on it. If it were me, the first thing I would do would be a 6 speed manual swap. There are plenty of DIY threads out there about it. That would definitely add to the fun factor, reliability, and gain you some power since a manual is less parasitic. From what I've gathered over the years it seems to be a fairly annoying process of gathering/finding all the parts but people have done it with great success.

As for poweradders, the J series respond very will to bolt ons and there's a lot you could swap from the J30s bigger brothers, the J32/J35/J37, that would help like intake manifold, etc. As for boost, that's going to be very expensive to do correctly and reliably. A $1000 eBay kit may look tempting but trust me, it's not worth the headaches involved. Boosting a J would surely require a lot of custom fabwork since they don't have a massive following like some of Hondas other engines. Custom translates to $$$$$$$. You could however try to source a Comptech supercharger kit which would basically be a bolt on affair. Combine that with a 6 speed swap and it would be a complete blast to drive while still being reliable.

 

Aradin has some good input. to add to that, look around at some other J-series V6 builds from newer models. there are some good Acura TL builds and you'll be able to glean some useful info from some of the Civic J-swaps.

I second the idea of starting with an auto to manual swap. I haven't done a lot of research on this conversion on your particular model. I have done this to 4-cyl civics though and it was worth it. try looking around for threads on auto to manual for your car and decide if you think it's worth the hassle/cost/time for you. if not, i recommend selling what you've got and getting a newer version with the manual from the factory. it may actually be cheaper in the long run and more reliable. then tune from there.

from what I've learned making plans for my '08 TL a "J-pipe" (joins the two banks like a Y-pipe on a V8) that eliminates the third cat by design with a good tune (via K-pro, Hondata) is the first place to start. neither is cheap but the gains seem worth the cost.

 

Don't even put money into that J30A1, the heads are the bottleneck. I suggest a complete V6 drivetrain swap, or just leave it and pick up another car for fun.

If you were to swap out the J30A1 and go to a H22, you will have to swap a lot of components to the other side of the engine bay. They are "reversed" when comparing 4 cylinder to V6. You will need to swap out the Sub frame also. Lot of work going from V6 to 4 cylinder.



Swapping in a 6 speed onto the automatic engine is not that easy as far as the wiring/electrical. Mechanically it bolts right up to the engine and putting in all the components for a manual is straightforward. There is some repining on the ECU that would be required and that info is hard to get...

RichieV6 used to make a module to solve the electrical/repining issue, but he does not do that anymore. Very, very hard to find a used one.


Mechanically, swapping the drivetrain is easy, It bolts right up. Electrically, that is another story. You could study the wiring diagrams but even then, if you run into the unknown, there will not be many resources to help you. This model of car never had much aftermarket support and a lot of people didn't invest in these cars. So anything you do is going to be custom and very few people are going to be knowledgeable for this model of Accord, and with this car its going to be expensive...... trust me, I know.


I know it sounds like I'm trying to deter you from doing a swap, but actually, I'm just letting you know what you are in for.