Hey all,

I picked up a 97 accord last week that's clean as a whistle with 85 thousand miles on the odo. It's an old lady DD who was in Chicago, picked it up from a dealership with a clean title. So far the only issue with it has been the stripped drip bolt on the oil pan, and it's got an auto tranny.

I've been reading here some folks getting well over 200whp with minimal rebuilding, and some folks saying don't bother and rebuild the top end, or bottom, and I don't really know where to start, especially since most of the threads I've been following are talking cars with 150k or more.

It's got the f22b1 in it, completely bone stock all the way around cuz it was a granny car. Oil and fluids were topped off either upon entering the dealership or right before the lady sold it.

My goal is 220whp, which to me seems very doable if the stock EX does 145. I'd like to keep as much of it stock as possible, or get the JDM replacements. My early goals are catback exhaust, CAI, and intake manifold.

Any advice from y'all? I personally thought I stumbled onto a gold mine for it having so little miles and being so clean. If I should leave it alone, that works for me too.

Thanks for the read!

CB

 

The F22B1 is a grocery getter engine designed to be reliable and have enough torque to pull around a family car. I have never seen one get anywhere close to 200whp naturally aspirated, let alone 220 which can be a struggle for some of the DOHC VTEC engines. The stock 145hp rating is at the crank...they do not put that down to the wheels. More like 130whp on a healthy engine and that's being generous. A 90whp increase on a low compression, naturally aspirated single cam engine, that falls flat on it's face before 6k rpm is a lofty goal.

220whp will require an H22/H23A/F20B swap, full bolt-ons, cams/valvetrain, and a tune at minimum. Alternatively, boost or nitrous on the F22B1. I would recommend a JDM H23A swap as it has the most torque in the H series family and is still capable of producing over 200whp. Keep it as simple and as stock as possible and it will be reliable. Since you have an automatic, you will need to do a manual swap if you want to make any real power and that's a whole thing in itself. The automatics are nicknamed "slush boxes" for a reason. They are parasitic, extremely heavy, and not performance oriented at all.

 

I was planning on a tune and new(-er (chipped)) ecm. The manny swap was another question I had, thank you! So you're saying swap the whole engine out for an h22? That seems like a waste of a relatively young engine especially if it's been run so conservatively. The plan was to add a cai and catback with k series intake (with the adapter) in the next few months. I'm in the midwest and am not going to bother with electronics work during the winter for a tune/dyno/ new chip.

 

Chipped ECU and a tune aren't going to do much on a stock engine anyway. The k series intake is going to add a lot of unnecessary complexity for very little gains. You're not going to hit anywhere close to 200whp on that engine, naturally aspirated, through the automatic transmission regardless of what you do. There are people out there who have thrown ridiculous money at the F22 platform only to discover what I'm trying to tell you now. If you look you can find F23 block/F22A head hybrids(so more displacement and a better flowing head than yours) that have an aftermarket cam, heavy port jobs, custom header, etc that barely touch the 175-180whp range.

Just because the engine has low miles doesn't make it special. It's still a stock economy single cam engine from 1997. Somebody may be willing to buy it off you to swap into their vehicle that had an engine failure. The low mileage would probably net you a few extra bucks to put towards your swap but that's about it.

I would advise you to hold off modding the F22 and save that money for a swap. Alternatively lower your expectations. You can reasonably get 150-160whp out of it NA and still have fun with it when combined with a short geared manual transmission.

 

Dude, throw on a cold air intake, a cat-back, tune it if you can (like a real know-how car guy on a quest for power would) and drive it for what it is, a well maintained, older Honda and driven by a "spirited" enthusiast that has added some bolt-ons.

Don't aim for 220hp, see what you can get out of it though See, having "the car" or "that amount of horsepower" is only half of what its all about. You sound like a good knowledgeable guy with an "interest" in more power, not to say you don't genuinely want it either but what this hobby is really all about is people AND their cars, so take care of yourself, for that desire or interest of yours, stay what you are. I'm betting thats why you want to stay true to the original, low mileage motor in the first place.

From a more mechanical and yet still emotional standpoint...
My first car was a '94 Accord EX with the F22B1. I did an auto to manual swap all by myself in my parents garage at the age of 15 with the help of these forums. I loved the motor, it was a SOHC which was cool and it had VTEC, for more power I added an AEM cold air intake, a MSD Blaster external ignition coil, a DC Sports header and a Vibrant axle back exhaust. I didn't understand tuning at the time so I never tuned it but I gained probably 8-10hp all in all. Ignition coil really made the most fun impact, it had better throttle response and better low end and mid range power. If you want to keep the stock engine, then your going to make less than 170hp out of a F22B1 with bolt ons and a decent tune. You could spend $1,500 or more to port and polish the head, tune the ecu, get a cold air intake, upgrade the coil, buy and exhaust. If your set on the original, low mileage motor then I applaud you, it means you've got the right attitude but $ and cars change people and mostly that, so be careful.

If you want 220hp, I would swap the engine. I would put in a H22A4 engine. They come as OEM equipment in the U.S. market 1997-2001 Honda Preludes. They sell for right around $800 or so and make 197hp and 156lb. ft. stock., add some bolt-ons and your 220 is easily acheivable. Coincidentally, my current car is an '01 Prelude with an H22A4 and its a great motor.
They also bolt right into your car so you don't need anything custom like mounts and they not only respond well to bolt on parts but have a huge parts market.

 

I like this guy, he's like "hey all", "picked up a clean car", "what should I do?"

 

The idea was to bolt on as much as I could with the goal of adding horsepower. I wanted this to be a sleeper and look exactly like Aradin described: a grocery getter. I only spent 3200 on the bad baby and another 1500 in it, to me, seems well worth it.

Even before I bought the car I had been trying to find dudes to tune around here, but it can get real sketchy around these parts especially dealing with working vehicles. People on here have bumped their compression up to 10-11 but I'm having a hard time checking whether that's on stock internals but that's on me for not utfse so back to research!!

Thanks for the thoughtful response; it was exactly what I was looking for. 170hp with some bolt ons and a tune is respectable and more importantly: doable. You've given me a place to start!

 

If I was to build an F22 for N/A, here is how I would start.

Header wise, find a DC or Megan. Chop the 2-1 collector off, and have a 2.5 collector welded up. The stock collector is like 2" tops, and a big choke point for exhaust flow. From there, go 2.5" on the exhaust all the way back....hi flow cat, resonator, muffler.

Intake, try and find something with 3" piping. The Accord spec stuff is mostly 2.5", Prelude stuff will fit if you just modify the bracket to mount it. Or even just grab a cheap kit off Ebay, toss the filter and get an AEM or K&N dryflow. Grab a larger throttle body. F series is something like 55mm diameter. Stock H22 TB is like 62mm, or you could upgrade even bigger to like 68mm. The F23 intake manifold flows much better than the F22, and is a common upgrade. Get one of those, and get the runners smoothed out, and the opening ported to match your throttle body size. That's about the limit you can do without touching any internals.

Being a 97, you will also have to convert the car to OBD1 to tune it. Use an ECU like a P28, and have a tuning software chip installed. There are multiple different ones, but Hondata S300 is the most prominent.

That's how I would build an F. You could even go and order a reground F cam from a company such as Delta. Anything else though, and you're going to be tearing stuff down to upgrade. With what what I've listed above, you'll probably realistically get 155-160whp tops.


With all that work however, you're honestly not far off the cost of a basic H swap. The H23 VTEC would be a great drop in if budget is a concern. You can get them for $700-900. This motor is advantageous in that all the motor mounts are the same as the F22. All you really need is an H22 intake manifold, an H22 exhaust manifold or aftermarket header, and the appropriate ECU to run the motor. There is a bit of wiring involved, but not much. There are a few other things you may need (you can find with proper research), but for the main parts, its really not much. And the motor will probably put down 160whp or more bone stock. The H23 is the best H motor out the gate minus the Euro R, and costs half as much as a Euro R.


Also, if your car is auto, you most definitely need a 5-speed swap. The auto transmissions are geared suuuuper long, and slow as snails. I'd recommend an H series manual gearbox over an F series, as the shorter gearing will liven up the cars acceleration regardless of what motor you have. Plus, you can also get imported JDM transmissions that come with an LSD from the factory. Overall just a better transmission choice. Even the H23 non-VTEC manual transmssions from the 92-96 Prelude will be geared better than the F transmission.

Basically, lots of options. Just gotta choose one and decide lol.

 

I kind of started off a few years ago where you are now. I had my Accord since 2008 while I was in high school. Drove it stock with a few mods (mostly suspension, whieels, tires, exterior parts, etc) through college. After, is when I began to think about what I wanted to do with the car. It started as just a 5-speed swap. I bought an F22 transmission, pedals, and all the things necessary for the swap from a friend. Was about to swap that in, then I was offered a complete H22 for $300. At that point, I had to decide what I wanted to do, because I knew I didn't want the H motor paired with the F transmission. Talked to a lot of the local Accord guys, along with my buddy who was going to be doing my swap. On their advice, I decided to go all in. I looked at it like this....if I'm going to be doing a motor and transmission swap, I don't want to ever have to touch/rebuild anything again if I can help it (at least for a long while). So I sold the F transmission stuff, and went deep down the rabbit hole.....basically, my mentality became "do it once, do it right."

Bought an M2B4 LSD transmission, and had it sent to Synchrotech for a full OEM spec rebuild. Brand new clutch, lightened flywheel, shifter bushings, short shifter, and other small items were purchased. For the motor, I was unsure of its internal condition (compression test was good, but mileage was unknown). separated the block from the head, and had the block inspected. Cylinder walls were all good. For the head, since it was off, I sent it to Alaniz to do a bit of upgrades and machine work to it. Euro R cams were installed, along with Supertech valvesprings and titanium retainers. Also had a valve job and minor porting done. I had my stock intake manifold runners all smoothed out, along with opening it up to match my 68mm throttle body. I'll be running a Euro R spec FGK header, down to a custom 2.5" exhaust. Pretty much everything else swap related was purchased new....mounts, S2000 cmc, etc. Also decided to bling up the bay a bit with various polished and chromed brackets and parts. And I'll be respraying the bay in the OEM color shortly while everything is out.


I say this because for me personally, it was worth it to drive the car stock for an extra 2 years or so, while I collected all the parts I needed, and formulated my vision for the car (which has and will probably still change a bit). I'm just now getting the project underway, and the excitement is really starting to creep in. Mostly because the car will be almost completely 100% mechanically new and refreshed, and barring any small issues, be a blast to drive and last for a good long while. I'm not looking to make any crazy power (to start, I'll just be running a stock ECU even), I just want something that's a bit more fun, and I can enjoy for years to come. While I have spent more money than I ever thought I would, doing it this way, at least I was able to break up the cost over a long period of time. And in the long run, I'm saving money, because I'm only touching everything once, instead of possibly having to redo things if I changed my mind, or didn't use new parts, etc.

Just my point of view from all my years of learning, researching, and meet other like-minded Accord people. Good luck on whichever route you decide to pursue