Page #1: Nice car to start with right?
Page #2: Exterior Mods
Page #3: Interior Mods
Page #4: A/V System
Page #5: Engine Swap
Page #6: Performance Mods

 

This is what my living room looks like. I've managed to keep most boxes of parts in the corner here.

 

 

Here we are pulling the H22A1 out of the donor 93 Prelude

 

 

Engine on the floor of my garage while I remove the transmission so I can mount the engine to the stand for a thorough cleaning and mild rebuild.

 

 

 

Here it is on the stand.

 

 

The intake side. Can you say "oil leak"?

 

 

Here is my first pass at cleaning the intake side of the block.

 

 

This pic is from a couple weeks later when I completed cleaning the intake side of the block.

 

 

Exhaust side. Too bad I didn't get a good before pic. The entire front of the block was covered in a thick layer of oil and grime (like you see on the right side).

 

 

I'm very happy with how well the exhaust side cleaned up. You can almost eat off of it!

 

 

Here is the gear side of the engine. Lots of disassembling and cleaning to do on this side. This was difficult due to all the shapes.

 

 

Belts removed. Not looking forward to cleaning.

 

 

Okay. I have most of the cleaning done on the gear side. Removed water pump (being replaced). I also removed the oil pump to clean it up, but I put it back on so I didn't misplace it or the bolts that hold it on. It nwill come off for further cleaning.

 

 

Here's the distributor side of the engine. As bad as the cam seal is said to be on Honda engines, this was ironically the cleanest side of the engine.

 

 

After 3 or 4 weekends of cleaning (obviously at a slow pace) while working on my interior color change, I got tired of the cleaning, so I started taking ish apart. Started with the valve cover. This is where things start to clear up as to how the engine works.

 

 

I removed the cam holder and was left with a nice view of the cams.

 

 

I've taken the head off. Those head studs are a bitch to remove. I used a 1/2" breaker bar with 2 1/2 feet of iron piping. Check out all the carbon buildup. I'm not going to replace the pistons at this point because I don't know if I want to go N/A or FI (please vote in my poll question).

 

 

This picture shows just how much oil and crap was built up in the clutch housing.

 

 

This was after I cleaned it up a bit. Didn't bother making it spotless like the outside of the block since this won't be seen.

 

 

I put the cam seal housing back on in this picture.

 

 

Here is the gear side of the block before I start putting it back together.

 

 

I figured that I might as well put on my new oil pan to get it off the workbench.

 

 

This pic shows the manual tensioner conversion from the H23. Probably not necessary, but did it just in case.

 

 

Transmission and other components still need to be cleaned...ugggghhhhh.

 

 

Bins and bins full of engine components. Valve spring compressors in the Sears bag on the seat (another project I'm working on. Will post details later).

 

Miscellaneous tools I've acquired for this project. Huge vice at far end of bench, then a bench grinder for cleaning smaller parts, then my new aluminum oil pan to replace the crushed steel OEM one, then a bench buffer for polishing smaller parts. On the right is my air compressor that made the uninstalling of the engine from the donor car a lot easier. Next to that are the lights that allow me to work in the dark...or not.

The below picture is very disturbing.  I knew this rat was in there for several years, but I simply could not get to it with the engine in there.  Even though I was able get a good grip on it's head with some channel locks, it was still very difficult to pull this little guy out of there.  He got himself stuck real well.

 

With the rat removed, the car is now ready for it's new heart.  Boy is this in need of a wire tuck.  That's a project for another day (or a couple months).

 

The operation was a success (kind of).  I ended up having to machine the head because I warped it due to not paying attention to the unbolting pattern and directions.  I learn by doing.  Also installed ARP head studs cuz...why not?  Also had a couple CELs to deal with.

 

I was working on the car in the garage when I heard a bunch of ruckus!  I'm looking around for a minute until I find a crow fucking with some sort of vulcher kicking it on a street light.  There was a dead rabbit in the middle of the road that they were eying.

COME BACK SOON FOR MORE UPDATES!!!

Page #1: Nice car to start with right?
Page #2: Exterior Mods
Page #3: Interior Mods
Page #4: A/V System
Page #5: Engine Swap
Page #6: Performance Mods