Bike carb swapped 3rd gen prelude

[Teggymun]

So last year me and my wife got married and had our beutiful daughter come into our lives. For a wedding/push present she jokingly said she wanted a 3rd gen prelude after seeing one on the tv. On my almost daily trawl through facebook marketplace i found one, a 2.0 12v twin carb ex in red with 92k on the clock. Not motd since 2014, the tyres have british kite marks on them so they are probably as old as me, but bar a bit of rust on the arches its clean! How much did i pay? Well considering the japanese car market post lockdown, 2k? 3k? 4k???? Nope! £650.....six hundred and fifty quid. At first i thought the ad was false, i messaged the seller he says it starts, but it doesnt drive as there is an issue with the clutch. He confirmed the price, sent some more photos and i buzzed him a deposit. Now i had to figure out how to get it from birmingham to my house in central scotland almost 300 miles away, i phoned my mate who knew a guy who would lend us a recovery truck, armed with a pocket of change, a couple tanks of diesel and a frankie and bennys later we had another honda on the driveway.

 

[Teggymun]

After having the car take up a space on the driveway it was time we got it shifted so i put the battery on charge, 20 quid of tescos finest in the tank and replaced the slave cylinder so she was at least mobile and then we gave it a good blast with the pressure washer and a **** ton of tfr. The first nice day we had we got the full interior shampooed at the glass cleaned. No more damp old people smell! Once that was sorted we backet her into the garage and changed the oil, filter, plugs and ht leads.

Up to this point i noticed that unless you hold the revs at 2.5k it dies almost as soon as it fires up so i contacted the owner of the local garage as hes known for being good with carbed engines. Now i just had to get it there it was barely a mile away but when you have a car that cuts out a lot with barely any battery and no brakes its not a fun experience. Updates to follow when we get it back!

 

[iRELOADED]

What a steal at £650!

 

[Teggymun]

What a steal at £650!

I know, i felt bad when we left as theres autos with mega rust selling for a few grand!

 

[Teggymun]

Well im as well updating this thread now we have some progress. The car spent a year sat up at a local garage that came highly reccomended. The car needed some work on the carbs to get it starting and running right but they basically let it gather dust and did nothing! After getting the car back we had almost gave up and had thoughts on selling until i found an identical 3rd gen on instagram with a retrofitted set of cbr bike carbs so i reached out to the owner and found out the work was done by a company called bogg brothers ltd in east luton. After a quick couple of emails and some measurements i sent the oem carb manifold away to them and about a week later i got this through the door!

The kit comes with a new manifold, cbr carbs, pipecross filter, choke and throttle cable and an inline fuel pump. All for £975 posted to my door which i thought was a very reasonable price. Ill get them chucked on next time im free and update from there how things go.

C&c welcome

 

[Teggymun]

Made a start on the carb conversion recently so thought id update as i go. First job, strip out all the unwanted rubbish, carb, manifold, vac lines ect ect. Managed to fill a box with what i removed too.

Then fitted the new manifold with the carbs, i was unable to find a replacement gasket so did it the old fashioned way with some card and rtv.

After a mock fit i torqued down the studs with the new gasket in place and made a start hooking all the essentials back up, the vac line for the brake booster and the breather for the rocker were a no brainer. Next up was the choke cable, finding somewhere that was easy to install yet convenient for use took some thinking as i didnt want to rip out the dash to do the job so in the end opted for the centre console next to the shifter.

I then ran the cable through an existing rubber bung on the firewall which kept everything tidy and almost oem looking.

Next up, the throttle cable required some work so i put the new cable in the old sleeve because it made feeding everything through and hooking it up easier.

Hooking up to the pedal was a fiddle as i had minimal room to get it done but once it was in it worked perfectly.
Currently this is how things sit.

As this is all new to me i stupidly thought i could whack the new fuel pump onto the line next to the carb but i need to fit it as close to the tank as possible for optimal fuel pressure. Once this is done in theory it should fire up no problem.

 

[Teggymun]

Good night spent in the garage, fired the lude up, checked the radiator to find it had ZERO COOLANT! luckily has some sitting from doing the koyo on the teg so topped it up and bled it through, up to full temp and sat perfect, no issues, thermostat opened up no problem after sitting for almost 10 years. I then decided i was going to tackle the brakes as its a must to get it back on the road, i was expecting the worst, but to my shock they are mint! So i cleaned and greased the sliders and called it a day. Ill get a hold of some axle stands so i can get the car fully off the ground and give the full brake system a good bleed up.

inner arches are mint on this car, constantly shocked at how clean it is! The wife wanted to finally see her wheels on the car so we unwrapped them and chucked them on. Now shes away looking at some bc coilovers

The wheels are autostar blades, quite like them as they are based off the dc2 gsr wheel just with a fat ass lip.

 

[Teggymun]

The wife decided she was sick of seeing the lude in such a state after 2 years if ownership she gave it a wash, de tar and polish, looks great from 20ft

 

[Teggymun]

Big steps with the lude today, the coilovers finally arrived.

Cant go wrong with bc too.

Once i got started i noticed the front hubs were very similar to dc2s ect so it was like covering old ground. The rears were trippy as these obviously came with 4 wheel steering on certain models so the back hub looks just like the fronts

Going by the tape we set the rear coilovers 70mm shorter than the oem strut and fronts 50mm. So the way it sits the car is 10mm lower at the front than the back but there is still some arch gap on the front. Due to the wheel width we are going to have to roll the back arches because theres enough camber as is.

While the car was in the air we bled the brakes as there was mentions of a spongy feeling in the brakes in previous mots from 10 years ago got them bled up real well but a full flush is in order down the road.

Moved the car outside to work on other cars and my mate came round with his camera and took some snaps of the cars.

Hopefuly it sees the road this year as my wife has owned this car for 2 years with no real progress until recently.

 

[KDxCivic]

Things so cool man I can’t wait to eventually see it driving

 

[Teggymun]

A free sunday afternoon means more progress on the lude. Today the wife finally got her nardi deep corn fitted to the car and it looks spot on!

Meanwhile i took a stab at changing the speakers in the car. After uncovering the front ones it was clear they were long overdue.

This one was the best of a bad bunch so they were all removed and replaced with some 6.75 inch pioneers. Because the speakers were larger than intended for the car i made spacers to raise them up 18mm to allow them to clear the holes.

Gave the plywood a quick skoosh with paint to take the look off them and fixed them to the parcel shelf.

The fronts were more painful as i decided to butcher the door cards.

Luckily i had a hole saw large enough to get away with just drilling a clean hole in one go. Re fitted the door cards and screwed the new speakers in place. What a difference it makes to the sound. No more crackles. Now it needs a decent headunit to replace the oem tape player.

 

[iRELOADED]

them old speakers look absolutely shagged!

 

[Dandys97]

The custom carbs look sick! I got a problem with mines too, the boots are gone and the engine runs wild because of it. Any chance your old carbs had good boots and you still got them?

 

[Teggymun]

The custom carbs look sick! I got a problem with mines too, the boots are gone and the engine runs wild because of it. Any chance your old carbs had good boots and you still got them?

Nah the boots on mine are all split bro sorry

 

[Teggymun]

Big update. Gave up on trying to get it running myself and id like the car motd for banzai at crail in a months time so i dropped it off at rogue restorations in lanark for the first lot of jobs. Get it running and fix the rust. These are the photos of the current progress.

The car had an old ariel hole and a hole drilled for what looks like an old style immobiliser so they got plugged off.

Next up is the passenger cill, the end has obviously held moisture so the rot was cut, new panels manufactured and welded up. Next up is drivers side then Rab will try and get the car running. Once thats done it can go to japcom for MOT prep

 

[Teggymun]

More welding progress at Rogue Restorations!

 

[Teggymun]

Well, i decided sodd it, chuck the car in for an MOT and sort whatever comes up. Dropped it in at japcom today. The drive was interesting to say the least, alignment all whacked, carbs run like **** but we made it. Dumped the front coilovers full lowz and chucked new plates on it before i headed out.

Topped her up with premium too, try and flush out the old fuel.

 

[iRELOADED]

get anything show up on the MOT?

 

[pabelman]

Tienes Instagram para ver el coche.

 

[Dandys97]

Ehh, I got mine prelude in march and I can't get my carbs up to running, I'm trying to sell the car but If I do not then I think I will try some cbr carbs too. Sad that the carb version is also a pain in the ass to swap a proper FI engine in it.