hello,

i have lots of questions.. i tryed posting this on the prelude forum but no one realy had any advice.

i have an automatic 1.8l (ES1) 83 prelude that i use as my daily driver. its carborated and im looking for ways to increase my gas milage.

right now im geting about 16-17 Mpg, i was looking for something more around 25-28 city and 30-32 on the highway. i know otheres with simalar cars and they get about that kind of milage... do you think that is possible with this car? i know the carborators need rebuilt. the car dosent like to idle when its cold. but the car is in decent shape. once it gets warm it runs great.

with a rebuilt carborator should i be able to get that good of gasmilage?

im also looking into options of making this car fuel injected using a Mega Squirt. (some of you may not be famialar with that but i already have one on my bimmer).... does anyone know if there is a fuel injected intake manifold that will fit this head that
is on this motor? it would make things real easy if i could find an intake manifold with injectors, a fuel rail, and throttle body with TPS from a later model prelude or other honda. then i can just throw in a pump, upgrade the fuel line, add some temp sencors, weld in an 02 sencor and make it work.

has anyone else done this carb to fi swap? or would i be better off just rebuilding the carborators?


also, can anyone point me in the direction of some scematics of the carborators on how to rebuild them? iv tryed seraching but theres way to much clutter of honda stuff on the internet to find what im looking for.


I have heard some people talk about droping in a B20a6 or maybe even a B16a into my 2nd gen. fuel economy is more important so i realy dont need a peaky high reving b16. how much should i have on hand to do a b20a swap? and will the auto tranny i have mate to a b20a? or will i need to get a B20a tranny for it as well?

the car also needs some general TLC. new ball joints, struts etc.. can somone point me to the direction of a good site for honda parts? just OEM stuff. this car dosent need anything performance..
i checked out a link recomended to my by other honda owners "majestic honda.." it looks like they have lots of parts, but maybe not many people purchace parts for an 83 prelude. when i look up the parts (example: carburator, it shows a picture of a fuel injection manifold for a different motor. when i search for "front shock absorber" it shows me a parts scematic of wheat looks like a shifter assembly or a clutch assembly.

im trying to fix and oil leak. from the best i can tell its coming from below the carburators around the oil filter but the oil filter its tight. it looked like it was coming from the head to oil pan return hose and i put a clamp on that and it seemed to stop coming from there but its still leaking from somwhere around the oil filter.

i dont know what the corect timing is but last night me and a friend timed the car. it was at 2 degrees advanced, i advanced it to 18 degrees advance. overal drivability is much better. im not shure what this car should be advanced to but it dosent ping at all while driving and it just has 87 in it.

anyone know the corect timing advance for this car or know where i can find this information?

thanks to everyone in advance.

 

16-17mpg from a carbureted Honda is pretty bad. I'd say you're definitely in need of a fresh carb, and likely some other tuning work. A fuel injection system on that car is more work than the car is worth.

The oil leak may be coming from your oil pressure sensor. That's located right next to the oil filter. It may also be a leaking PCV system, that's located just above the oil filter. Get some of that blacklight responsive dye that shops ues. Put it in your oil, drive for about 100 miles, and then use a blacklight to find where the leak is coming from.

 

are you desperately in love with the car?

Maybe look at getting a 4th or 5th gen civic...

I'm guessing a new O2 sensor might help you out, new plugs, maybe new wires.

-PHiZ

 

The 1985 Accord SEi had a fuel injected ES-series engine, I'd assume the manifold fits your engine, unless you have a CVCC engine. A CVCC engine will have a 3 barrel carburetor and won't work with the EFI manifold. Do you have a down draft carb or two side draft carbs? I have no idea if the EFI manifold fits the engine with side draft carbs, it might. Are you sure the engine doesn't already have an 02 sensor? Most 80s carbureted cars had them.

I don't know of any instructions for carburetor rebuilding, even the factory service manuals don't have that. But I've taken them apart before, they're pretty simple to deal with. By the way, a factory manual should be less than $20 on eBay.

Besides Majestic, there's also HParts and San Leandro Honda for parts. I've ordered parts for older Hondas from HParts a few times with no problems, they have always had every part I needed. Good prices too.

There should be a sticker on the underside of the hood with the timing specs, but just sticking it where it drives the best has worked fine for me.

 

1983 prelude huh? the car's 20 years old truthfully i wouldn't put much money into it. the motor itself is probably on its way out. i dont see it to be too logical to throw parts at a motor that is that old. if i were you and i wanted to keep the body but that old motor was giving me bad gas mileage and is that old i would get a motor like the D15B7 out of he 92-95 civic DX and LX. it has only 102hp which is suffecient for what you want and gets great gas mileage(about 34mpg city/and 40mpg highway) or go with the EX motor which will have VTEC and have about 125hp gas mileage bout the same but you'll have a little more motor to play with if you ever wanna add power. there's plenty of places to find motors on the net. i know www.ardperformance.com and click jdm engines on the top right. but go for a swap and have a better powertrain alltogether. keep me posted.