Hello everyone i'm a kid who owns an 88 honda prelude SI and i love it i have driven many other cars and they just dont do it for me.. my little prelude is fast and corners pretty well.. but.. the engine is going to go on it.. i took it into the shop to get it checked out which is what i do every couple months and they said its leaking oil into the radiator where the coolant is stored.. i went around and got a couple second opinions to see if this was going to be a problem and they all said that its going to start having some serious problems.. now i am considering buying a new engine and getting it swapped completely i understand that i need the B20A3 engine to put in there and u can get one off ebay with like 90K kilometers for like 500 dollars that seems like the way to go but.. my car has alot of rust on it so much that getting the engine swapped would almost seem pointless because if i ever get pulled over for anything they will send me in for a DOT inspection and the car will not pass so then the next thing i was looking into was buying a new car.. but like i said i'm a kid so i dont have a ton of money i am looking into either a prelude or a civic and i'm looking at all these civic's and preludes that are different models like si, s, ex, sir, and so on and so forth.. i have no idea what any of those mean and have had a hard time finding out what they mean so if anyone could help me with those and advise me on a good cheap car that handles well and goes decently fast then that would be great.. i know that that is very hard to find for a cheap price but i do like to get some advice and do some homework before i buy so if anyone could help me with that that would be great

 

Prelude-88-91

S = Carb'd
Si = Fuel Injected

Prelude-92-96
S = F22 SOHC
SI= H23 DOHC
SI = Vtec

Basically the S, Si, Ex or whatever is the Trim Level....little extras like tilt steering, sunroof/moonroof, leather seats little stuff like that...and also engines are different in some trim levels.

 

thank you.. can i put a S engine into my SI? or is that not do able.. i also heard u can put an H22 into the 3rd gen prelude's any comment?..

 

I'm sure it would be possible....prolly about the same as you would convert DPFI to MPFI..but im not too sure....too be on the safe side i would just buy the A5, im sure its not that expensive.

There is a picture of a 3rd gen. with an H22 on wikipedia...i haven't seen it in person yet but anything is possible....Honestly I wouldn't waste that much money on a 3rd gen. (no offense) If anything I would upgrade to a 4th or 5th....the H22 in the 4th is a straight up swap.

 

bahh everybody has a 4th gen tho... i help run atlantic canadian preludes and about 70% of our cars are 4th gens 5ths are too expensive for this guy if your going to do the swap yes the a3 is possible but don't do it you'd need the ecu and all that jazz get a a5 and do the swap shouldn't cost much more if it costs more at all... the h22 swaps are doable but ur looking a $$ for that prolly 2500 for the engine alone not to mention if ur car is rusty it'll tear it apart. So yes either find another 3rd with good engine or do the b20a5 swap