'91 Prelude 4WS Resto-mod

That color really does look excellent. Sorry to hear about the ECU - hopefully you get it sorted soon enough! 

It's probably not very feasible to get this over the border cheaply and you probably don't really need it, but I have a really nice condition factory service manual a friend gave me. If you're interested it's yours for the cost of shipping. 

In reply to clutchsmoke :

That would actually be brilliant! I do already have a 1990 manual, but it's in pretty rough shape.

So the new Moates Demon2 showed up a couple weeks ago, and the car started right up after loading the tune.

I'm still fighting with the Tunerview display, the pinouts are different with the Demon2 vs my original Demon but it's still not working even though I'm fairly certain I've got it correct.

Huge thanks to Clutchsmoke, he's going to be mailing me that nice service manual above. Really generous of him!

And I've taken the wheels, side mouldings, and insurance off the car. It's now tucked away for winter. This thread will probably lack any real updates until spring.

But for the few days when the car was running and I had insurance, a co-worker that does a bit of photography on the side set up a last minute photo shoot for the car. I only had 30 mintues notice so I barely had time to wipe it down, but it turned out pretty good. I wish it there had been more sun for the colour to really pop, but I'll have all next summer for that. Here's some of my favourites:

Check him out on instagram @patrickparong!

Pictures turned out great! 

Any reason you took the side trim off before the winter?

In reply to Gunchsta :

They've got some weird ripples that have developed in the paint on both mouldings and need to be re-done. There's couple other blemishes that have appeared on the car too, I'm hoping the shop will take care of it. The mouldings are by far the worst bits.

Got it. Well it sure is a good looking car! 

It's going to get a full interior at some point as well correct?

Update time!

Got some goodies in over the past few months.

Huge thanks to clutchsmoke who gifted me with this absolutely mint '88 service manual. Wouldn't even let me pay for shipping! It's in amazing condition and compliments my other beat up service manual, mint sales brochures, and a Car and Driver mag featuring a Prelude on the cover.

The bodyshop that painted the car entered the car into a car show for April 12th, and informed me I needed to get my butt in gear getting it together. Rented a 10x20 heated storage unit that is cool with me doing a little work on the car.

So I dug the car out of the garage and rented a Uhaul trailer.  Had to make some ramps to get it on there because of the low.

Since it was only -3 deg C yesterday the roads were pretty sloppy so I wrapped the bottom half to help keep it clean.

In it's new home

Also dug out the parts car and pulled the headliner

The purpose for this is to delete the USDM seatbelt light overhead console/rear view mirror. The covers on these always break leaving an ugly hole, plus I don't have the USDM seatbelts anymore. The rest of the world got a normal rear view mirror. Deleting the seatbelt lights leaves a big hole in the headliner. USDM headliner vs Canadian spec:

Awesome! Great progress man! 

I love that sale brochure!

I might need to find one for myself!

I love the ice cave of a parts car getting dug out for a headliner. Awesome to see an older Honda get some love and a really nice resto!

Car is looking great! 

I'd stick the intake brace back on. I've seen some anecdotal evidence that they can develop vacuum leaks at the head. I think it has to do with the fiber gaskets compressing due to weight and vibration. 

Pretty much everyone I knew was driving a Honda in the late 90's and being a line mechanic at the time and I helped a lot of friends with botched work. Vacuum leaks being one of the more common issues when following someone else in, and seems no one ever put that brace back on. 

Sunday didn't do much, just cleaned the headliner. It was pretty filthy.

Spent a little time after work today and tossed it in.

From this

To this

I cut the head off some bolts and sharpened the studs into spikes and pushed them through the headliner to mount the 3rd brake light. The colour of the Forester light isn't too far off. I'd like to find some decent top-biased LED bulbs for it, I have some cheap ones in there that are pretty dim. It uses 5(?) 194 bulbs so I want to use LEDs so I don't run the risk of overloading the circuit.

Actually looks like 5x 194s would be 19 watts, and a stock 921 is 17.9w....hm maybe I'll stick incandescence back in there.

19 vs 17.9 watts is fine.  That won't hurt anything.

saawheeet

Bought an AC delete duct from 3rd gen guru "MustardCat". Cleaned it up and put some new foam on it.

Also got his short shifter with spherical rod end upgrade.

Sanded, masked off, and painted the underside of the parcel shelf as well as touched up some spots on the top side.

I learnt my lesson trying to get overspray off the roof. The rest of the trunk will be painted at a later date, I'm just doing the underside so I can do a final install of the parcel shelf mat.

Swapped out the parcel shelf mat at the last minute. The one from the parts car is a bunch less faded.

Cleaned out the interior, ran the antenna wire, and layed out the stock insulation. This car has an antenna integrated into the glass that I don't think I've come across before. Since I shaved the conventional antenna this was a nice bonus.

Carpet in

Mounted the PR4 Integra ECU on the stock footwell panel. Stock is on the right.

Cut some spacers for the two mounting points that lined up and welded in a 3rd point.

Repinned the longer Tunerview harness to go inside, cut a notch so the covers would fit flush, and secured the wiring inside so an accidental yank won't hurt the board.

Installed



I wiped down one  of the rear speakers (left) with Lysol on a rag and it took off a bunch of the coating. The speaker grills don't hide anything so I'm shopping for another set of speakers that have grills large enough to cover the parcel shelf mat holes. I went through all my spare parts and can't seem to find any stock covers.

The trouble with buying another set of speakers is that nobody lists the grill diameters, and it's very possible to end up with ones that are too small. I need ones that are 7" or so, 6.5" is too small.

Rear seat belt buckles were also upgraded from the parts car

USDM (right) vs Rest of the world door panels. The panel going in is a bit beat up, but it's the only one I've got. Had to swap the center trim for the power lock switch.

Re-creating the vapour barriers. Butyl rubber, some plastic sheeting, the stock seatbelt pockets and some packing tape to join the pockets with the sheeting.

Final install of Canadian spec seatbelts!

Have to cut the carpet for the lower anchor point. Not sure what the other hole is for, it's not used normally.

More assembly. Forgot to bring the upper seat back with me that trip.

 

Drivers door got new vapour barrier and new screw plugs too. About 5 minutes of work from being done.



Also took delivery yesterday of some new front seats

Compared to stock

The stock ones aren't worn through, but the foam is trashed. This bar is constantly digging into my side.

There are two companies that make seat brackets, both are pricey. I'm going to try and make my own. For the drivers side I'll probably bolt it fixed to maximize headroom. I'm 6'2" and headspace is at a premium. This is with the seat sitting directly on the floor

I have another set of seats I'm willing to cut up to use the rails, but they're kinda goofy from factory. The outboard slider is horizontal like normal, but the inner slider is stood up vertically

Dual pillar pods. Yay or nay? I have the wideband that needs a proper mounting spot for sure. I'd like an oil pressure gauge, but haven't bought one yet. I think they look a little ricey, but very functional.

Plus the seat brackets don't fit very well.  I got one of them (I think it was the corbeau one) and I had to dremel out the holes to get it to fit properly.

BA5 said:

Plus the seat brackets don't fit very well.  I got one of them (I think it was the corbeau one) and I had to dremel out the holes to get it to fit properly.

That's both unfortunate and makes me feel better about attempting my own. The other ones are Wedge engineering and they want $170 USD per side with sliders. With shipping and exchange rate that become some serious coin. You had Kirkey seats IIRC? I'll bet those allowed tons of helmet room.

I'm mentally hung up on figuring out how to reach the rear seat bolts if I mount the seat directly to a bracket. Maybe I need sliders after all.

Did a little bit of work today. Got the rear interior finished up, drivers side door all buttoned up, and started on finishing the passenger door. Ran out of butyl rubber and need to move the car so I can open the passenger door so I called it a night.

Also put the trunk and fuel door release covers back on.

See all this restoration work is why I would send that good-as-new FSM to you for free. Excellent work!

I've setup a race seat in a 5g Prelude and could give you some tips if you want.  I'm pretty tall (6'5") and had to do a fixed mount, and I just barely clear the headliner with a helmet on.

In reply to Rodulrich :

Tips would be great! I don't see myself clearing with a helmet, but hopefully it's an improvement over stock. I'm pretty used to having a bit of a lean in these cars.

Stock rails from a spare seat:

With the seat in place it's way too high, and pushes the seat too far outwards. The seat hits the door.

Checked my stash of seats in the basement. Between 3g Prelude, 92-95 Civic, 96-00 Civic, and 02-06 Altima, the 96-00 Civic was the clear winner. So I hit the junkyard and grabbed two sets of front seat rails plus two additional outers. They charged me $30 which I thought was high but still cheaper than anything aftermarket. Plus no waiting.

The inner rails of the Civic use a horizontal slider unlike the Prelude, but still use a vertical piece of metal to attach to the seat. Since the Recaros have a flat square bottom, I'll use only the outer rails on both the inner and outer positions.

The civic rails add just a touch over 1" height. Here are two outside rails compared to the Prelude outside rail (bottom)

In reply to Run_Away :

Most likely you will have to run a sidemount seat without sliding rails to get the clearance you need for a helmet, making the seat fixed. This is what I did:

1. Bought a Wedge Engineering floor bracket which sat too high. They make them on the conservative side so that they fit all 5g Preludes easily. I modified it to fit as low as possible while still having clearance for the rear mount hardware. This becomes important later during assembly. I also had to drill holes in it that lined up with the sidemount brackets.

2. Bought a Corbeau FX1 seat with both sidemount and bottom mount capability. Seat choice was determined by my budget, my fat ass and the car's interior space. This seat just fits me and the car with center console and full interior. There are a narrower "Pro" version and a "Wide" version. The standard FX1 I bought fits in between. FYI I have about a 40 inch waist (give or take lol) but the tightest spot is around my hips. The wide would definitely not fit my car. I got lucky here.

3. Bought sidemount brackets from Planted. These will attach the seat using its sidemount slots to the Wedge floor bracket. There are alot of slots and holes which eases install a bit. They were an Amazon Warehouse Deal for cheap. Corbeau sells some too.

4. The rear bottom mount tabs on the Corbeau stick out way too far and would interfere with the sidemount brackets, and since I'm not using them I cut them off with a sawzall.

5. Getting everything bolted together was a game of Twister. Because I'm tall, the seat sits way back almost touching the rear seat! And because of that its very hard to get to the rear floor bracket mounts. Sliders would help here but I can't run them. You have to figure out the correct order to bolt everything together. If your seat sits more forward, you'll have less issues than I did. But in the end, the bottom most part of the seat is super close to the floor, I can barely get a finger under it.

I wish I had taken pics. I can try to get some pics of the seat in the car. The Corbeau works ok but is very flexy in the shoulder area due to its composite structure. They aren't made very well, they creak, and Corbeau is lazy about molding the sidemount holes in the correct positions. OMP makes a budget wide seat out of tubular steel which should be stiffer, the TRS-E XL. I might try that in the future. I imagine it should be better quality. Also I will try to add some links later when I get to my PC. I'm on my phone right now.