When I bought it 3 years ago I didn’t know a lot about cars, but I did want to learn so badly and I really loved this prelude.  I am lucky enough to have people around me who were willing to teach me and had tremendous amounts of mechanical knowledge.

So after 3 years, probably $10,000 in improvements and hundreds of hours of labor, I’ve finally reached a point where I am ready to move on and let go of the dream of my Prelude.

Two years ago we completely rebuilt the motor because compression was poor and I just wanted to rebuild a motor.

Head work was completed at Jim’s Cylinder Head in Buffalo, NY.

Cylinders honed, new Hastings rings

New timing belt and tensioner

Oil pump overhauled

All seals changed (crankshaft, intermediate shafts, cam, oil pan, valve cover)

New exhaust gasket, new intake manifold gasket, head gasket (obviously)

Valve clearance adjusted, new spark plugs installed

From there I broke the motor in and changed the oil about 3 times in the first 500 miles.  Afterwards compression was perfect and she ran perfectly, like a new motor.  The idle is perfect and my dad loves to wax philosophic about how supremely smooth that h23 is.

Later that same summer I decided to go after the grinds I had in the transmission.  So the transmission was rebuilt that same year.  That was the hardest, most challenging thing I’d ever tried, and I’m pretty proud with how successful we were.

It was far more expensive than it should have been, but after replacing the entire third and first gear sets, the transmission came back together and is now perfect.  It’s probably what I’m proudest of on this car.

At one point the car was stolen.  When I recovered it I was so freaked out by losing her that I decided to install an alarm.  I did a bunch of research and I learned some disturbing things about how alarms generally work and how easily a thief can defeat a standard ‘Best Buy’ alarm install.  So I stripped the interior down to just the bare metal floor and did a stealth alarm install.  It would cost about a $1500 to have a professional do an install like mine on any vehicle, separate from the hardware involved.  It took me about 6 weeks of cutting and crimping, testing circuits and laying wires, but after its all said and done, I’d say that any thief good enough to steal this car would never waste his time it.  There is a lot to tell a buyer about this alarm, but not until I was sure that I was talking to the new father.

Premium sound is the ticket, so you’d be rocking my pretty JVC headunit with all four new infinity reference speakers installed behind factory grilles to keep the profile low.  I even have the JDM factory subwoofer that sits in the middle of the back seats.  I had some issues getting a new driver for it so its not hooked up, although it is wired up and ready, the car also has a heavy guage fused power feed routed to the trunk in case someone wanted to add subwoofers.

The car was painted last summer 1973 Ford Mustang Ginger Brown.  I loved the color and style.  I thought a red sorta sports car was so cheesy, but a brown sorta sports car was classic.  The paint isn’t perfect, and I’m not really thrilled with a lots a little places where its no longer shiny and perfect, but I love how it looks from a few feet away.  There is little dent on the hood from where someone backed into me parked, and some scratches on the side where I embarrassingly touched a parking sign during a U turn.  The car has NO RUST whatsoever.  At all.  It’s never seen a winter.

I dropped the car two inches onto Skunk2 lowering spring, with Koni Yellows as the corresponding dampers.  The alignment was done afterwards at a Sears Auto here in Buffalo.  I found some really classic white Volks 16 inches rims in California on an old Nissan Silva, then new Fuzion tires on these rims about a year and a half ago.  The car is super fun to drive and turns better than any other car I’ve ever been in.  I’ll miss taking exit ramps at 70mph.

I did a lot of other work along the way, a lot of work that has to be done on an older car once, but then afterwards will not have to be worried about for a long time.

So the list of unglorious work done on the car is:

A new Radiator, coolant changed and system flushed

New coolant hoses

New Battery, new fuel filter

All new brake calipers, new rotors and pads, brake lines flushed and fluid completely swapped.  (this was pricy)

New distributor, plug wires and ignition control module

Cold Air Intake

New stock exhaust from a used rust free car in California, most the exhaust pipe is brand new through autohaus.com.

New O2 sensor, and a new knock sensor.

New belts on powersteering pump, alternator.  Power Steering fluid has been changed.

Three ball joints replaced in the past two years, new tie rods.

New ball joint boots, and one CV Junction rebuilt.  Every boot is intact, the underside is super clean, no oil no leaky coolant, at all.

An oil catch can has been installed.

All new exhaust hangers

I guess I should say here that I spent a lot of energy De-Ricing this car.  As in when I got it was filled with cheesy mods that ruined the car.  Like all the interior trim painted red, and the loudest exhaust in the world.  I replaced a lot of things and choose to return to stock in almost all cases.  De-Rice-ification is every Honda lover’s duty.

The one lingering issue is that the car burns oil.  It runs perfectly but a quart of oils goes missing about every 250 miles.  The good news is that most of the evidence (blue smoke on serious engine braking, none at idle) suggests a valve seal issue.  This is good news because it could be done without taking the head off the car, and for not much cash (I think all the seals would only be about $40 from the dealer).  Of course you don’t have to do anything about this oil issue at all.  It’ll run forever just the way it is, just keep checking and adding a quart about every 250 miles. 

Why haven’t I changed the valve seals?  Because the game is over for me, I used to love working on this car intensely, and most of things I did only because I thought I’d have this car forever.  But things change and I no longer want a car inappropriate for snowstorms, (I’ve got a winter car too) and I recently got into motorcycles.  So I’m trading my prelude for a sportbike.  I already bought the sportbike, so I guess its time to let go of the Prelude.

I know this car is priced above the rest on the market, but I think its also a steal if you look how much mechanical value you get.  Its not really a 17 year old car anymore, and the motor is obviously not older than 15k.  So its like part older car and part brand new car.   I guess I’m looking for a buyer who loves the style and knows a bit about how valuable the bulk of the work I’ve done is.  Because what you get is a car that you can drive and not worry about for years and years to come.  That’s worth a lot more than I’m asking.