H22a swap Tidbits

[asmallsol]

Since I have ran into a few problems along the way, I would like to make a few notes on here so others can learn from my mistakes.

Exhaust and Manifold issues.
-First, you can not mismatch manifold. The h22a exhaust manifold bolt pattern (where it bolts to the head) is slightly larger. Going along with that, you can not use an H22a top half and a h23a lower half or vice versa. They must match.
-The bolts that hold the manifold to the cat SUCK. I bought a die grinder and tourch and it was the ONLY way to remove them.
-The cat flange on the JDM H22a manifold is slightly larger then the H23a's cat flange. 2 out of the three bolt will line up. What needs to be done is you need to have a machine shop drill the third hole to make it fit perfectly.

Spark plug wires.
-If your like me, you decided to use the h23a harness, so therefor, you must also run the h23 distributor because the harness needs an external coil. So you need new wires. You would think that the h23a wires are what you need since you'll get the dizzy to coil wire. Well you wrong. The h23a sparkplugs are located about an inch or so higher in the head then the h22a. Therefor the sparkplug wires are about an inch or so shorter, and if you try and use them, you won't be able to clip onto the plugs. Don't be like me and waste $50 on some nice NGK wires only to find out you can only use one of the wires.

Throttle cable linkage
-If your doing this swap on an Si model Prelude, and your using your orginal throttle cable, you'll need to flip the cable holder on the intake manifold upside down.

I know there are some other things that I will post to this when I remember them. All I can say, unlike many other people have said, this is NOT the easiest swap you can do for a honda. I have done a swap on a del Sol twice, an auto to manual plus d15something - d16z6 swap on a civic, swap on 2 other civics, and all I can say, all the other ones were done within a few days, this has taken forever.

 

[hillmw]

I also am doing a h23 to h22 swap. I just finished installing this week-end. I noticed the ext manifold-> ext pipe flange difference problem as well.

I guess I'll have to buy a new ext pipe to fit.

I noticed there was no coil! I am at a lost at how to solve this one. I did install the h22 computer as well.

I had understood that the car would run 'out of the box' even though the vtec was not installed.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[reikoshea]

heres the dilly yo.

the car will run like shit with the stock manifold. get some cheap ass ebay manifold and run with that, or if you wanna do it right the first time, you can get a good manifold, but i went the ebay route with few problems (the bolts that came with the exhaust were brass, I stripped one, blew the downpipe gasket, and had a shitty running engine for a while).

As for running the H23 dizzy, its actually a better option because it makes changing to a MSD 6A a lot easier. I wish i woulda thought about that before converting to an internal coil. If you want to run the internal coil dizzy (which has a 96 Accord VTEC dizzy cap, btw) you can just re-wire the distributor, its fairly easy.

Take the yellow/black wire from the coil plug and splice it into the yellow wire on the distributor and your good to go.

Id still suggest keeping the external coil. If you really get into that car, youll probably upgrade the ignition.

 

[hillmw]

i have a h22 engine, computer. Maybe I should just get the h22 harness!

 

[reikoshea]

its easier and MUCH cheaper to use the h23 harness.

 

[asmallsol]

As for the manifold, I ended up going to a machine shop and had them drill the hole for me (I don't have a good enough drill do do that).

JDM Exhaust doughnut gaskets DO fit. I was wondering if they would since sometimes the JDM manifolds are slightly bigger but it wasn't the case here.

And as Reikoshea said, run with the p14 harness with the external coil if you have access to them (off your old h23) and it will make life alot eaiser. All you have to do is run a wire for the VTEC solenoid, one for the VTEC oil pessure signal, and one for that ground (just spice it into another black wire)

 

[hillmw]

well i'm kinda bummed about all that.

I have the h23 coil, but the h22 distributor does not have a plug in the middle of the distributor for it so Ill also have to use the h23 dist too I guess. Where do I mount the coil?

where do I get the JDM doughnuts?

 

[reikoshea]

you can mount the coil wherever you want. when i was running the h23 coil i had it ziptied to some wires.

 

[asmallsol]

well i'm kinda bummed about all that.

I have the h23 coil, but the h22 distributor does not have a plug in the middle of the distributor for it so Ill also have to use the h23 dist too I guess. Where do I mount the coil?

where do I get the JDM doughnuts?

Opps, I said that wrong. What I ment to say is if you have a JDM exhaust manifold, the USDM doughnut gaskets fit.

you can mount the coil wherever you want. when i was running the h23 coil i had it ziptied to some wires.

If you have the orginal bracket from the H23 for the coil, then remove the Y holder that is on the tranny that holds the raditor hose and mount it there.

 

[hondarin]

as far as the header issue goes, i used a vise, a drill and a rat-tail file. i used a paper plate and a ballpin hammer to make a template of the old exhaust. if you have a GOOD rat-tail file, you should be able to make the template, and get the hole(s) elongated in a couple hours with alotta elbow grease.

 

[asmallsol]

alright, should be the last little trick that I have found in this thread.

I decided to keep AC (althouth it doesn't work right now ) but since I kept that, I realized that the crank pulley has another rib on it for the AC and alternator, so I would either be running too thick of a belt if I used the h22 belt with all h23 accessories, or too thin if I used the h23 belt, so I decided to use the H23 crank pulley. Worked fine, at least I thought.

What I realized was that since the h23 pulley has on less rib on the ac ring, it moved the power steering ring in maybe 3mm's or so. This is a problem because it make the belt kinda bend. This will defently wear the belt out faster, and could possiblly cuase a failure in either the crank pulley and or PS pump. In addition, at higher RPM's (like 3-4k ish, or highway cruising speeds) it will cause a HORRIBLE vibration in the belt.

The solution is you need to run the h23 PS bracket, however, this is also the problem. On the h23 bracket, there is a large chunk of metal that spans from the lower bolt to the top corner bolt (one closest to the tranny side). The head on the h23 has a few very large casting mark that allow this chunk of metal to fit in there. So you must shave the hell out of it. I did most of it with a hack saw (the metal is pretty soft so it isn't hard to cut through) and finished up with a bench grinder. Next fitment issue is right on the bottom of the bracket. The corner of the bracket that touches the block and alternator bracket is slightly thicker then the h22 version, so you must also cut this corner off. Test fit multiple times and make sure that all 3 mounting holes sit flush.


Next (this was solve a while ago, but I am adding it now) If your doing an h23->h22 swap on a prelude, the EGR vacume lines are very easy to mix up. There are 2 lines that are right next to each other on the driver side strut tower. Make sure you get them in the right place, otherwise it will cause HORRIBLE idle and drivibilty issues. If your using OEM vacume lines, there are little numbers printed on the lines. Once you locate them, just use a helms to find out where that number goes.