90 Accord swap

[peterlhaughton]

Group,

This is my first post here. A student at the local tech school has aquired the powertrain from a '97 5 speed Accord and the engine is an F22B1. He has removed the blown engine form his 90 Accord as well as the trans. He has brought both units to me on pallets along with the PCM and harness and pedal assemblies. I sent him back after the clucth master cylinder and piping. i told himm to get a couple of axles, too. The Honda tech and I began to research this swap and have way too many questions and not enough answers . We told him to get an Integra engine, but he said it cost too much . I told him that he could better spend his money this way than with us at more than 1 clam per minute, but he insisted and brought us a bunch of parts any way. Is ther any economically feasible way to perform this swap

Regards,

Peter

 

[AHHVTEC]

are you talking about putting a 4 banger 97 accord motor into a 90 modle ?

 

[BrutalB83]

Okay, I'm trying to make sense of your post here...

Basically what I gather is you've got a guy with 90 auto-tranny Accord, and he wants to swap in the motor and 5-speed tranny from a 97 Accord?? You didn't say whether you were doing an auto-to-manual conversion or not, but I'm going to assume you are since you're gathering the parts for it.

With that assumption, here's the breakdown:

Don't even think about attempting the Integra swap. The Integras use B-series motors, which are completely different from the Accord's F-series. You would have to fab custom mounts to do the swap, and that would be a lot of work for what you'd be getting. The Integra's B18C is a great motor for that particular car, but you've got to understand that the Integra is smaller and lighter than an Accord. Even the crappiest of Accord motors are going to have more torque than the Integra's B18, and the heavier Accord chassis needs that extra torque to get it moving. When doing motor swaps in Accords you're going to want to stick to F or H-series (Prelude) motors. The newer K-series is also possible, but if your guy can't afford a B18 Integra motor, then he definately can't afford a K20/24.

Now, here's the good news. The F22B1 motor should bolt right up to the 90 Accord chassis. You shouldn't need custom mounts or anything like that. It should also bolt up to the auto-tranny that's already in the car if you want to go that route with it. The F22B1 is a VTEC motor where as the F22A that's already in the 90 Accord is not, so you will need the new motor's ECU and the addition of some wiring in order to make VTEC work correctly.

Now, as far as the tranny swap goes, it's pretty much gonna be a pain in the ass. It is quite doable; people do it all the time, but it's not the easiest thing or funnest thing to do. You're on the right track with the pedal assembly and master cylinder, but you've still got a lot of parts to collect before you can even consider starting the swap. You'll also need the slave cylinder, shifter assembly, shift knob/boot, center console piece for a manual transmission car, manual tranny guage cluster (not essential but a good idea), clutch cables, and various bolts, mounts for the tranny, etc. Some of that stuff will probably have to be sourced from a junkyard or Ebay, like the gauge cluster, center console and shift knob/boot pieces, since you won't be able to use the ones from the 97 Accord, which is a different body style.

Once you're actually to the point where you're ready to do the swap, do some searching on the web. There are plenty of write-ups available, some with pictures even, that can help you through the process.

Like I said though, that motor should bolt right up to the existing auto-tranny if you want to go that route instead. If you decide to keep the auto, you'll need to source an ECU from an automatic 94-97 VTEC Accord to get the motor running properly.

Hope that helps...and good luck!

 

[peterlhaughton]

This was said in the previous post:

"The F22B1 is a VTEC motor where as the F22A that's already in the 90 Accord is not, so you will need the new motor's ECU and the addition of some wiring in order to make VTEC work correctly."

One of my larger issues is the connectors for the 90 accord PCM (AKA C434, C435, C436) will not plug into the '97 PCM, so it looks like a hybrid harness must be made. I have the entire harness from the '97, but it isn't compatible with the '90 PGMFI relay or fuse box or a ton of other connectors not yet thought of- or more acurately- encountered in sheer frustration! So.. lots of labor hours building a harness must be considered; unless I'm missing something. Getting the '97 manual engine/trans unit into the 90 Accord automatic chasis isn't as time consuming as the harness reconstruction -I think. the knowledge that one missed pin assignment will let the smoke out of a good PCM is also disturbing. I'm just still wondering how long this would take to do it all.

Regards,

Peter