My brother's prelude = dead, what can I take?

[87DXHatch]

Well, my brother has been having some problems with his '85 Prelude lately... like it sputtering a lot while it runs. He took it to our mechanic and he found that oil was leaking through the distributor! He said the distributor needs to be replaced and that is a $450 part, and the car is not worth that much.

Anyway, I told my brother I would buy the car from him for like $200 as a parts car/car I can experiment on.

The main purpose of this thread is for you guys to help me figure out what I could take off of his car and put on mine.

My ideas:
The big one, his transmission. Mine's gonna go in the next 1-3 years and his is in PERFECT condition. Not to mention sportier ratios...

Seats. His seats actually provide lower back support so I am going to TRY to sway those out of his and into mine. Any suggestions/tips on doing this would be appreciated. They are torn a little so I think I would re-upholster them Toastyghost-style...

Those are the only two I KNOW I am going to do... after that the possiblities are endless...

Take his nice nice bumpers, front and back, and put them on mine... would this work?

Take his differently styled lights and put them on mine...

What else? Any and all suggestions welcome...

Thanks :flash:

[PhydeauX]

Distributor, junkyard, around $15, problem solved. Its really easy to change too. Any distributor will work from a later 2g accord (with the 12v motor except the se-i), a carbed 2g prelude, or a carbed 3g accord. The prelude distributor is most desirable because it has the largest amount of centrifical advance.

If he still doesn't want to save it, (btw its worth more then 450 as long as its in good shape), then the trans is about the only thing you can take from it. The seats wont fit unless you want to get creative. I don't know if any of the body parts will swap either.

andy

[87DXHatch]

Uh, believe me, it isn't worth $450. Huge cracks in windshield, rust all over, 183k miles... but it still runs, or did.

I know I would have to get creative with the seats. Didn't someone on here put Prelude seats in their accord? Wouldn't it just be undoing the rails on the bottom of my seats and bolting them onto the Prelude seats?

Now my ethical delimma... I guess I will tell him that the distributor won't be that much, provided we/I can find one...

I looked on eBay and all I found was an 82-84 distributor and head that looked like it was in crap shape and an 86 Preluse Si distributor. That Si wouldn't work because it is FI right? My brother's Prelude is the Dual Carb version.

[PhydeauX]

It will work, but I dont think it will fit. Interfenence problems with the t-stat houseing. The fi has another pickup in it for the computer makeing the distributor much larger. Junk yard is the best place for one.

andy

[damackz]

upper control arms ;) if u lower ur car more then 2' u will need a camber kit and instead u can put the prelude upper arms that way u can adjust the camber

[87accordlxi]

fuckin ehh, just buy the car for 200 and put the distributor in from a junkyard.

[87DXHatch]

Oh hell yeah, damacks! I totally forgot about the Control arms!!! YEAH!!!!!

[YK86]

I have the Lude seats. I made brackets to make them fit though. They are no where near close to fitting with the original rails.

[87DXHatch]

What do you mean by brackets? What I mean to try to do is remove the rails from the Accord seats and the Prelude seats, the bottom rails (Like the ones on the undersides of the seats, not the ones bolted to the floor) and then put the Accord rails on the Prelude seats to make the Prelude seats fit on the bottom rail-things. Does this sound feasible or ludicrous? Any tips on making brackets and do you have to weld?

[PhydeauX]

I thought you had gen3 lude seats yk, this one is a gen2. The rails are totaly diferent and mount to the seat in a completely diferent way.

andy

[87DXHatch]

If my above idea won't work, could some one give me some ideas then? I can't weld but I might be able to have a shop or a friend do welding if some needed to be done...

[89BlackH-Back]

hey im not too educated on trannys but why is it a big thing to get a prelude tranny, does it add torque or something?

[87DXHatch]

The Prelude tranny has sport-performance gear ratios so it accelerates faster. But the bad thing about this is when you are cruising at high speeds, the RPMS are going to be higher than on the Accord. The "Big Thing" about it to ME is that my transmission is in poor condition and when it goes it would be nice to have another tranny around.

[YK86]

I have 87 Prelude SI seats. They do look like the newer 3rd gen ones (cloth and patterns) but I assume the SI's got some nicer seats than the base. The 87 base seats looked cheap compared to the ones I got. I'll try to find a pic of the brackets I made. They basically bolt onto the seat rails and then have another hole that lines up to the stock mounting position so it's totally safe.

[PhydeauX]

I could have sworn that you had 3rd gen prelude seats, but I guess not. The 3rd gen lude has rails like the 3g accord with the back inside bolting to the tunnen instead of the floor. Both the base and the si lude had the 2 tone cloth seats with the pattern in the center, I think the si had lumbar on the drives side though.

andy