New 3rd Gen Owners

Hi All!
My son a couple months ago decided he'd "like to do a project car". A couple weeks ago we found it. Super straight, rust free theAccord LX with 385,000 miles on it.

Dad its awesome, super cheap, and the best part... Pop up headlights.

I'm sure we're going to ask some really dumb, newbie questions. We'll try to keep them to a minimum. That said, here comes the first one. It's running rough, compression tested it 100, 60, 80, 70. I wasn't surprised and we wanted to put a motor in it anyways. I've found a few in our area with "low miles" 105k-120k. Since we're swapping motors anyways should we be looking for fuel injected motors? Is there any benefit?

Congrats....don't give up on it.

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Originally Posted by Outfishin7

Hi All!
My son a couple months ago decided he'd "like to do a project car". A couple weeks ago we found it. Super straight, rust free theAccord LX with 385,000 miles on it.

Dad its awesome, super cheap, and the best part... Pop up headlights.

I'm sure we're going to ask some really dumb, newbie questions. We'll try to keep them to a minimum. That said, here comes the first one. It's running rough, compression tested it 100, 60, 80, 70. I wasn't surprised and we wanted to put a motor in it anyways. I've found a few in our area with "low miles" 105k-120k. Since we're swapping motors anyways should we be looking for fuel injected motors? Is there any benefit?

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Hello and welcome to the forums.

I would look for a complete fuel injected motor they IMHO work better stock. They do have a slight bump in power due to compression and cam.

Nothing wrong with a carb motor if the carb works but most of the stock ones do not after all these years and people tinkering with them.

On the cheap I would figure out why you lost compression and possibly just change the head gasket.

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Originally Posted by Oldblueaccord

I would look for a complete fuel injected motor they IMHO work better stock. They do have a slight bump in power due to compression and cam.

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Them are fightin words Oldblue lol

No but seriously, the whole vacuum system on the carb cars is bad and any attempt to fix it over the last 35 years has probably introduced a lot of jank. I would suggest just ripping it all out in place of a Weber carb if you don't live in California.

I would also say with confidence that the power difference between the fi engine and the carb engine lies in that vacuum system because even with the stock carb and no vacuum it ressurects some of the ponies that had been turned into the glue that held the vacuum system together. Cams and compression are quite minimal differences.

Welcome Outfishin, family project will be fun!

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Originally Posted by ShiRen

Them are fightin words Oldblue lol

No but seriously, the whole vacuum system on the carb cars is bad and any attempt to fix it over the last 35 years has probably introduced a lot of jank. I would suggest just ripping it all out in place of a Weber carb if you don't live in California.

I would also say with confidence that the power difference between the fi engine and the carb engine lies in that vacuum system because even with the stock carb and no vacuum it ressurects some of the ponies that had been turned into the glue that held the vacuum system together. Cams and compression are quite minimal differences.

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Well must have been carburetor mental block I didnt realize he had a carbed car....IM SLIPPING!

I see lx and think lxi pretty often lol, or vice versa. Makes me glad to have the pov spec car

Edit. He should really be able to get any a20 to put in there though. Get a fuel injected motor and get the bigger cams and more compression, but if the fuel injection swap is too much work, put the carby manifold on it with a Weber on top. Don't find a fuel injected motor, carb one works just fine

385k is a lot, if it runs at all I'd be rebuilding the engine it has. I like the fuel injected version, I use it myself.