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I’m looking to build and boost my 89 accord it has a a20a3 engine and I have no clue what to be looking for bc everything I find on these engines is either super duper hard to find or just doesn’t exist I wanna make it a sleeper build with this stock engine because I don’t have the money time or skill for a engine swap
Reading that last line...keep it stock. Honestly, you need money for a lot more than just an engine swap with a car this old - it's a labor of love.
If you want to turbo it, just do exactly that. There aren't parts made for the motor for the most part, so don't bother building, and everything will be custom. Head studs are probably necessary though. And you can swap to OBD1 for tuning I think... You can look around the forums for info on that stuff.
Yeah, the a20a3 is really hard to make power out of, and aftermarket parts are not only stupid hard to find but also non existent in my places. If you want to turbo it, you're going to want to swap to obd1, then head studs, and engine rebuild if youre high mileage. Unless you find a mosslemann manifold, you'll need a custom made turbo manifold, which might be a better option than those log style ones anyway. You CAN throw in certain mixes of b18 forged internals if you really want too, but that wont be needed unless youre pushing high boost. Unlike 90's hondas, you can't just bolt a turbo kit on, it'll have to be custom and possibly ALOT more work than swapping in a b series, which has been done many times and documented many times also. If you want to make power out of your accord, b series is youre best option.
I definitely wouldn't say it's hard to make power out of lol. The fuel injection holds it back, yes, it's rudimentary, but OBD1 fixes that. You can get the cam reground for a good bit of power. You can get more spark out of the ignition the same way as any old hot rod. Those things go along way. Those kind of mods will put you just south of 150hp, which is nothing to sneeze at in a little old car. If one is insistent on building you can get 180ish with b18 internals, I have a whole writeup about that with all the part numbers you could ever want, just order away. The thing that is holding me back from all that, besides the cost, is the cylinder pressures from a high compression ratio and the knock resistance of a stock 3 valve head, both of which are unknown, so I'm wary of bumping up to 11:1 or 12:1 compression and I don't really want knock city, busted ring lands, or valves with holes.
Turbo however, should be fine as long as you aren't high boost at low rpm, obviously, should take something like 20psi before you push the head gasket out. And no, a turbo is probably not that hard to install if you can weld exhaust, use the stock exhaust manifold and mount the turbo on the trans side. If you want to start splitting hairs to go really fast there is plenty of ways you can make it a lot harder, like swapping the engine.
Yeah of course I just mean if bro wants to make a "sleeper build" (usually that means YouTube 300-500hp turbo eBay kit with as little mods as possible and whatnot) you're gonna need to do a lot of work to make that kind of power, if you wanna race anyone or catch them off guard (usually thats the point of a "sleeper build" throwing in a built b series is your best bet. If not then just build the a series how rjugdey did it na if you don't want to do all the custom turbo work
Bold of you to assume it will get 300-500hp to the ground without a lot of other modification.
you know what I mean dude
