Conozo's Restoration Project

[conozo]

Here it begins, I am now at the restoration process after completing the carb to fi and auto to manual swap. Its time to end that thread and start a new.

A little background. This 1988 accord was purchased by my dad new off the dealer lot when I was 4. I have a lot of memories in this car over the years, first day of school, going out on the town in the fancy car when i was a kid. It was my 2nd car as a driver but was the car i had most of high school and on. My friends and I traveled to a lot of places, had a lot of fun, visited a lot of friends in college. Got married, drove it away from the church then across the country from Indiana to Arizona on our honeymoon. Now the four kids love driving in Daddys Honda. I don't plan on ever getting rid of this car, it will always be a project car that I will spend time with the kids working on it or driving in it.

What it was
1988 White DX 4 door automatic carb car. It once had a weber in it too.

What is it now
1988 White DX 4 car, 5 speed FI car, upgraded FI components include, front brakes, sway bars, brake booster, climate control. SEI rear disk brakes. Pacesetter header, Delta mild cam, rebuilt engine and transmission, H&R springs with Tokio Blues, 4 wheel adjustable camber, 16" Rota Grid Wheels, 200,000 miles on the odometer

What it will be in no particular order
-perfectly running car, smooth as butter
-restored body with white repaint, pinstripe will be put back on
-added body structure to make unibody and frame stronger, all hidden
-OBD1 for the sake of a smoother running engine and a better distributor
-Replace every rubber bushing
-Car will be clean but not pristine, i plan on driving it every few days in the summer and non wet winter days.
-Interior completely stock, i still have the original radio. There will be a mod for an aux input, amp, with good speakers and possibly a small sub.
-custom stainless exhaust that sounds good when you get on it but quiet when cruising
-There will be engine components that i will upgrade with newer parts in order to keep the car slightly modern because improvements have been made over the years and its good to take advantage of them but I will keep the A20 engine as its part of the cars feel.

All of this I will learn to do myself. Learning to weld and really getting into cars tuning is what i want to learn. I have learned so much on this car already and there is so much more to learn. It all started out with me scared to do an oil change years ago and now i am driving a car that has been completely disassembled and rebuilt. Its an amazing feeling.

[Dr_Snooz]

Sounds awesome bro! Can't wait to see your progress.

[Shane86]

Great story you'll learn a lot going through the OBD1 conversion.

[rushell]

outstanding i will also keep mine forever

[thegreatdane]

... -OBD1 for the sake of a smoother running engine ...

Be warned that OBD1 is likely to cause the opposite. Not due to being OBD1, but due to the fact that no factory engine maps which can be transformed to OBD1 are available for the 3g engines. Achieving factory-like driveability throughout all possible conditions (including e.g. air temp, ambient air pressure, coolant temp, gear, ps/ac/alt load) is a very time consuming task when you start from scratch. OBD1 is fine to maximize performance at specific conditions on a dyno, but people tend to leave it at that. All other conditions conditions are difficult to keep constant during tuning, and therefore is left to guesswork. For example the warming up of the engine is a major challenge to tune, as you have only one or two windows of opportunity to tune. Then you have to cool down and start over again. If it's not done properly it's one of the things that has a large impact on how the car feels to drive.

If you only want max torque at normal operating conditions OBD1 could be for you. If you want factory-like driveability you're looking at a lot of tinkering to get things right. I would guess that no 3geezer so far has been succesful in making a solid OBD1 mapping that is as good or better than the stock feel of driveability.

Best of luck in your restoration and kudos for taking care of a little piece of family heritage.

[Shane86]

If you do convert OBD1 I recommend getting a fully tunable ECU