K swap to my 87 Hachback

[Hachishichi]

I wanted a place to journal about this project in its entirety and i was directed to this forum here so, here we go.

History: I bought a 1987 Accord Hatch in Utah for $400 back in 2023, owner bought it from auction and it basically just sat since 2016 in his yard, according to him he never even touched it beforehand.
Pics should be attached, i dont know how this works.

It had 298K miles on the dash. a few dents here and there, but overall really nice. i threw a battery in, fresh oil/coolant and plugs, and she ran like a dream for the next 2 years, then finally...

Disaster struck

Cylinder 3 let itsself go during a road trip a few hours away from home, happened outta nowhere, was stranded but thankfully i had Triple A, they got me and the Accord Home safe n sound, but i was pretty heartbroken. she was my daily. i didnt wanna see her sit and rot. I had to do something.

Current day: the car sits next to one of my other old cars, a 77 trans AM (thats a project for me and my future kid to dig into when that time comes so its not being messed with) but some hoodlums thought it would be funny to dump paint stripper/aircraft paint remover and scrape up the body, so she's a bit mess. never found out who did it but it only hit me harder seeing it look so discolored and beat up.

Under the Hood: I decided ill try to clean it up the best i could, i dont know anything about body work but ive messed with mechanics for 7+ years now. i got to work on pulling out the motor and transmission, and at this moment the engine bay is nearly completely empty, the brake booster is still there but it was going out anyway from what i could recall. once i remove that, the engine bay will be completely empty.

The Interior: So, along with clearing the entire engine bay, i went ahead and wanted to redo the entirety of the interior, the headliner was drooping down and torn in some spots, the Carpets had rips and tears, unfortunately so did the driver seat and for whatever reason i could NOT get the damn stains out of anything no matter what i used. so i removed all the carpet, seats, and plastic bits, all thats left is a portion of the dash and the wiring thats connected to it and then the car is basically completely stripped.

My Current plan:While i await on the seats and custom carpet/headliner and the new dash i bought from another 3rd gen owner, i wanted to pick out a new heart for the beast, i read around the forum for a handful of hours looking through everyones swap choices and ideas that were thrown into the pit.
Where i live, B series motors are hard to come by and people want way too much for them with Uber high miles and or nearing their lifespans end. D series? while yes its a more widely available option, i wanted something more recent and easy to snag parts for. F and H series for me are outta the question, cant find them anywhere in a 100 Mile radius, and i dont really trust Ebay. J series? i read up on someone who managed to fit one in a crx but thats about it. and i preferred to keep my i4 layout. so i settled on the k series, i dont see alot of actual builds of the 3rd gens with K swaps, just alot of threads about wanting to do it or doing it then they disappear after one thread.

I looked around my area and found 2 donor cars, an 07 Acura TSX and an 06 Accord Coupe, both with a K series under the hood:
The TSX having the K24A2 and the accord having the K20A8 from what i could tell.
Anyway, i bought both of them for $600 together, they both had body damage and such, owner claimed they didnt run and drive, but he also mentioned they were both his cars. i got them home and threw a battery and gas in them, and both roared to life with not even a check engine light. trans shifted into all gears. (they're automatic)

Ill be grabbing a truck tomorrow to go and pick up both cars and bring them back home to the garage to start ripping the hearts out, ill have pictures included when i grab them if anyones interested.

Notes

If anyone has any knowledge they would like to bestow or toss my way about the identicality of these chassis to any other. or really anything, im sure itll be helpful. if there are also any questions that youd like to ask off the site, ill have my Discord here.
Discord Username: nytroc1rcus

[Vmonroy]

I’m looking to k swap my accord and give not found much help how is it going for you

[Jinnai]

I don't think you can reasonably expect to find a lot of pre-existing data about swapping a K engine into a 1987 Honda Accord. But, you can't go wrong with trying, it's a great engine with a lot of support for it's upgrades and maintenance. You already know the basics of engine swapping... have to figure out engine management, custom mounting adapters, and custom axles. For the brackets, it would help a lot to know some basic CAD - Fusion 360 is a free CAD program I use - and then you could use SendCutSend.com to create the parts you made in CAD.

[ShiRen]

There isn't much info, but it has been done. Stat1k was just talking about his in the foundation section. He had a shop do it though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2ho_W9dyEY
An engine swap isn't rocket science, but it will not be cheap for you.

[stat1K]

There isn't much info, but it has been done. Stat1k was just talking about his in the foundation section. He had a shop do it though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2ho_W9dyEY
An engine swap isn't rocket science, but it will not be cheap for you.

It wasn't exactly done by a shop but by my buddies who used to run a shop lol. so if you watch the video linked, sorry for the upload quality btw, they go over some of the details and what parts they used.

the hardest part of this swap was the wiring but bryant is kind of a specialist here as he makes custom race harnesses and swap harnesses for some of the locals here in AZ.
the second hardest part were the brackets for the mounts. i have plans on scanning these with my 3d scanner at some point. Brackets change based on engines and what's in mine is a jdm k24a (same as the tsx). the engine is pretty tall so it hangs down pretty far but i've yet to hit it on anything and my driveway is pretty steep. it might give someone who has never had a lower car some anxiety but i'm used to that from all my shitboxes over the years.
the third hardest and maybe as hard as the brackets is a custom front track bar to replace the front crossmember. this was a necessity and what bryant did was extend an EF traction bar and it worked out pretty well.

the transmission changes what shift cables you need, my transmission is a euro type-r non-lsd trans.
the shifter box changes what you have to do in and under the car, my car has a box underneath in the previous channel under the shifter and it's mounted to the body with a custom little sheet metal box that we body sealed in to keep fumes out. i went with this to keep the inside of the car looking mostly stock. but you could use a shifter box that's non-oem and it wouldn't be too bad.

the header on this is a k-series swap header for the EF and clears the rear crossmember just fine.
the mounts are ek k-series mounts with custom brackets
the motor like i said before is the k24a but has a skunk2 replica intake manifold, rsx type-s oil pump and a 50* vtc
management is the ktuner (bryant and jesse work for ktuner so i lucked out here)
my favorite part and the absolute necessity was the retention of AC and again this was all custom lines made by bryant

[ShiRen]

Axles?

[stat1K]

94-01 integra axles reversed with the outers being the accords