2nd Gen Accord SEI B20A Swap

[phrenology]

Nice well done don't see that everyday!!
Looks like he allready had a A20 conversion in the car before doing the B20A swap, All he needs now is some ITB's or Turbo then he'll be motoring!! Strange the A20 axle fitted? Would have thought the lengths and splines were different, especailly as the 2G accord shafts were different to the 3G A20 ones as well? another mystery looks like Honda were a little more generic than we thought!!

Naw I asked him, he went right from the stock carbed ES2 to JDM B20. He had to make custom return fuel lines for the EFI. He used the ECU from a 3G Prelude. He had to make custom fit shafts too. Its not a direct drop in except for the mounts and he had to modify the tranny mount. Trust me if I had access to a JDM B20 and more time I would do the work to make it happen in my 84 hatch, knowing that you don't need custom motor mounts. But the EFI conversion is really a pain when you are using a car that never had a factory EFI option (except the 85 Se-i). But I agree ITBs or Weber(esque) carbs would really bring out the beast in a NA JDM B20.

[rjudgey]

Hmm, strange would have thought putting a A20A1 inlet manifold and Weber 38/38 would have been a lot less stressfull, or even two DCOE's on a modified B16 inlet manifold. But hey it works glad he's good with electrics i hate FI and electrics in cars!! I just love the thought of a 2G lude 20+ years old with a 2.0litre DOHC 16 valve with 200bhp potential could upset quite a few peeps!! Whats the suspension setup on these 2G hatches? Torsion bars or independent wishbones?

[88eyeguy]

super clean, man! Mad props on the swap. My only suggestion: TURBO! just look at all that space begging to be used.

[phrenology]

Hmm, strange would have thought putting a A20A1 inlet manifold and Weber 38/38 would have been a lot less stressfull, or even two DCOE's on a modified B16 inlet manifold. But hey it works glad he's good with electrics i hate FI and electrics in cars!! I just love the thought of a 2G lude 20+ years old with a 2.0litre DOHC 16 valve with 200bhp potential could upset quite a few peeps!! Whats the suspension setup on these 2G hatches? Torsion bars or independent wishbones?

Yeah I asked him about his FI setup. I would have rather seen a nice pair of DCOEs and I think it would be a total bitch to rewire and run new fuel lines/pumps/sensors for the FI but more power to him. That's the only B20A FI 2G Accord that I know of. When I finish my car I should take it down to the Domincan Republic and race him, LOL! I dunno with a head from rjudgey and a set of those motorcycle carbs I might be able to take him! I t would be a battle of the 2G hatches!

On 2G hatches we have independent front Mcpherson struts but unlike 3Gs and ludes we have no upper control arm or camber adjustment which makes suspension mods difficult. The front two "forks" swivel within the top cups on bearings and on a ball pin in the lower control arm. In the rear the 2G Sedans and non LX hatches had a primitive rear independent suspension. The LX hatcbacks have wishbone in the rear with struts and springs and we also have rear stabilizer bars. I have already modded mine with Koni adjustables at all four corners, haven't set em' yet.

The thing I could not understand with early Acuras was that first Gen Tegs had a solid rear axel. Why would they do that when they went through the effort of making the Teg a new "Sport Compact" when they already had the better suspensions in the Accords and Ludes. The tegs even had rear discs but solid rear axel, IMO that's weak! My bad...upon closer inspection at the junkyard I realized that the "solid axel" is a long round suspnsion arm with two diagonally opposed mount points, they were on a couple of CRXs too. Still kind of strange why the didn't use two independent "wishbone" type arms for each wheel? Anyone have any clue???

[Honda3G]

LOL!!!!!
iam alredy put and weber 40 dcoe on the old a20 carb custom manifold and then changed because i dont have the rigth setting (jets) to make the engine rev up to 4000, then i buy it a MIKUNI PPH 44mm thats rocks but i feel it need more power to defeat a D15 vtec soch or b16 vtec doch... with a old 2g accord of 22 or more years old thats feel nice...

rjudgey

well yes i just use the arms and change the spines and the cup in the tranny side...and make a ruber (booshin or bushin my eng sucks...) to fill the space inside, but thats change. i am planing to use the half shaf and the short axle
on the driver side.

OK here it comes some trick on the engine alredy,, new custome adj cam gear, new cool inlet, Headers 4.2.1, and the field SFC-Hyper-R ,dyno [email protected] rpm 133 [email protected] i know more tuning but the dyno its to expensive, on the track radial tire 15.69, 15.45 (u know the radial donst like the bite.... )with slick tire 14.97, 14.88 1/4 mile.

[rjudgey]

nice got any pics of engine, good power figures but you still got a lot more potential than that!! My Next engine project is going to be pushing easily on the other side of 220bhp aiming to achieve 250bhp which is think is easily doable with JE High CR ratio pistons and some big bike carbs. Got a ET1 allready pusing around 200bhp with stock valve sizes, stock Low CR ratio pistons, and stock chast manifold, but has extensive head work and a custom twin Weber inlet manifold with extra short runners. Very nice powerband pulls from 3500-7.5K but low end is still very very good cam is only mild 272 degree with 10mm lift all round.

[Civvy]

No way! cool man. I put your old engine in the shape before that!(not the one with 4 healmps) dont know if you got it in the u.s. was on an 1982 used to have the old 8valve untill i put in the 12 valve. everything had to be remounted custom shafts an all. Which confuses me why you guys call the site the 3g because to me my car was the 2g this one is the 3g and the site should be 4g's!
I've had my share of "yes they will fit" LOL

[phrenology]

No way! cool man. I put your old engine in the shape before that!(not the one with 4 healmps) dont know if you got it in the u.s. was on an 1982 used to have the old 8valve untill i put in the 12 valve. everything had to be remounted custom shafts an all. Which confuses me why you guys call the site the 3g because to me my car was the 2g this one is the 3g and the site should be 4g's!
I've had my share of "yes they will fit" LOL

Huh??? I don't mean to be rude but the only thing I understand is that you think 82-83 Accords should be regarded as their own generation making 84-85s 3Gs and 86-89s 4Gs. The 82-83 in the US and Canada did have a slightly different body and one piece bumpers. Some even had a 1.6 CVCC too, but they were still 2Gs. The 84-85 was the new and improved Accord which was the stopgap until they reached the vastly improved 3Gs.

I'm finding a bit more about the detailed Accord history between 2G and 3Gs with my build. Its strange we bought 85 Se-i shafts thinking they were a combo shaft with 85 Accord outboard splines and 86-89 inboards because the 85 service manual showed the Se-is as having larger splines at least on the transmission side. What we discovered is that 85 Se-i shafts are 2G Accord lengths with 86-89 splines at both ends! This means that honda either made special limited edition castings of Se-i front hubs or they had special bearings that accepted 86-89 splines, or they packed 86-89 bearings in the housing. So all in all 85 Se-i shafts do not make for a quick "drop in" solution when swaping an A20 into your 2G. I dunno if there is any interest in more A20 swaps in 2Gs but someone might want to tag this???

[Civvy]

Dont want to annoy anybody, just saying i think it was confusing when i was new to the board. I spoke to someone else about it and they said it was because there was little difference between them but there was.
They had different headlights, different rear lights (i also custom fit with tinsnips the rear lamps from your shape onto mine) ....another example of the chassis being different.
I remeber the outer c.v's bieng different too.
And of course....they had different engines.
diffent dash/interior
see what i mean?
If most people think they were too disimilar. compare the 2g & 3g preludes! how close
they were.... The Limited B20 in the 2g was a prototype for the 3g and the 4WS was tested on the 2g for the 3g. Thats a closer comparison?
Sorry dude, didnt mean to upset your thread by the way.

[phrenology]

Dont want to annoy anybody, just saying i think it was confusing when i was new to the board. I spoke to someone else about it and they said it was because there was little difference between them but there was.
They had different headlights, different rear lights (i also custom fit with tinsnips the rear lamps from your shape onto mine) ....another example of the chassis being different.
I remeber the outer c.v's bieng different too.
And of course....they had different engines.
diffent dash/interior
see what i mean?
If most people think they were too disimilar. compare the 2g & 3g preludes! how close
they were.... The Limited B20 in the 2g was a prototype for the 3g and the 4WS was tested on the 2g for the 3g. Thats a closer comparison?
Sorry dude, didnt mean to upset your thread by the way.

No offense taken at all. I was just confused about the way you phased the headlight difference and the whole 8 valve thing. I see what you are saying now.

I actually have a quick question for you. Is the hatch size/shape that different on an 82-83 Accord that it wouldn't fit on an 84-85 ?

There were also some subtle differences on the 84-85 hatcbacks versus the 84-85 LX hatcbacks besides a few creature comforts like cruise control, no?

I have one of those original brochures around here somewhere. I remember from the brochure that the Canadian models featured the 1.6L ES2 engine. There are probably some other differences between the North American 2G Accords and UK ones besides RHD, huh?

[Ichiban]

here's some more food for thought....
with my bt-1 swap into my 82 hatch i've found out a few things
-82 and 83 canadian cars had the 8 valve EL 1602 engine
-84 canadian cars had the 1598 cc 12 valve
-82 accords have the same inboard cv joints as 86 twin carb preludes
(i have an 82 and 83 accord, engine and tranny out of the 86 prelude, and i went out and played "matchy part" also the rock auto website lists the same pn for those parts)
-x members are not interchangeable between 82-83 and 84-85 accords. i got the x member from an 85 and found it to be almost 2 inches wider than the 82 piece. i was hoping it would bolt in because that would also make my BT1 engine bolt in
-the hatches are not interchangeable. neither are the hatch support cylinders, as mine are screwed and replacements are no longer available locally, but the ones for the 84-85 still are.
-the prelude tranny and the BT1 engine (same as A20) should bolt together, according to other info on this site (details)

hope this helps

[phrenology]

Yeah you guys up in Canada got kind of a bad deal on the 81-85 Accords. I don't know maybe your emissions standards back then were real hard? But I think the 1.6 CVCC in Canada was rated at 86hp same as the 1.8 CVCC featured in the USDM models if I'm not mistaken.

Talk about pains in the ass. I've sucessfully swaped the A20A3 into my 84 hatchback but haven't started it up yet. When I went to look in the service manual I noticed that the FI model (one and only 2G 85 Se-i) was listed as having larger inboard splines and ring clips. I thought that possibly the Se-i cars had "bastard" shafts with regular 84-85 outboard splines and 86-89 sized inboard splines with 84-85 lengths (the 3G cars are a total of 3 inches wider at the wheels). We went out and bought remanufactured Se-i shafts to test my theory but they had large splines on both ends.

As it turns out (go figure) Honda made special 85 Se-i knuckles, bearings and splines. These have little or nothing to do with 86-89 cars though other than they are the same spline count and diameter. I checked with Honda and there was a special casting for those cars only. It would be nice if we could just use 86-89 steering knuckles but its not possible without major mods to satisfy all of the multilink suspension.

Honda quoted me $150 per steering knuckle for the Se-i plus another $80 for each ball bearing and spline hub. I said F-that either I find me some used Se-i parts or I "bastardize" the shafts with smaller spline cups on the outboard side. Amazingly after digging through the Port Junkyard we found only one wrecked Se-i with perfect knuckles and hubs!!! As far as I know this is the only way to have "3G" sized splines at both ends to take the load of the motor without creating a total headache. Also I believe the 85 Se-i was made exclusively in the US factories. I wanted the sun roof but it would have been a major pain to take out. The seats were trashed and nothing else was worth pulling. 85 Se-is are like ghosts around here.

So now I have an 84 Accord LX with 85 Se-i front arms, 85 Se-i drive shafts, an A20A3 from an 88 Lxi with an A20A1 carb head/manifold from an 86 LX, 5 speed from an 88 Lxi, rear brakes and arms from an 86 Prelude Si, the dash gauges from an 83 LX sedan, seats from an 89 Prelude Si, Front brakes from an 86 LX, wheels from an 88 Teg, Distro and Coil from an 86 LX, Carb from a 74 Pinto! (Holley 5200 32/36 Weber copy) which I'm gonna run until I see what I'm smogging in CA, a radiator from an 81 Datsun truck, various interior items from an 88 Teg and 88 LX, I just got another hatch from an 85 LX, and I'm gonna try and fab 84-85 CRX rear bumper and or tail lights in. Now if that ain't a bastard of an Accord I don't know what is!?!?!?

[Ichiban]

thats a bummer about the spindles and knuckles...funny how the preludes used the 2g cv ends (i'm gonna go check that again now im second guessing myself) up until 86/87 ish. i was looking at that mess of a wiring harness for that pgm fi and soon will have even more questions. also my exhaust has to wrap in front of the engine, over the motor mount, and under the tranny, because my front cross member is about 3 inches closer to the engine than yours is, thus no room for exhaust. all of the 82 car motor mounts except the front one are bolt on to the engine and tranny, but the front it's an easy fab job. the only thing now (other than the rest of the problems above) is that i'm wondering if the pgm fi manifold will physically fit in my engine bay. the test fit with the twin carb engine was "tight", but that was allowing for the air intakes facing rearward. the fi manifold is several inches longer..and my engine bay is shorter than yours. hmmm.....

[Ichiban]

damnit
rock auto changed their website, you can only get the complete cv now
i'll just go outside and test fit it

[Ichiban]

hmmm... turns out the 2g axles and and prelude transmission will have nothing to do with each other, i am not sure what made me think that they would. do you think it is possible to "bastardize" the axles with bigger inboard joints, or are the actual shafts and spline counts different? I think the shafts are probably thicker. other than that...is your transmission specific to the se-i or 3g? would i be able to use se-i shafts, knuckles and front hubs to make this work? what exactly did you swap, cause i'm pretty sure the front suspensions on our cars were the same at one point.

[phrenology]

hmmm... turns out the 2g axles and and prelude transmission will have nothing to do with each other, i am not sure what made me think that they would. do you think it is possible to "bastardize" the axles with bigger inboard joints, or are the actual shafts and spline counts different? I think the shafts are probably thicker. other than that...is your transmission specific to the se-i or 3g? would i be able to use se-i shafts, knuckles and front hubs to make this work? what exactly did you swap, cause i'm pretty sure the front suspensions on our cars were the same at one point.

Yeah we fitted the brand new Se-i shafts yesterday. They were a bit stubborn and we thought "oh shit another Honda exclusive part problem" but with some grease and a little work we got them to fit. So my set up for the front end is as follows. A20A3 (carbed) with an E2Q5 (88 LXi 5 speed) connected via 85 Se-i shafts and CV joints to 85 Se-i outboard knuckles and hubs with 86/87 LXi rotors and calipers. You cannot fit 88/89 calipers and rotors onto any 2G knuckle assembly. You would have to make some heavy duty custom brackets to move the larger caliper up, over, and around the larger rotor, even then it may not fit right.

The 85 Se-i shafts are special. They are 3G diameter with 2G length and 3G spline "cups" at both ends. As for the actual "spider" bearings inside I don't know what size they are. I have not torn apart an Se-i CV boot. You can however make your own bastard shaft/joint combo. I was able to take 85 LX shafts and stick 88 LXi spline "cups" on the ends and pull the boots over them. I didn't use them because I traded them as a core and they were in rough shape. We found a site that has just the spline "cups", boots, bearings, grease and straps as a kit for under $30 per end. I can look for that info for you. Discount or Advance whatever it is now does sell 85 Se-i rebuilt shafts. Make sure you check em' though before you take them cause they look alot like other Accord shafts. We just went through the extra effort to maximize the upgrade with Se-i hubs so that I have a safety margin if I upgrade the motor more or do turbo in the future. I don't know what the torque/hp load ratings are for 2G versus 3G shafts but the 2Gs only put out 86hp factory and the 3Gs are all over 100 stock. This whole thing can be a fairly expensive upgrade if you can't find Se-i parts in the junkyard and they are pretty rare. The knuckles alone from Honda are like $170 each plus $80 for each bearing. I've seen one 89 Se-i and 2 85 Se-is in the junkyards in the past 2 1/2 years. If I'm not mistaken all 85 Se-is were made in the US and had some special cast parts like the 85 Se-i knuckle/hub assembly. I hope all of this helps.

[Slipknotcraig133]

looks tight man nice work

[Ichiban]

when you put the 88 lxi cups on the 85 lx shafts, did you change the tripode inside as well? or simply swap the cups over? The tripode is held onto the end of the shaft via a circlip and slides onto splines. the 85 lx shafts should be the same as my 82-83, i'm going to check that out. i'd prefer to stay with the stock front end and cv axles if i can. i've not once seen an 85 se-i up here so used parts are probably out of the question.

thanx

btw how are the 86/87 lxi calipers and rotors different than our stock?

[phrenology]

when you put the 88 lxi cups on the 85 lx shafts, did you change the tripode inside as well? or simply swap the cups over? The tripode is held onto the end of the shaft via a circlip and slides onto splines. the 85 lx shafts should be the same as my 82-83, i'm going to check that out. i'd prefer to stay with the stock front end and cv axles if i can. i've not once seen an 85 se-i up here so used parts are probably out of the question.

thanx

btw how are the 86/87 lxi calipers and rotors different than our stock?

Those "bastard shafts" that I made for the core charge were 85 LXs with 88 LX-i inboard cups. I didn't really secure them in place, I just pulled the boots over them. Those 85 LX "spider bearings" or tripod piece with the three bearings fit nicely inside the 88 Lxi cup but I didn't secure them with a clip. The circle clip on the outside of the splines holds it in the differential on the inboard side.

It would probably be easiest for you to keep the stock knuckles and make 2G/3G bastard shafts with a rebuild kit. I don't know for sure but the 82-83 Accords might have been narrower or had shorter shafts also look at the AT vs. MT shaft issue. The short shaft is usually same across the board but the long side varies from tranny to generation too. It can get very confusing quickly. I would make a chart of your stock lengths and diameters and choose the "biggest" fitment you can use. This whole thing was a gigantic pain in the ass until I found the Se-i solution. I can see where someone would pay $600-$1000 for custom made axels that match and can take a higher load. Good luck.

The 86/87 Accord calipers have a slightly bigger piston and the retainer side is more securely built IMO. I don't know how much of a difference you will notice but if you need new ones I would just get rebuilt 86/87 caliper bodies and load them up with pads of your choice. The rotors are exactly the same from 84-87 and probably the same as 82/83s.

Also if you could post some quality pics of the 81 and 82 Accord rear ends I could tell you if you might be able to benefit from an 84-85 LX hatcback suspension swap and rear Prelude disc brakes like I'm installing. Even the 84-85 LX sedans even had a different set up in the rear compared with the hatches. I'd like to see the Gen1 and Early Gen2 Accord rear suspensions. Yeah the late Gen1 Accord Hatch would make a sweet-ass sleeper or a great little rally car. Have you seen that 82' Pro Street Accord with the RWD and 377 Chevy small block, crazy eh?

82 Pro Street Accord

If I had the time and money I would do a different project with each Accord hatchback you have. You know one rally, one drag car, another for show w/full restore. I got mine from a co-worker for $200 because he thought it needed a clutch and new cable. It had 125K on it brought it up to 160K before I had serious cooling issues that killed the ES2.

Our hatchbacks pre 3G are starting to go up in value and they are becoming rare. I don't see hardly any Gen1/Gen2 hatchbacks around at all not even the junkyard. I saw my first 84/85 hatchback in probably 8-12 months in the junkyard this week. Got the hatch from it for $40 including the glass and wiper. They are sweet cars but mine is starting to become a major $$$ project.

[LaurenAlexS]

Carb from a 74 Pinto! (Holley 5200 32/36 Weber copy) which I'm gonna run until I see what I'm smogging in CA, a radiator from an 81 Datsun truck

Correction: The radiator is a new, 1976 Datsun 820 pickup truck (4cyl 2.0L 2bbl) radiator -- purchased from www.discountradiators.com.

The Holley 5200 was a licensed copy of the old Weber 2bbl DGAV carb, which was stock on many domestic vehicles from the 1970s and early 1980s (some even had 'Weber' stamped in a bottom of the fuel bowl). It is a simplified version of the newer, Weber 32/36 DGEV.

-- the crew chief

[phrenology]

Correction: The radiator is a new, 1976 Datsun 820 pickup truck (4cyl 2.0L 2bbl) radiator -- purchased from www.discountradiators.com.

The Holley 5200 was a licensed copy of the old Weber 2bbl DGAV carb, which was stock on many domestic vehicles from the 1970s and early 1980s (some even had 'Weber' stamped in a bottom of the fuel bowl). It is a simplified version of the newer, Weber 32/36 DGEV.

-- the crew chief

Glad to see you're monitoring progress with a critical eye.

-- the driver

[A20A1]

I'm glad we all get along.

-- the shark repellant

[phrenology]

I'm glad we all get along.
-- the shark repellant

Why did you dig this one up? I thought it was good and buried.

[A20A1]

Cause I again wanted to search for A20 parts for members on google. Looked for A20A ES3 ES2 stuff... CA5 blah blah blah... B20A... and I found this post.

What wrong with my Yahoo Icon

[3G Jester]

how did this swap turn out?