Modern DOHC VTEC in an 89 Accord LX?

[RamThis]

I had this idea hit me a couple days ago. I have this Accord, its high mileage, and carbureted, and soooo underpowered. I love the car, its in great shape, rides great, and it's not too bad lookin of a car, but I just cant stand having 98 HP (probably somewhere around 75 or so having 182K on it) I also have a 96 Acura Integra GSR. While I had the hood up checking the oil, I noticed how similar the two engines are between the cars. Now I wonder, is there a DOHC 1.8L VTEC engine that I can drop in the 89LX that will bolt up fairly close, with minor modifications? Driveaxles are not a problem from what I can tell, I think I could easily have a set made from mine and some wrecking yard ones to create the proper length and adapt the transmission end to whatever transmission I'd wind up with.

If I were to get a complete engine, trans, ECM, and wire harness, would it be about as simple as getting it mounted up, hooking up the drive axles, mounting the ECM, connecting the shifter with some minor mods, get the exhaust downpipe replaced to fit the new header and location, and then some wiring and hoses retrofitted?

What 94 or newer VTEC engine will come closest to fitting in this car? I'd rather have a 96 or newer for the OBDII connection, but it's not a must. I'm really considering doing this swap just because I like the car, I have alot of time invested in refurbishing it and making it look like new again, and would like to give it some more power while increasing its driveablility and reliability factor. And on top of all that, what a friggin sleeper eh???

[forrest89sei]

I had this idea hit me a couple days ago. I have this Accord, its high mileage, and carbureted, and soooo underpowered. I love the car, its in great shape, rides great, and it's not too bad lookin of a car, but I just cant stand having 98 HP (probably somewhere around 75 or so having 182K on it) I also have a 96 Acura Integra GSR. While I had the hood up checking the oil, I noticed how similar the two engines are between the cars. Now I wonder, is there a DOHC 1.8L VTEC engine that I can drop in the 89LX that will bolt up fairly close, with minor modifications? Driveaxles are not a problem from what I can tell, I think I could easily have a set made from mine and some wrecking yard ones to create the proper length and adapt the transmission end to whatever transmission I'd wind up with.
If I were to get a complete engine, trans, ECM, and wire harness, would it be about as simple as getting it mounted up, hooking up the drive axles, mounting the ECM, connecting the shifter with some minor mods, get the exhaust downpipe replaced to fit the new header and location, and then some wiring and hoses retrofitted?
What 94 or newer VTEC engine will come closest to fitting in this car? I'd rather have a 96 or newer for the OBDII connection, but it's not a must. I'm really considering doing this swap just because I like the car, I have alot of time invested in refurbishing it and making it look like new again, and would like to give it some more power while increasing its driveablility and reliability factor. And on top of all that, what a friggin sleeper eh???

Legend Master swaped a B18 in his hatch, i'd talk to him!

I think the b18 is the Easiest of the modern engine into a 3gee swaps

someone even swaped in a H22!

but I think the the b18 swap you need what you said and just Motor mounts and CV half shafts.

and i think it's much easier swaping a OBD-1 vs a OBD-2?


Forrest
Trying to help

[SteveDX89]

I had this idea hit me a couple days ago. I have this Accord, its high mileage, and carbureted, and soooo underpowered. I love the car, its in great shape, rides great, and it's not too bad lookin of a car, but I just cant stand having 98 HP (probably somewhere around 75 or so having 182K on it) I also have a 96 Acura Integra GSR. While I had the hood up checking the oil, I noticed how similar the two engines are between the cars. Now I wonder, is there a DOHC 1.8L VTEC engine that I can drop in the 89LX that will bolt up fairly close, with minor modifications? Driveaxles are not a problem from what I can tell, I think I could easily have a set made from mine and some wrecking yard ones to create the proper length and adapt the transmission end to whatever transmission I'd wind up with.
If I were to get a complete engine, trans, ECM, and wire harness, would it be about as simple as getting it mounted up, hooking up the drive axles, mounting the ECM, connecting the shifter with some minor mods, get the exhaust downpipe replaced to fit the new header and location, and then some wiring and hoses retrofitted?
What 94 or newer VTEC engine will come closest to fitting in this car? I'd rather have a 96 or newer for the OBDII connection, but it's not a must. I'm really considering doing this swap just because I like the car, I have alot of time invested in refurbishing it and making it look like new again, and would like to give it some more power while increasing its driveablility and reliability factor. And on top of all that, what a friggin sleeper eh???

Ok, first of all, did you search the engine swap section about B series swaps? You would have found that your mounts will have to be made by you or a shop. You would have found that you would need custom axles and shift rods. You say axles are not a problem but until you actually try it, it's a problem. Legend Master has torn up at least 2 axles trying to get one to work and finally had to settle on a custom driver side. Now, trying to stick an OBD II engine in an OBD 0 car is just asking for trouble. Stick to OBD I. An engine swap is never easy. I thought I had everything prepared for my B16 and that turned into a 3 week project and I've had problems with it ever since I did it and it's been 2 years. My engine is currently bolted to an engine stand waiting a rebuild. I would suggest you search around the board here some more. A lot of questions will be answered.

[RamThis]

Yes I did look around but there seemed to be alot of confusion as to whether a couple of "kits" were better than eachother or some home made mounts. I already planned on making my own mounts, just hoped that the mount locations on the engine would sorta jive with locations on the car that I could weld to, areas with enough structure to support and engine.

[SteveDX89]

Yes I did look around but there seemed to be alot of confusion as to whether a couple of "kits" were better than eachother or some home made mounts. I already planned on making my own mounts, just hoped that the mount locations on the engine would sorta jive with locations on the car that I could weld to, areas with enough structure to support and engine.

The mount locations are relatively close. Just have to sit it in there and measure, etc.

[snoopyloopy]

may i point out that as the owner of an lx, you are disadvantaged even more for this swap than if you owned an lx-i. because you must also do the whole efi conversion as well. although you may actually just have to do the efi conversion for whatever engine you're putting in as opposed to swapping to efi for an a20 then doing rewiring for the swapped engine. so for you, you may actually be able to put in an obd-ii easier than someone with an lx-i. but i'm just speculating. maybe someone who knows more could clear that up for you.

[voiceinurhead05]

I looked Into a couple of swaps. Some look easier than others.

You don't want to go lower than a 1.8 liter engine (except maybe the first GSR motor that was 1.7)
All of them require custom mounting and stuff like that but from what I saw I can probably order them from most to least difficult.

F20B- Accord euro-R or SiR (JDM)
H22A- Many different preludes
B17C- 1st GSR
B18C1- later model GSR motor
B18C5- Type- R motor

The type- r is the most difficult because of the oil cooler

[snoopyloopy]

[...]
order them from most to least difficult.
F20B- Accord euro-R or SiR (JDM)
H22A- Many different preludes
B17C- 1st GSR
B18C1- later model GSR motor
B18C5- Type- R motor
The type- r is the most difficult because of the oil cooler

are you saying the f20b is the easiest to swap in? from what i gathered over at cb7tuner, that wouldn't be so because it was only obd-ii compliant. same for the c5. the three in the middle were available in obd-i, though.

[SteveDX89]

I looked Into a couple of swaps. Some look easier than others.
You don't want to go lower than a 1.8 liter engine (except maybe the first GSR motor that was 1.7)
All of them require custom mounting and stuff like that but from what I saw I can probably order them from most to least difficult.
F20B- Accord euro-R or SiR (JDM)
H22A- Many different preludes
B17C- 1st GSR
B18C1- later model GSR motor
B18C5- Type- R motor
The type- r is the most difficult because of the oil cooler

The difficulty between all those B-series engines is the same. They all mount exactly the same way. So mounting a B16 or a type R is the same. All B-series have oil coolers except maybe the LS motors. The F-series and H-series use the exact same mounts. So putting an F20 is the same difficulty as an H22 which is as you state more difficult than a B series.

[Accordtheory]

If you have to make everything anyway, my logic is you might as well go for the h22..

[RamThis]

Well, I am more versed in OBDII systems than the older carb or OBDI cars so OBDII would be easier to deal with for me. I see OBDII as the "easiest" transition, granted I can score a complete engine with accessories, transmission, engine wiring harness, and ECM. You can basically throw the whole thing in there, hook up the battery, adapt a few hoses over for AC and tranny cooler and engine coolant and Power Steering, put in a Walbro inline fuel pump, and either find the signal wires for the guages to adapt the ones in the car, or yank the guage cluster and wire in a nice set of Auto Meter guages or find a way to adapt the donor car's guages, and away you go. OBDII engines, when you get the whole shebang out of the donor car, is basically self sufficient with it's own ECM. There will be no problem making the engine run fine or mounting it, the only snags will be hoses, and guages, which with some work that can all be adapted over. Then if you have a problem with the engine down the road, you have the option of hooking up an OBDII scanner to check for codes and read sensor readings to find electronic problems.

Ive done a few engine rebuilds and trans rebuilds on OBDII cars and have a halfway decent understanding of them, so this is how I see it working. I see an OBDII engine assembly as being self sufficient, meaning with the ECM and wire harness hooked up, you could mount it to a go-cart and have it run fine (figuratively speaking of course)

Unless someone has dropped in an OBDII engine and knows for sure there is some major snag somewhere and could give me some insight into it?????? Am I just completely wrong in my vision of how this swap would work?????

[Legend_master]

Well, I am more versed in OBDII systems than the older carb or OBDI cars so OBDII would be easier to deal with for me. I see OBDII as the "easiest" transition, granted I can score a complete engine with accessories, transmission, engine wiring harness, and ECM. You can basically throw the whole thing in there, hook up the battery, adapt a few hoses over for AC and tranny cooler and engine coolant and Power Steering, put in a Walbro inline fuel pump, and either find the signal wires for the guages to adapt the ones in the car, or yank the guage cluster and wire in a nice set of Auto Meter guages or find a way to adapt the donor car's guages, and away you go. OBDII engines, when you get the whole shebang out of the donor car, is basically self sufficient with it's own ECM. There will be no problem making the engine run fine or mounting it, the only snags will be hoses, and guages, which with some work that can all be adapted over. Then if you have a problem with the engine down the road, you have the option of hooking up an OBDII scanner to check for codes and read sensor readings to find electronic problems.
Ive done a few engine rebuilds and trans rebuilds on OBDII cars and have a halfway decent understanding of them, so this is how I see it working. I see an OBDII engine assembly as being self sufficient, meaning with the ECM and wire harness hooked up, you could mount it to a go-cart and have it run fine (figuratively speaking of course)
Unless someone has dropped in an OBDII engine and knows for sure there is some major snag somewhere and could give me some insight into it?????? Am I just completely wrong in my vision of how this swap would work?????

Well OBDII would be much more difficult, because you have to work much harder on the wiring. As for just popping in a the wire harness, that is about as simple as hand washing a porcupine. The motor mounts will need a lot of fab work and the drivers side axle will need to be custom. Since you have a carb motor, your swap will be even more difficult. You will not have the proper wiring harness inside the car so that will need to be added since the motor you are buying only has an engine harness. I am not sure if the carb motors even have the harness for the ECU or not, but either way you will also need a sub harness. So unless you are an automotive genius or you have an extra car to drive I wouldn't worry about swapping a B,H, or f-series in your car.

P.S.
The hoses were the easiest thing to hook up on the whole swap.

[SteveDX89]

Well, I am more versed in OBDII systems than the older carb or OBDI cars so OBDII would be easier to deal with for me. I see OBDII as the "easiest" transition, granted I can score a complete engine with accessories, transmission, engine wiring harness, and ECM. You can basically throw the whole thing in there, hook up the battery, adapt a few hoses over for AC and tranny cooler and engine coolant and Power Steering, put in a Walbro inline fuel pump, and either find the signal wires for the guages to adapt the ones in the car, or yank the guage cluster and wire in a nice set of Auto Meter guages or find a way to adapt the donor car's guages, and away you go. OBDII engines, when you get the whole shebang out of the donor car, is basically self sufficient with it's own ECM. There will be no problem making the engine run fine or mounting it, the only snags will be hoses, and guages, which with some work that can all be adapted over. Then if you have a problem with the engine down the road, you have the option of hooking up an OBDII scanner to check for codes and read sensor readings to find electronic problems.
Ive done a few engine rebuilds and trans rebuilds on OBDII cars and have a halfway decent understanding of them, so this is how I see it working. I see an OBDII engine assembly as being self sufficient, meaning with the ECM and wire harness hooked up, you could mount it to a go-cart and have it run fine (figuratively speaking of course)
Unless someone has dropped in an OBDII engine and knows for sure there is some major snag somewhere and could give me some insight into it?????? Am I just completely wrong in my vision of how this swap would work?????

In theory this would work, you can bolt any motor to a stand and as long as you have fuel and spark, it will run. Trying to get it to interface with the rest of the car is another story. There are electronics in every aspect of the car including lights, fuel system, gauges, etc. Sure you can swap in the motor with the OBD II harness and plug the ECU in. However, then you've isolated the motor from the rest of the car. The fuel system won't turn on, lights don't work. That engine harness needs to plug in the main cabin harness of the car. The engine harness connectors won't plug in so you'll have to hack up both harness, run subharnesses, or swap connectors. This is all based on the EFI cabin harness. You have the carb harness which is much less complicated, i.e. less wires. Therefore, you'll be adding a ton of wires. OBD II can be done but you might as well just re-wire the entire car.

[RamThis]

I assumed the lights had nothing to do with the engine harness, that they ran through the main breaker bus? And the fuel pump for an EFI engine ran at alot higher pressure, like 55-60 PSI, so that's why I mentioned putting in an inline Walbro pump rated for that PSI, and also isnt it's wiring and fuse run through the main breaker bus? I was pretty sure everything would still work on the car with the A20A1 engine yanked out totally, since all that really hooks up to the engine is oil pressure sending unit, coolant temp sending unit, O2 sensor, Charging circuit to the alternator, electric choke heater, intake preheater, and AC Clutch.

Now by just tying off the electric choke and preheater wires I can just eliminate those as an OBDII engine will not need these.

The oil pressure and coolant temp sending units will have to remain the same as the donor engine, because the ECM uses these to adjust its A/F mixture along with the Pre Cat O2 sensor. Those will just remain as is, and I might could tie into their wiring leads and hook it up to the main harness already in the car to get a signal to the guages.

The AC clutch is a no brainer, positive and negative, might just have to cut the connector and use an aftermarket to adapt. No Biggie.

The Alternator shouldnt be a problem, since I plan to find an engine with a full harness pulled from the car, it will also still be connected to it's own ECM, all I'd really have to do is just hook up the hot lead and find the signal wire to tie into the car's original wiring for the idiot light.

Starter is a no brainer as well. Hot lead ties in the same on all starters.

Since I plan to get an Auto trans like what's in it now, shift linkage shouldnt be too bad, its just a push-pull setup, not much more than possibly cutting and welding the rod's together to fit.

Motor mounts, as long as they mount in relatively the same place as the ones in there now, also wont be a problem, I can fab up some mounts fairly easily.

From my understanding, the guages will be the hardest thing to do, assuming the output leads from the donor engine's ECM run a totally different voltage or something than what the guage is supposed to recieve. In the event that the factory guages wont work, I could always use some AutoMeter guages to monitor oil pressure and coolant temp and ammeter readings.

Nothing about the Chassis Electrical, such as Lights, Stereo, Cabin Lights, AC blower, ETC will be effected by putting a different engine in there. Only engine related items will have to be dealt with.

The new OBDII engine may always show a CEL when pulling codes due to the Evap system not being right, but it wont effect the way it runs. As long as all the engine and exhaust sensors are in place and working, it will run fine.

[88LXi68]

I am glad someone thinks that they figured it all out to swap an engine in this car...To think, we are all just stupid for not having thought of this years ago!!

[Baveara]

i my friend make all us texans look like idiots. your ideal would work but not the way u say it.

[Accordtheory]

I haven't modified any obd2 cars as far as wiring goes, but I have seen a couple swaps where the entire wiring harness basically just goes directly from the engine to the ecu, with very few wires going out to other things, like the guages. That would be ideal, but adding more wires to a factory harness to convert to obd2 still wouldn't be that much more difficult in my opinion though either. As far as the coolant temp guage and the oil press idiot light, that's no problem. The factory accord coolant temp guage is controlled by a single wire thermistor mounted on the side of the head, it should be easy enough to put that on an h22 if it doesn't already have it. The oil press thing is just a switch that connects to ground in the event of loss of oil press, triggering the light and eventually killing the fuel pump. I just left that off for now, since I have a mechanical gauge, but I will connect it again in the future. All in all, and despite your screen name, RamThis, (..ha ha) you sound like you're sufficiently educated and motivated to tackle a project like this, so good luck.

[SteveDX89]

I'm probably off base with the wiring aspect but I do know that the engine harness connects to the main cabin harness at both ends. That's probably just to send the stuff to the ECU, I dunno, I never really studied a wiring diagram too much. If you can pull this off, you would be the first. There's been guys running OBD I but never OBD II. As far as I understand, OBD I is better for tuning due to less restrictive emission stuff. I'd stick with that personally but it's your car.

[Legend_master]

Motor mounts, as long as they mount in relatively the same place as the ones in there now, also wont be a problem, I can fab up some mounts fairly easily.

You do understand that the passenger side mount is non existant on the accord, but a tranny mount is required for the b,h,f. So you will need to fab up a place to mount to.

[wprocomp]

swaps can be easy to do IF you know what your doing-the LX/crb A20 has plenty of potential if you want to fix it up-a full rebuild with higher compression a weber carb,some good head work/cam etc etc will make a pretty good combo-you also have to realize mounts/axles/ecu/wiring can be quite exspensive im sure legend has spent well over $3k on his swap unless he got his motor free and got it machined dirt cheap.....so if your willing to put that much time and effort into a car that costs less then $1k averge go for it-but if you plan on going b-series do yourself a favor and go find a decent LX-i 5-speed car-itll save you alot of headaches and $$$

or do like I did and go the easy way get yourself a JDM B20A from the 86-89 accord,pretty much a direct swap

[masterkillalw]

OK with OBDII, Since I have worked with plenty of them, you are gonna need a 2nd o2 sensor, run an egr valve, and TONS of wiring. With OBDII, everything is wired into the ECU, which means everything is wired all together which means you are going to do a lot of work just to get the harness in the car. I wouldn't even try going OBDII.

[RamThis]

I am glad someone thinks that they figured it all out to swap an engine in this car...To think, we are all just stupid for not having thought of this years ago!!

Do us all a favor and go play in the middle of the freeway, let darwinism take its course, the world would be better for it.
Nice to see that you have added so much to the think tank here.
I'm no mechanical genius, but I have been a mechanic for 12 years, about five of those were building F-16 Falcons for Lockheed and designing/building/test piloting UAV Aircraft for DRS Unmanned Technologies. So yeah, I do consider myself fairly versed in mechanical assemblies and thinking outside the box. This idea is one of those projects. Take something nice, and upgrade its lesser components to make the whole package work better.
Anyone who says it CAN'T be done is an idiot. I want to know how it CAN be done, that's all I ask.

[RamThis]

I haven't modified any obd2 cars as far as wiring goes, but I have seen a couple swaps where the entire wiring harness basically just goes directly from the engine to the ecu, with very few wires going out to other things, like the guages. That would be ideal, but adding more wires to a factory harness to convert to obd2 still wouldn't be that much more difficult in my opinion though either. As far as the coolant temp guage and the oil press idiot light, that's no problem. The factory accord coolant temp guage is controlled by a single wire thermistor mounted on the side of the head, it should be easy enough to put that on an h22 if it doesn't already have it. The oil press thing is just a switch that connects to ground in the event of loss of oil press, triggering the light and eventually killing the fuel pump. I just left that off for now, since I have a mechanical gauge, but I will connect it again in the future. All in all, and despite your screen name, RamThis, (..ha ha) you sound like you're sufficiently educated and motivated to tackle a project like this, so good luck.

See this is what I was thinking, leave most of the original car's harness intact, drop in the new engine with its own ECU harness and ECU to control the engine, and tap in to the few things essential to integrating it in the car, and voila, OBDII in a 89 LX. As for the second O2 sensor, yeah, I forgot to mention the Post-Cat O2, that's as simple as welding in a bung in the exhaust and popping it in. The axle shop down the road from me is excellent and are very fair on their prices for their work, so I know he could make me some axles for a reasonable price.

[RamThis]

I'm probably off base with the wiring aspect but I do know that the engine harness connects to the main cabin harness at both ends. That's probably just to send the stuff to the ECU, I dunno, I never really studied a wiring diagram too much. If you can pull this off, you would be the first. There's been guys running OBD I but never OBD II. As far as I understand, OBD I is better for tuning due to less restrictive emission stuff. I'd stick with that personally but it's your car.

As far as tuning goes, I really dont want to hop up the engine once it's in. The ONLY reason I want to switch is to get rid of the carb setup, and put in a more powerful stock engine, that has the luxury of great driveability, mostly cold starts and not having to let it warm up and idle down forever.

As for OBDII, the two main reasons I want to go that route is, one, I know them better, and two, I want a newer lower mileage engine that I have to do nothing to other than simply put it in the car and wire it up. I dont want to have to rebuild an older engine. I basically want the whole retrofit to be as simple as buy the engine and related parts, mount it, wire it, hose it, axle it, and drive it, knowing it wont be just as easy as that through the whole process. (yeah I know there will be snags along the way but I can figure a way around them)

I have three other vehicles to drive, so, if it takes me a month or two to figure it all out, so be it. Im in no hurry, and I want to do it right and have it run like any other car where you just hop in, turn the key, and drive.

[masterkillalw]

well good luck. I say just go with it and see what happens. Like I said, GOOD LUCK. Took me 6 months to do a B series swap into my 87 lude. Almost like your accord. Anyways, GOOD LUCK.