Hey everyone… I know their are quite a few Honda guys on this forum so I’ll ask you guys.
I have a 96 Honda Prelude S and am semi thinking about swapping in an H22 rather than the F22 that’s in there now. It’s my daily driver and I kinda want to make it a little project rather than selling it, plus my quad and buying something else and getting into a lot more debt.
First of all, how hard is that swap? I know the engine is pretty much built for the car, but I’ve never swapped an engine before… I’ve done quite a bit else, just never swapped anything before.
Second… I want to be able to keep getting it inspected every year and not have any problems. So, should I look for an OBDII engine or doesn’t it matter if I go with OBDI, and just get a conversion harness?
Third… How much can I look to spend to make this swap happen? Just looking at a BARE minimum idea for now… I would probably do quite a bit while the engine is out, but I just want an idea for now.
Fourth… Where should I get the engine from? The few places I’ve heard of have bad reps everywhere that I read about them, for example, Japan Star Motors, Osaka and a few others.
Thanks for the input guys. I think I asked something similar to this before, but wasn’t totally into the idea yet…
since the motor basically swaps right in, i’d say you could do it for less than 3k everything said and done. since the motor is 2200 w/ everything you need, $800 for random things you might want. as long as your doing it yourself
As much as it might suck… you can always mate the H series motor to the F series tranny. Still pull a lot harder than that F series long block… but geared like horse genitals. Depends on your cash situation man.
One huge problem with obd2 h22’s is the immobilizer. You have to find yourself an obd2 ecu and it can only be a 96. Hard to find… I got lucky and found myself an obd2 h23 ecu… hoping it’ll work. I can’t entirely fill you in on the wiring situation, but I do know a little about the ECU thing. You might be able to get away with using an obd2 GSR ecu as long as you don’t beat on your car and use it for inspection purposes only. Once you pass inspection jump it to obd1 and use an obd1 ecu.
Research it man. Hopefully someone from synapse will jump on here and chime in!
H23 ECU will not work. The car might run, but no vtec. You NEED a 96 H22 ecu to swap an H22 into a 96 prelude and have it pass. Any 96+ H22 should work, as long as its OBD2 and can run from a USDM ecu.
The car being a 96 sorta screws you over. Keep an eye out on the various prelude specific web forums for people selling a 96 ecu. Once you get that you can pick the motor you want (if you’re staying USDM is really do you want the motor to have 50mm mains or 55mm mains, only real difference in USDM motors).
From what I have heard the swap is cake. As someone else stated you need the proper USDM OBD2 ECU in order for it to pass inspection but with that ecu there should be no problems.
Thats what I was saying. I just didn’t know the years off hand, and was too lazy to look in my own H/F series tech thread. The 96 H22 is OBD2, so he could use that motor if he wanted to. The only real benifit of using the 50mm main motor is the ability to swap in an H23/F22 crank and stroke it w/o needing a custom crank. The motors with the 55mm mains can use the F23 crank, which I believe is a 99mm stroke. Some people have also been using K series parts in H22s to make some 100mm stoke motors with all OEM parts.
Alos forgot, another difference between the H22a/1/3 and H22a4/8 is closed/open deck.
Just looked it up, the 50mm mains went to 97, not 96. 98+ had 55mm mains.
The h23 should work to pass inspection, correct? Cause thats all I’m using it for. Plug it in, drive it, pass inspection then jump it to obd1 and run an obd1 ecu.
I’ve read that before too…but something like only the JDM 97 blocks used 50mm while USDM blocks used 55mm…but noone ever found a 100% dead accurate answer to clarify. Brian Crower lists all stroker kids for 97-01 using 55mm mains…so who knows? shrug
But like Cliff said…97+ ECU’s have the immobilizer, so a USDM 96 ECU is a MUST. The motor must be USDM also because of the CFK(crank fluctation sensor) which the JDM counterpart doesn’t have.
The H23 ecu should let you pass inspection, I think. Only thing I can see them getting you on is the ecu not matching the VIN, but I’m not even sure if they check that in NY.
Guys, thanks for the info… I’m going to start looking around for an ECU and also a quality H22 to see what this might run me. If it’s not too ridiculous right off the bat, I might just start buying parts here and there until I’m ready.