Rilas : 1993 Accord SE

[Rilas]

Lets see a few updates since Friday. Friday night I ran around town to get the last bits I needed to get the transmission swap wrapped up. One of the items was a set of shifter cables from a 94-97 Accord. I thought they were a direct fit and it turns out they almost are, but the base and shifter from the 94-97 Accord have to be used in conjunction with the shifter cables. So on Monday I got the shifter plate and shifter. Now I actually have the manual shifter and cables installed in the car . I've been wrapping up some random odds and ends as well that I needed to get done for the swap.

Since I needed the M2S4 transmission that was in the sedan, on Sunday I preformed this swap. Taking the M2S4 out and replacing it with a H2U5 (stock) transmission. But once the transmission was out I needed to try and take care of the oil leak this thing has had since it was rebuilt. It was my first rebuild and I had pushed the rear main seal in a bit too far. So needless to say the clutch, pressure plate and flywheel all had to come off as well. I got the new seal in there, cleaned all the parts then reinstalled. I still need to double check to make sure the rear main isn't leaking but I have a good feeling. Since the clutch was hosed down in the oil it was mainly grabbing on the flywheel and not the pressure plate. So the pads are almost gone on the back of the clutch. Good thing I won't be driving it anymore in a week or two. Although since it's not covered in oil anymore all the clutch chatter and such is gone. Just a nice smooth engagement now.

Also since the M2S4 has been getting hosed in oil for 3-4 years now, there are sections in the bell housing that have 1"+ of sludge in it to clean out. So this will take me a bit longer than expected to clean it up. I'm hoping to have the swap wrapped up by the end of the weekend, but we shall see. I'll keep the updates rolling in as I make more progress.

[Rilas]

So last night it seems like I didn't make much progress at all. I cleaned up the garage a bit. I can actually walk around the car without fear of breaking a leg now. Also I picked up some of the disaster from swapping transmissions in the sedan. So now that some of my work space is cleaned up I started on the long project of cleaning the transmission housing. This sucks is about all I have to say about it. At least this thing is a lot smaller than the auto that came out so a lot less surface area. I spent probably 3-4 hours scrubbing on this last night. Tonight I should be able to finish up the bell housing and hopefully the outside of the case.

M2S4 Bell Housing (Probably another 1/2-1 hour worth of work to finish up the bell housing.)


M2S4 Case (Sorry, yet again the camera refused to focus on the case of the transmission, this was the best I got. It's not too bad, the top of the shifters needs to have Hondabond reapplied, its seeping a bit from it. Also going to replace the shifter shaft seal as it's seeping as well.)


So maybe by the end of the week/weekend I'll have Lola fully running as a manual car. Which has been a long time coming. I'm getting really excited to have her out on the streets.

[F22Chris]

I'd be up all night wrenching if I were in your shoes. It's exciting!

[Rilas]

I'd be up all night wrenching if I were in your shoes. It's exciting!

Lol I hung on until 11:20 last night. But had to be up at 5:30 for work, so I decided not to push it anymore last night. Tonight might be a different story though.

[Rilas]

Last night I was able to make a dent in the progress to get the transmission in the car. I managed to finish cleaning the entire transmission housing. What a pain in the ass that was. Regardless it's behind me now and can go into the rest of the clean car. I also managed to get the flywheel and clutch/pressure plate bolted onto the crank. So while it doesn't seem like much got done, only 3 things, it's still a huge step in the project.

M2S4 Transmission Housing Cleaned


Flywheel/Clutch (Ignore where the clutch plate is sitting. I couldn't find the stupid alignment tool last night, so I still need to tighten up the pressure plate bolts.)


Competition Clutch


First thing after work though, the transmission is getting mated to the engine. Then it's just a ton of small wrap up stuff, and cleaning a bunch of small random parts that go with this project.

[excalibur02]

Whoa! The progress of Lola is going very well!

I read that you eventually want to swap the dash, firewall, and engine harness to a 5spd one. I actually did this to my white coupe. My white coupe was auto. I converted it to manual and I used everything from my white 5spd sedan that I junked. It's a lot of work but we all know you can do it!

Just make sure it's an ex 5spd donor car. Doesn't matter if it's 2 or 4door.

[Rilas]

Whoa! The progress of Lola is going very well!

I read that you eventually want to swap the dash, firewall, and engine harness to a 5spd one. I actually did this to my white coupe. My white coupe was auto. I converted it to manual and I used everything from my white 5spd sedan that I junked. It's a lot of work but we all know you can do it!

Just make sure it's an ex 5spd donor car. Doesn't matter if it's 2 or 4door.

Thanks excalibur! Although I thought I would have to use a 92-93 ex coupe harness due to the sedan having the extra wiring for the rear doors. Or is this modular and can be disconnected? If I could get the wiring from a sedan it would make the search 100x easier.

[Jarrett]

They're the same part number from Honda. There is an auto and manual version of each of the DX, LX and EX harnesses for '92-'93 with the SEs having their own harness for the Bose speaker wiring. As long as the car you're swapping from has the same trim level and transmission, you're good to go.

[apalileo]

I did not know harnesses were trim specific! Transmission specific, sure, but I guess that makes sense as my DX isn't wired for IAB's like the EX's are.

[Rilas]

I knew the different trims have different harnesses I just thought that the sedan and coupe would each get their own respectively. Thats great news though that either harness will work. I didn't even think to compare the part numbers on the main harnesses.

[Jarrett]

I was referring to the chassis harness, but yes, you're correct about the IAB difference with the EX harness.

[apalileo]

Understood... thanks for clarifying.

[Rilas]

Since I've been so busy the last few days I haven't had time to update much on here. I have kept plugging away at Lola for the last few nights and a good portion of the weekend.

Needless to say there were quite a few things that didn't go right. Such as pulling the threads out of the transmission housing on one of the studs... You know fun things like that. Regardless all of the issues that arose are now taken care of properly. So I fired her up for the first time last night since the swap. It seems I remembered everything except to cap off the vacuum line I took off for the auto rear motor mount solenoid. Once that was capped the idle surge went away and she ran great. I didn't actually go for a drive or anything last night. Just out of the garage. I need to take off the front driver's tire and fill it up after work. It has a slight bead leak in it. There is no point to fix it because the tires are almost shot. I just have to deal with it for a few more days. Then these tires will get swapped to the sedan for the summer so it can just sit on them.

Friday I'm going to get this thing registered. I know I've said that so many times now it's not even funny. This time for real. It has an appointment for Saturday morning to get it's alignment done. Which means on Friday night I need to get all of the control arms, shocks, calipers, knuckles, and axles swapped from the sedan to the coupe. Also over the next few nights I need to get the intake's swapped between the 2 cars as well as the battery setups. Lola will be getting a trunk mounted battery and the Prelude AEM V2 intake from the sedan, as well as the exhaust from the cat back. The time is coming to actually start enjoying this thing. FINALLY!!!

I'm sure there are a few things that I've missed, but this is the majority of what has been going on for the last week or so.

[Rilas]

Last night didn't yield much progress. But I did get the front tires aired up and went for a short test drive once it got dark. So far everything with the manual swap feels great. Other than the side motor mounts are STIFF. The engine barely rocks and this is without a front torque mount. I'm hoping that they will soften up a little bit as there are a few spots in the rpm range that the body vibrates a little bit. Under load though everything seems good. But I didn't get the car past 30 mph. Out on the highway it might be different, but I doubt it. I think tying the header to the block with a bracket will alleviate some of the vibrations though. I'm going to work on that tonight. Overall though I'm happy as this combination of motor mounts vibrates less than my ESP.net set does. In fact I only put a few hundred miles on them and took them out and put them on the self for the time being. Oh and the real camera is home now, so pictures will most likely commence on their regularly scheduled intervals.

F22B wtih PLM H22 4-2-1 Header with F Series Flange (This thing still needs a bit of grinding work on it with the Dremel but that can be taken care of later. Also it seems to have no leaks which is frigging awesome!)


Manual Transmission in Lola!


Tomorrow I will know if I can drive her this weekend or not, I'm going in first thing in the morning to get her registered. If that happens then I have a ton of work ahead of me tomorrow night. Then a short, couple hour road trip to somewhere to make sure she is road worthy.

[baracuda]

Everything is coming along nicely, glad to hear the header is working out for you. Was there anything else that had to be done to the header to make it fit with the f22 exhaust flanges or do the tubes line up the same?