Rilas : 1993 Accord SE

[Rilas]

So since I had my stupid coolant bleeder screw slightly open and I didn't know it. I've had some odd idle issues, and managed to kill the car a few times while in really inconvenient places on take off. Well I've been working on bleeding the stupid coolant and chasing down any possible vacuum leaks. I think I've finally solved which ever it was. I've bled the coolant multiple times since the bleeder backed out, but couldn't fix the sometimes inconsistent idle. So over the weekend I checked all the intake/plenum/throttle body bolts, bleed the coolant more and replaced about half the vacuum hoses until I ran out of new hose. Not sure which of the 3 finally fixed it, but it is now solved. Thank god I can actually use the A/C again without the car wanting to almost die sometimes... So now I can stop wasting time on this and get back to putting the H22A1 together!

[JaberCB7]

Dude I'm completely in love with your SE! Your build is much like what I did only I didn't have a lot of knowledge when I started and had a ton of setbacks. A m/t would make this SE a dream!

[Rilas]

Dude I'm completely in love with your SE! Your build is much like what I did only I didn't have a lot of knowledge when I started and had a ton of setbacks. A m/t would make this SE a dream!

Thanks a ton for the compliments Jaber. Actually Lola is now a manual H23 M2S4 with a stage 3 clutch and ACT flywheel. Well this being the 3rd CB7 I've owned now, I did have some practice prior to this one. Lots of mistakes were made and a lot of things were learned. Sometimes very expensive things. Keep up the work on yours man!

[Raf99]

Looks great man! Did you tie your battery box down somehow?

[Ralphie]

Love seeing the progress on this build.

Agreed the attention to detail is bar-none.

I wanted to covert my 93 SE to a 5spd but I sold it before I had the chance.

[Rilas]

Looks great man! Did you tie your battery box down somehow?

It is tied down with about 10 3" wood screws that are going into the wagon storage compartment. Also it's only about 1/2" away from the Ultra Racing rear strut bar. So if it does manage to break loose it can't really fly forward it might tip a bit but I don't see all of the screws getting ripped out. I wanted to use some carriage bolts but just ran out of time before we headed to Washington for the club meet. Thanks again Raf!

[Rilas]

Love seeing the progress on this build.

Agreed the attention to detail is bar-none.

I wanted to covert my 93 SE to a 5spd but I sold it before I had the chance.

Thanks Ralphie! That's too bad that you had to sell your '93 SE, hopefully soon you'll get the chance to have another project car. The mods you have done to your current Accord though are very tasteful and I like them a lot.

[Rilas]

So I've been busy as usual and haven't updated this with the few things that have happened. So two weekends ago on the 11th, my uncle and myself had to go work on a bed in Darby, MT. I asked him if he was willing to take Lola instead of his truck and drive up and down Lost Trail Pass on the Montana/Idaho border with me. He agreed. After finishing up our work on an adjustable bed, it was time to head to the pass. The Montana side going up the pass is 2 lanes the entire way. I pushed the car very hard on the way up knowing that I could pass any traffic that I may encounter. I think we passed one or two cars up the entire pass. Now guys I was not speeding as the speed limit is 70, and I think we may have gotten up to 50. This is a curvy pass, so a lot of back and forth and hairpin corners. To say the least it was so satisfying to push to car close to it's limits. It still had some more left in it, but I broke my uncle and decided not to push it any harder. He was trying to tell me a story while we were going up the pass and he broke and repeated the same part about 6 times. Finally I said "Mike! What happened next?" his reply was "Your making me nervous and I can't think right now!" I haven't enjoyed driving a car so much in a quite a few years.

While it was a great day it had led to some problems over the past week. I had some air in my cooling system and I've been bleeding it out. I finally had all of it out but wanted to bleed the coolant again just to make sure. Well I got it all bled and forgot to tighten the stupid radiator cap. This was the night before we took the car out. So during the day of driving up the pass and back home I spewed probably about 2 quarts of coolant all over the engine bay. At least the hood held the cap in place so I didn't loose any more coolant than that. So the next day I took the time to wash all the coolant off of everything and just rinsed the rest of the bay off, to clear the little bit of dust and whatever else had accumulated. Well in doing so I managed to get the starter connection wet. This caused a little corrosion over the next week. So last week I've been fighting why the car was draining power and turning over slow even with a fully charged battery. Turns out there was a little corrosion on both of the wires on the starter and the nut of the starter itself. I cleaned all this up last night as well as all my grounds and she is running strong as ever again. Other than the fact that I have some air in the coolant again!

Last night I managed to finally get the oil pump put onto the H22A1. I also put the new o-ring in the girdle, so that is now fully torqued down to specs. Tonight I plan on getting the baffle in place and the oil pan bolted on. Maybe by weeks end this thing will almost be fully assembled. I still need the lost motion assemblies to fully finish the head but otherwise I think I have everything, to be able to seal up the engine though.

[Rilas]

So some bad news. I got to work yesterday and everything was fine with Lola. I went out for lunch and the fuel pump is dead. Well almost dead it's barely pumping. So tonight it's getting towed home. Tomorrow the new fuel pump shows up, hopefully.

[Raf99]

So some bad news. I got to work yesterday and everything was fine with Lola. I went out for lunch and the fuel pump is dead. Well almost dead it's barely pumping. So tonight it's getting towed home. Tomorrow the new fuel pump shows up, hopefully.

Be careful with this. Check the fuel pressure at the fuel rail. Make sure it's not a flow issue, filter issue, or main relay issue.

[Rilas]

Be careful with this. Check the fuel pressure at the fuel rail. Make sure it's not a flow issue, filter issue, or main relay issue.

All the fuel lines are in good shape. It has a brand new OEM fuel filter, and I changed the main relay with a brand new one off the shelf last night. Fuel pump isn't priming anymore. Or at least barely. It will build enough pressure to start the car if I leave the ignition in the II position for a bit, then it will start and run for about 4-5 seconds. If I try and start the car again it fires and immediately dies. If it sits for a bit maybe 90 seconds it will fire and run for 4-5 seconds and then die. I'm 99% sure it's the fuel pump, and I've changed them in the past on our Accords so I know exactly what I'm in for already. I just hope this thing is rust free like the rest of the car being it's from New Mexico. Oh well the plan was to eventually upgrade the fuel pump anyway, I guess it was just put to the front of the list. I really don't want to do this though, as I have a bunch of other stuff going on right now and we are headed out of town on Friday.

What really sucks is my sedan is down right now as well due to losing the set of crush washers for the caliper when I was working on it the other day. I ordered a set from Honda but they won't be here until tomorrow. So for the time being we are down to just "Ruby" the '09 Pilot Touring, I just miss driving my cars. They are just all around more enjoyable to drive.

[Rilas]

So I have quite a few updates on this but I just haven't had a chance to update the thread. I'll get the pictures uploaded tonight I hope, and then I'll actually post something a bit more worthwhile.

So this has probably all happened over the last month or so, but I'm just running behind. On a bright note though the house insulation project is finally complete, and the mountain of stuff that came out of the attic is back up there. So I finally have some space in my garage again. Now if I could only get the few daycare projects out of the garage... Just waiting on the GF to wrap up a few of her things and I can move them down into the daycare.

Anyway updates with pictures tonight or tomorrow.

[Rilas]

Well I'm definitely running behind in keeping this updated. So this one will be somewhat large. So I had thought my fuel pump was dead. Had the car towed home, and on a whim before taking out any tools I added 2 gallons of gas and she fired up. So as it turns out my car is actually EMPTY at 1/16 of a tank on the fuel gauge. I ran out of fuel about 2 weeks ago sitting in a perfectly level parking lot. I guess as a good result of this I won't run out of gas in some random place at least.

In the mean time I've been chasing down cabin vibrations and figuring out ways to deal with them. I only have 2 very minor vibrations left and I think that is all I can fix. Also I need to kick the idle up to around 900 rpm's as this will hopefully reduce most of the remaining vibrations.

While doing all the projects around the house I've slowly still been buying parts for the H22A1. This past week I've finally started working on it again, since I finally had enough parts to start making some progress again.

Somehow when I ordered my head bolts, they were ordered for a H23A1. So pretty much a no go for this engine. As I had bought them 6-7 months before even looking at them, returning them was out of the question at this point. So I had to decide to buy another set of Honda head bolts or spend the bit extra and go with some ARP head studs. Well I went with the ARP head studs and just sucked up the cost difference. I'm not overly concerned about getting the wrong head bolts as I have another F22A6 that needs to be torn apart and the head bolts will get used in that. So at least the money wasn't wasted it was just spend well ahead of time for that project.

A few weeks ago this arrived and was finally installed just over a week ago.

ESP Rear T Bracket in Jamacian Teal


ESP Rear T Bracket vs. OEM


ESP Rear T Bracket Installed 1 (As you can see there is powder coating flakes everywhere on the rear subframe. While this piece had almost no visible cracking in the powder coating, it was still very fragile. Just tightening down the motor mount bolt cause a large piece to flake off. Also bumping it with the wrench caused it to come off. I mean lightly bumping it with the wrench. Not slipping off and bashing it into the bracket.)


ESP Rear T Bracket Installed 2 (Large pieces came off as I was torquing down the lower bolts with the torque wrench. As well as flaking wherever I was bumping into them. I'm really not sure why the coating is flaking off so much worse than on my 3 points and rear tie bar.)


ESP Rear T Bracket Installed 3 (I had to use the washers as spacers, but this was mentioned in the install instructions. Also 2 of the welds on the round stock to the flat bar broke all the way through once the bolts were torqued to spec. So at least on mine I have a few issues that I hope ESP can take care of once the summer is over. I'm not worried about the cracked welds for the time being, as it's been on for a few weeks and I've checked them twice, and they have not worsened in condition any. Also they are torqued into place so another reason not to worry about it.)


Rear Motor Mount Insert 1 (Just to show you guys what I'm running for a rear motor mount with the setup I have. It provides a little movement but not much at all. I'm actually really happy with the setup so far. I was debating switching to a Prelude rear mount and an Energy Suspension insert but I think I am going to stay with what I have. Now that almost all the cabin vibrations are taken care of.)


Rear Motor Mount Insert 2 (Prothane 8-514-BL for the 90-97 Accord rear motor mount insert. I figured I would just list the part number since you can't fully read the top of the box.)


H22A1 Lost Motion Assemblies (So I ordered these probably about 3 weeks ago. Just couldn't do much with them as I needed to figure out my head bolt situation.)


H22A1 Engine Assembly


H22A1 with ARP Head Studs


As of last night here is how the engine is sitting currently.

ARP Head Studs and VTEC Solenoid (I got the solenoid a few weeks ago on eBay.)


Walbro Fuel Pump and Installation Kit (Arrived whenever I ran the car out of gas the first time, so what over a month ago roughly. I'm hoping to install this in the next few weeks. I just haven't been really ambitious about it yet.)


Delta 262 Regrind H22A Camshafts (Thanks again Deevergote! This won't be installed until I have my Honda S300 v3. Hopefully I can get that sometime this winter.)


Rocker Shaft Orifice Assembly A and B (These had some wear around the bottom where they sit in the rocker arm shafts. The wear was enough to concern me so I ordered new ones from the Honda dealer. They will be in this afternoon. Once I have those in hand I can finish assembling the head.)


H22A1 Cylinder Head (The cylinder head is fully prepped and ready to be assembled. I'm only waiting on the rocker arm orifice assemblies to arrive and I can install them and the camshafts. Once the cams are in, it's time to just bolt everything in place.)


H22A1 Engine (Here is the state of the engine as of last night, when I finally ran out of things I'm able to do, due to lack of parts currently)


From here on out I should be back to my regular somewhat timely updates on what I'm working on with Lola.

[Rilas]

So I'm still waiting on 1 of the 2 orifice assemblies so the head has no progress made on it what so ever. I've picked up quite a few more parts from Honda. Nothing really exciting though timing belt, o-rings, gaskets, hoses and other small misc stuff. I've just been working on bolting the few things on the block that I can, and cleaning the few parts that are left to clean up. Tonight I'm going to start working on converting the auto tensioner to a manual tensioner. I'll get some more pictures up tonight or tomorrow.

Also I went out to Spokane this last weekend and got most of the sensors that I needed for this engine. The coolant sending unit, both fan switches, engine coolant temperature sensor. As well as most of the random nuts and bolts that I still needed, exhaust and intake manifold nuts. While wandering the yard I ran across a 1993 Honda Accord SE Coupe, painted the same as Lola. It was t-bone so the passenger side fender and door were totaled to put it nicely. I'm assuming once it was hit, it then hit something else on the driver side. The driver side fender and the hood edge on that side were messed up pretty good. But I did manage to get the front bumper cover, and the passenger side door handle. My passenger door handle is messed up so that was perfect. I really wish I could have brought the hood home, but it was only somewhat aesthetically better than mine. But with the bumper cover I think it will make the car look much better than the unpainted black one I have currently. Even though it's roughed up a bit it's still better than flat black. I'll get some pictures up soon to show you guys what I'm talking about.

[Mike1357]

Awesome updates. I'm kind of surprised with how your ESP parts turned out. The engine looks like it's coming together nicely.