Mad moment

[Eric]

What about a prelude?

Pretty powerful, 2.2 Vtec 180 to 200+ BHP, great handling, good to drive, not too bad on fuel (i've had 29 to 35mpg), pretty bullit proof being a honda and should be able to get one for round the same money as a 406.

Yeah Preludes are quite nice I've heard.
They certainly are good performers.
Just had a look at them on Autotrader and there are some nice motors (avoiding the import tuned 15 year old dogs)
Good performance and decent MPG if you lay off the VTEC (yeah right... as if!)

Well worth looking at, thanks for the idea

[Welly]

I used to love my Integra VTEC

Things to watch foron Honda's are:

A leaking VTEC control solenoid (oil leak from head left hand side) requires removal of solenoid and sealing with sump sealant easy job.

Distributor failure at 13 years ish (listen for a dry bearing sound at the dizzy cap) mine went and you can only get them from Honda at a whopping £320.00 then you have to fit yourself and get the timing set up - and not many know how to set the timing properly as it requires a link to be removed in the ECU to allow the engine to idle on it's own without interferance from sensors etc. (I had an ex- Honda BTCC engineer do mine ).

Intermittant non-starting will be the Main Fuel Relay (dry joint on PCB requires re-soldering) I had this problem too!

Also if the engine is 'ticky' then the Lost Motion Assembly's (LMR) on the cams/rockers need replacing idealy but cost around £400.00. It's not essential but the engine is supposed to be super-quiet at tickover and most are not after about 7 years.

Suspension bushes are an issue at 10+ years as they flex too much and spoil the feel of the thing but at £100.00 per corner it's not cheap.

The Honda's are brilliant but I wanted mine to have all the above put right and it was just too much in the end

Not put you off have I ?

[Eric]

Also just noticed the older ones have a digital dash I have to avoid like the plaque.
*shudder*

I'd need a chest wig and big perm to fit in with a digidash

[Welly]

Ahh ......Vauxhall Astra GTE

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[Eric]

Ahh ......Vauxhall Astra GTE

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LMAO!

For Prelude VTEC lovers out there.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kbZg8QBJaMM&feature=related
VTEC YO!!

Why do I think this is actually great.... There's something wrong with me

[mbell666]

Don't think I'll be doing that with mine some how, does sound good thou.

VTEC is great fun, puts a smile on ur face for days. The handling is good too there's very little body roll and just holds on like nothing. Very good turning circle due to the 4 wheel steer. I can do u turns where most cars have to do 3 point turns!

VTEC is not so good when your accelerating up a dual carriage way along side a police car and it kicks in and you go shooting off! they followed me for about 5 miles , good job it wasn't a traffic car as it turned out my insurance had put the wrong reg number down so they would have probably gone after me for no insurance!

[Eric]

Don't think I'll be doing that with mine some how, does sound good thou.

VTEC is great fun, puts a smile on ur face for days. The handling is good too there's very little body roll and just holds on like nothing. Very good turning circle due to the 4 wheel steer. I can do u turns where most cars have to do 3 point turns!

VTEC is not so good when your accelerating up a dual carriage way along side a police car and it kicks in and you go shooting off! they followed me for about 5 miles , good job it wasn't a traffic car as it turned out my insurance had put the wrong reg number down so they would have probably gone after me for no insurance!

Sounds good thanks
How does it differ on fuel costs being a 2.2 petrol to the HDi?
Or is that a silly question I shouldn't ask?

[Welly]

What ever you do, I mean what ever you do - DO NOT fit a "sports" eggsauce to a VTEC (I found this out too!) firstly the exhaust ports in the head are huge on VTEC'S making the noise unbearable and secondly the VTEC relies on the Honda designed standard system to increase torque at low revs. In fact I "opened up" my rear silencer to find it was completely empty a bit of research found it to be a "triple pass" silencer which is king at noise reduction with no restriction to flow

Carry on.......

[mbell666]

well i used to get about 55mpg out of 406, i've had between 29mpg and 35mpg out of the lude. 35mpg worked out to about 15p a mile. I got 320(*) miles on the tank and it cost me around £45 quid to fill it. That was almost all motorway (well a14/a1) cruising at 70, mostly on the cruise control.

* one thing I miss about the 406 is the range on a single tank (even it it cost twice as much)

I don't use the car daily anymore as i walk to work (hence buying sports car) so i don't notice the differnce too much, as i am either doing fairly short trip or long distances. But i only fill it when i need to go somewhere!

The engine is quite good at low revs so it plods quite well for petrol. I think the engine is like the v6 if your nice to it you get decent mpg but start booting it and it'll drink it. a very smooth engine too, drove my brother a4 1.9 tdi and it felt like i was sat in a tractor!

I've no plans to do mod my lude, no silly egg sause. I may put clear side indicator lenses on it, a motegi (honda) body kit if i can find one. I plan to change the wheels thou, a previous owner decided the standard wheel would look better painted gold! Planning to get some 17" motegi or civic type r wheels, when cash allows.

[Eric]

I wouldn't mess with Hondas engineering either tbh.
Some cars need a decent filter and exhaust to open them up but some should be left as they are.

Thanks for the info on the fuel, it doesn't sound to bad and I guess if I'm on my poor days (generally a week before payday) I'll just keep it out of VTEC.

Probably

Not having the 600+ mile range to a tank will be a bit of a pain but I guess as long as the car makes you smile, that's what counts

[mbell666]

to be honest it its a pretty quick car if you stay out of the VTEC range, plenty fast enough for round town.

Can actually be a pain to get it to VTEC revs, its not like the HDi where its best power is in the normal driving rev range.

Mine doesn't hit the VTEC rev range till just after 50 in second. So in a national the VTEC kicks in then you have to back right off , if you don't back off you fairly quickly find your doing 80 or 90+!

[Eric]

Grrrr!

It's almost like the car knows I'm planning to sell
The brake squealing has started getting louder and starting from last night the climate control started being a bit flaky.
The air-con compressor kicks in and the air-con could freeze the goolies off a penguin still and the temp button still works in auto mode and adjusts the temperature but the climate control just doesn't seem to want to get the air-con to come in without using manual control.
So temp controls work, so does air-con but not properly together.
Very strange, I've also noticed this morning it took a few miles to get to normal engine temp whereas normally it's running warm by the end of my road.

Bloody Frenchies and their dubious electrical skills!

[Eric]

Hmmm....
Just went out and tested it where the car has been sat in the sun all day.
14 degrees and within about 20 seconds I was nearly shivering and the air-con with climate was working perfectly.

Bloody French
It'll probably wait till the moment someone says "Does the air-con work?" to me on a test drive to go flaky again

[mjb]

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no no no it goes 4 8 15 16 23 42...

too long to wait until the next season

[Welly]

Excuse me?