I’ve been reflecting on my automotive past, and I’m starting to feel nostalgia for the late 90s early 00s when I was a Honda fanboy. In 1998, my first car was a 1990 Acura Legend LS coupe that had been my dad’s, and then I bought a 1992 Integra GSR with the B17A. I want to get back to that.
The Legend was gold but otherwise identical to the pic above. My GSR was in fact red.
I absolutely loved that these cars were so low to the ground with big huge windows and skinny pillars. The interiors had super low-slung dashboards with little instrument pods popping up from them. Oh, that sweet, sweet visibility.
The Legend was a pillarless hardtop coupe, and all the windows went down, although the back ones didn’t fully retract. Such openness.
So where does the Prelude come in? Well it’s got the upright coupe shape like the Legend, but the sportiness of the Integra. It’s probably my favorite Honda interior, ever.
Look at those seats! Look how low the dash is! Look at the vents in the doors! Even the steering wheel is perfect.
The original Prelude Si motor was the B21A, which made 140 hp. When I bought my GSR, I chose it over a Prelude like this because it had a usable back seat, a bunch of cargo space with the hatch and the seats flipped down, and more power.
But I wouldn’t be buying this as a daily driver, and I wouldn’t be looking to do a full-stock restoration. No, what I want to do is find a red 1990 or 1991 Prelude Si 4WS, and get it refreshed back in good condition, while swapping in an H22A 2.2 liter motor from the 4th gen Prelude VTEC, using this mount kit and other goodies from Innovative Mounts.
With a few bolt-ons like an intake, header, exhaust, Crower cams and a Hondata ECU, it would be around 230 hp or so. Not lighting the world on fire, but respectable for as light weight of a car as this would be. Add an LSD to the transmission, plus a good clutch and lightweight flywheel. There are still a select few suspension upgrades available, like these Ksport coilovers.
Make everything work nice, and do it in kind of an “OEM plus” type of vibe, with some nice mesh wheels like the CCWs in the stancebro’d one at the top of this post.
It won’t happen anytime soon, because it’d have to be after I move to a house with enough garage space for me to have more than one car for myself. But the gears are turning in my mind!