Cool Combos

The Ultimate First Car
A Daily Beater With Room For Four Friends And The Power To Haul Them Around All Day.Not everyone's parents will drop the dime for a new ride on their kid's 16th birthday and those minimum wage paychecks from part-time Pizza Hut duty aren't gonna add up to that S2000 you're dreaming of. But that doesn't mean you can't get an affordable whip with some room, and potential, to modify.

Easy choices include the EF Civic or second-gen CRX, but finding one in respectable condition is getting harder these days. Then if you do, you're looking at $3000 or so just to get behind the wheel. For something even more lo-fi, we turn to a chassis that everyone in the Honda world, except the guys at 3geez.com, have all but forgotten.

Don't overlook these babies, which offered fully independent suspension and semi-large motors in an era of torsion bars, rear-beam axles and 1.5-liter engines. The native A-series motors in some of these Accords have a closed-deck design and have been known to handle boost as well as any stock B or H series. Even the carbureted versions are fun to play with using Webber DCOE's or Mikuni sidedrafts to extract a few more ponies.

In Japan, the 2nd-gen Prelude and 3rd-gen Accord came with a B20A, a motor that shares just about nothing in common with the rest of the B-series family. It does, however, make 160 hp and 140 lb-ft of torque, and the swap is about as straightforward as it gets. Depending on the Accord model you end up with, you'll be starting with a carbureted, vacuum-advanced A20 or possibly an EFI electronically advanced version.

For carb guys, there's a vacuum advance version of the B20A and, lucky for you, the A20 manifold will bolt right on, carbs and all. Bolt a big set of Webbers or Mikunis on there and you'll laugh every time somebody clowns on your lack of PGM-FI.

Those of you starting from EFI and electronic advance distributor, this is a bolt-in affair. Take the A20 out, put the B20 in. The only difference worth noting is the transmission mount, but if you use the one that comes with the B, it'll work without a hitch.

An EF hatch with a B16 in decent condition will cost you around $5000. This Accord with swap will cost less than half that, with a motor that makes the same power and gobs more torque. Put it on the bottle and you'll be chasing down Type R-swapped hatches all day. We think it'd look sick dumped on CF-48's, but maybe that's just us.

H22 In A First-Gen Odyssey
Here's One Frankenstein That The Kids Won't Have Nightmares About.What's a Honda guy to do when he grows up, has a family and needs a kid-hauler for school and auto-shop lessons? If a Pilot or MDX are out of the budget, here's one option that goes back to the roots; the roots of putting big, four-cylinder motors where they don't belong and hence the first-gen Odyssey with H22 power.

The 1995-'97 Odyssey's sedan-like swinging rear doors (rather than the conventional sliding door) and relatively compact size drives minivan shoppers away and leaves us with a cheap alternative to a new kid-hauler. What those soccer moms might not know is that this Odyssey was the first minivan with a flat-folding third row seat, allowing for extra cargo room when you need it and three more seats when you don't.

Another reason this chassis should interest the Honda crowd is its striking similarities to a fifth-gen Accord. Suspension, brakes and most importantly, the engine, are all shared across the two platforms. And just like in the Accord, the obvious swap is the H22.

Now here's the weird, but beneficial part. When Honda released the first-gen Odyssey, the company was lacking in the SUV department. Honda made a platform-sharing deal with Isuzu, which resulted in the Honda Passport/Isuzu Rodeo and Acura SLX/Isuzu Trooper. For Isuzu, the Odyssey was renamed the Oasis. The average price of an Oasis is about $2000 less than its Honda counterpart, leaving plenty of dough leftover for the H22 swap.

To keep things easy, you'd want to re-use the Odyssey's F22 slushbox with the H22. But we're not about easy, and the thought of a manual H22-powered Odyssey makes us smile, especially knowing that the cable-shifted H22 tranny's shifter assembly can be mounted just about anywhere.

The fun doesn't stop at the H22, though. Big brakes, coilovers, body kits (especially JDM body kits), and 5x114 wheels will all fit on the Odyssey. How about a set of DC5 Type-R wheels on a minivan? And while you're at it, throw in a couple of red Type R Recaro's up front.

What could be cooler than rolling up to your kid's school in a '95 Odyssey dumped on Accord coilovers and some JDM wheels, with the blow-off valve from the turbo H22 five-speed underhood announcing your arrival?