NICE vehicle. It’s just now broken in. Except for the cams, they have some evidence of use but no galling or scoring. Honda was building some of their best cars then. You also got it for a steal.
Having had family Hondas run over 350,000 miles, I wouldn’t be as concerned about trans temps. The aux cooler won’t hurt anything since you are keeping the rad cooler in the loop. Otoh, do consider that shift tuning and timing may be optimized for full operating temp. I highly recommend amsoil in these transmissions. We have several Hondas in the family and I usually drain/fill them over to amsoil, and even in that prior failure-prone year range we haven’t had a single unit give us trouble. Amsoil is a robust fluid.
The other thing I would highly recommend is a magnefine filter on the transmission. Some of the Honda 5 speeds have an internal filter, but idk which ones. Others just have a rock catcher (screen). Run the first magnefine for 30k and the other will likely last the life of the car.
If you decide you love the car, I’d swap to a less aggressive wheel-tire combo, because that’s a heavy wheel with minimal rubber and the cornering gains simply aren’t there - a 60 series profile is beautiful on these, plus the lighter unsprung weight and increased sidewall absorption.
I’ll bet you can eBay some oem leather seat covers and just swap them out for a really nice finish.
Then of course since this is a distance commuter, we gotta talk about head unit upgrades and tire choices!
Edit /PS - look at how Honda builds their timing changes, multiple (more than 2) longitudinal links per link, not just two. The recent GM and even Toyota (prius) pics I’ve seen here only had 2. Bravo Honda for overbuilding that.
Having had family Hondas run over 350,000 miles, I wouldn’t be as concerned about trans temps. The aux cooler won’t hurt anything since you are keeping the rad cooler in the loop. Otoh, do consider that shift tuning and timing may be optimized for full operating temp. I highly recommend amsoil in these transmissions. We have several Hondas in the family and I usually drain/fill them over to amsoil, and even in that prior failure-prone year range we haven’t had a single unit give us trouble. Amsoil is a robust fluid.
The other thing I would highly recommend is a magnefine filter on the transmission. Some of the Honda 5 speeds have an internal filter, but idk which ones. Others just have a rock catcher (screen). Run the first magnefine for 30k and the other will likely last the life of the car.
If you decide you love the car, I’d swap to a less aggressive wheel-tire combo, because that’s a heavy wheel with minimal rubber and the cornering gains simply aren’t there - a 60 series profile is beautiful on these, plus the lighter unsprung weight and increased sidewall absorption.
I’ll bet you can eBay some oem leather seat covers and just swap them out for a really nice finish.
Then of course since this is a distance commuter, we gotta talk about head unit upgrades and tire choices!
Edit /PS - look at how Honda builds their timing changes, multiple (more than 2) longitudinal links per link, not just two. The recent GM and even Toyota (prius) pics I’ve seen here only had 2. Bravo Honda for overbuilding that.
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