This is my second Prelude, after selling my first due to needing to get something economical to commute in (250 miles a week). I didn't stray too far with a Civic FN3 Type S diesel but although it was nice to drive and had a lot of torque it wasn't fun and there wasn't any VTEC. I pretty much missed the Prelude straight away and as soon as I got a job closer to home again, I started to look for the best one I could find. My budget wouldn't stretch to a Type S so I was determined to find a manual H22a8. I also planned to modify it a lot and wouldn't feel as comfortable doing that to a Type S.
This one came up but it was in South Wales, I live in Brighton so it was a fair trek! I did as much research as possible before going to see it. It was owned by a lady who had had it some time and they obviously loved it but were finding it difficult to get into it now being so low. It was a 2000 VTI in Crystal Blue with the manual and a8 that I was looking for. Plus it had a Motegi kit and was on 84k miles.
Overall it hadn't been modified apart from the rear lights. It was the best one I had seen come up for a while so decided to risk it and bought a one way train ticket to Carmarthen. 6 hours later I was viewing it and it was as expected. There was some very small rust bubbles just starting to come through on the rear arches and it wasn't running perfectly smoothly but it ran straight, VTEC kicked in like it should (she said she never revved it that high) and I was pretty committed at this point. The rest was all in really good condition apart from a scuff on the front bumper.
So nothing like a 230 mile test drive to get home. As I was all the way over in Wales it would have been rude not to go via the Brecon Beacons as Iv never been before. It was great to drive through the amazing scenery in the new Prelude and surprisingly the air con blew ice cold. I stopped to take the photos below when I got there.
A couple of things I wanted to change straight away were the rear lights, luckily the stock ones came with the car.
It also had an aftermarket exhaust that was really loud and droney on the motor way so that needed changing asap and I wanted a smaller license plate, I never liked the large brackets on the front of the UKDM models and this one was wonky.
I made it back several hours later with no issues and the car got smoother the more I drove it.
