80's~vs~90's Budget Sports Cars! The CAR WIZARD compares these era icons: '86 Firebird & '99 Prelude 

I got my license when I was 16 in 2004, I wanted a type SH prelude SOOOOOO BAD. Now I am 32 and I run my own performance shop and have tons of cool cars. Still haven't owned a prelude yet. I might have to start looking for one now just to get it out of my system. Now off to facebook marketplace...

@@bmxguy08 keep us posted on what you find!

I bought a new Prelude (2.2 VTEC) in March 2000 and was my daily driver for 5 years and I put 120,000 miles on it. It never had the check engine light but the 4 wheel steering light started coming on pretty regularly and I was getting old and finding it hard on to drive.

As a fellow Clevelander, the rust that ends up on our cars is infuriating. I'd love to own a nice new type R or something similar, but I couldn't stand to watch it slowly rust out over time. So for now used old crusty rusty shitboxes it is!

Odd, my 89 Integra bought new barely made it 100k miles before burning oil that was changed every 3000 miles.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm sure that isn't factory paint on the Firebird, the paint quality on these were horrid out of the factory. I'm thinking it was the factory in California, environmental regs forced them to use "environmentally friendly" paint processes that just didn't work very well.

@@AaronSmith-kr5yf Yeah I'm sure it's been repainted especially being a silver car. Usually the bumpers will sort of "fade" to a different hue if it still has the original paint. Must have been pretty well done being that it has the black lower stripe and hood decal unless they just masked those sections off before painting like they did back when the cars where being repainted under warrenty. Imagine dropping 16k for a brand new IROC and then the paint starts going to crap a year or 2 later and when you get it back from the dealer who painted it under warranty, there's over spray all over and it's obvious they just half assed masked around all the emblems, IROC decals, black headlight sections, etc. Before smiling and telling you to have a nice day. Always wondered how much of an impact that type of situation (which was not uncommon) had on the lower 4th gen sales.

I used to work in an automotive machine shop and we made pretty good money lineboring those 2.8 liter GM engines. Some of the early ones were so bad that just removing the maincaps wrong could cause warpage. The heads would often crack too. In my opinion they should have gone with the old and reliable 231 (3800) Buick V6 instead.

bmh67wa Yeah I never understood why they didn’t just use the 231 from the beginning of the 3rd gen. Eventually they did but not until the mid-gen refresh of the 4th gen in 1998.

You'd be amazed how far doing regular maintenance and keeping a car out of the sun and weather/keeping it in a garage and cleaning it once in awhile goes...

The whole reason Wizard was able to move from a 1 bay garage to an airplane hanger.....

Colin Goldthorpe haha, similar time a story I heard from my electrics instructor you used to work on Avro Vulcans. The crew reported low power and stalling on engines 1 and 2 at lower fuel levels. He pulled the short straw and was sent into the wing tank to check the tank and fuel pumps. A difficult job and clearly the previous engineer had the same thoughts as he had taken in a standard RAF issue mattress to lie on...only he forgot to remove it.

Ultra low profile tires vs. shit roads with minimal or no maintenance, because the state is broke or just too cheap to fix them. I've been driving with low prof tires and I kinda understand why people end up with SUVs. Talked to the tire place, it's making them rich- lots of bent and cracked wheels and the ride quality is awful. I've been searching cars and my eye always centers on the wheels. If it's low profile from factory - NO THANKS.

@@Neanderthal75 I have a small Japanese hatchback that comes as standard with 17" wheels and tyres to match - it's crazy. My previous car (small European hatchback) had 13" wheels. At this rate we'll all be driving around in hamster wheels by 2030. The ride is abysmal on my current car and the fuel economy is terrible for the size of engine it has. Shame, as I love everything else about it.

@@melvinharris7859 It's not just the comfort that suffers. I swear people think their cars "handle" because they react quickly to the steering wheel. That's all well and good on track or totally smooth roads but get on a proper driving road, a back road out in the sticks, and those rubber band tyres will grip, grip, grip, until they don't and you're in a hedge, probably backwards. Same with the stupid "lows" and camber these Max Power readers (UK magazine, look it up, or not) seem to love. It's all style over function, trendy wankers.

@@melvinharris7859 Well these hateful crossover things do seem to be bringing back higher sidewalls but i have a feeling that anything that wants to be a bit "sporty" (even if it's a 2 ton car with 180bhp) will have 30 profile's for a while yet.

Someone in the town where I live used to have a car that was an '80s Firebird body on a lifted 4×4 pickup chassis. You want to talk about some sidewall. :)

tasmith1969 😂😂😂

Or 350 engine

Oh ya mass Air Flow sensor that went out all the time. Memories LoL. 😂 1988 GTA and 1985 T/A

Yes F those maf sensors right in the corn hole. Through a series of ludicrous circumstances I wound up with Firebird like this. I found the cheapest twin turbo kit (designed for a Tacoma I think) and built turbo manifolds for the 2.8 just to do something stupid. Long and short is for a glorious few days that little 2.8 made over 400 hp and then a head lifted almost a .25”. And as dumb as this build was the car was rust free and in decent shape, so I found a 3.8 long block out of a supercharged Pontiac and some low compression heads, an intake from a late model Buick, injectors from an LS build and I built another set of manifolds for the turbos (everything is controlled with 0411 ecu), now with everything put together and a tune of sorts the little 3.8 is putting down 418hp 385tq at the wheels. Point is for about $2500 I’ve got a hot rod that nobody sees coming and thanks to light weight is just as fast as newer mustangs, Camaro’s etc...

Lmao the v6 models where all like that. I had an 85 bird same options a year ago and now I have a 91 formula ws6 5 spd that's only a tiny bit more rare...

Too soon!

It´s a manual, Wizard mentioned that she´s only able to drive ATs

I would guess she's not allowed anywhere close to any customer's car. She's probably pissed by all the bad publicity her dad has gotten her from that crash. I really can't blame her!

@@garys9694 She deserves what she gets...she knew she wasn't supposed to drive it and she snuck it out when he wasn't around. There are consequences for such actions!

@@skythundersky1544 Seems like she's not able to drive anything considering what she did that to that poor, innocent prelude.

😂😂😂😂

That was a real lol

Haha I had an 85 fb that was a v6 auto, they don't accelerate hard.

Lolz... Ha ha

and the firebird!!!! or are u a Carcisst?

It's a customer's car. I doubt it will be a problem.

The dents on the Prelude look like hail damage.

@@therealmacgyver5470 Calm down CAR-en

@@therealsamer598 the firebird is privileged. The Prelude doesn't like it!

Used in the Accord Type R too.

I remember back in the day when 220hp seemed like a lot. It's like the original wrx, everyone thought it was fast at the time, now my new work truck would blow its doors off. Hopefully we don't go through another era like the 70's-90's where high hp cars were all but forgotten.

The 4-gen preludes were faster than the 5th-gen.

It’s too bad Honda stopped making them. I had the original 86 and my son bought a 2001. Best cars we’ve ever had. I drove mine for twelve years and put on 327,00 km. (203,000 miles). All it ever needed was regular maintenance and it still ran like a top when I sold it.

@@josephpatricio851 I have about 5 that i know of in my a area and they all have over 200K miles on them, Mine is bone stock with 37K miles.

Beefed up 3rd gens and 4th gens in general are deceptively quick. The 4th gen VTEC had zero right being as fast as it was. Geared to perfection

I dusted every prelude I raced with my maxima in high school.

Me too

That lucky guy.

OMGWTFLOL 🤣 you troll. Well I was lucky at least.

Had a 1990 firebird formula back in hs with the 305. I think it had maybe 180hp but boy did she sound better than all the kids driving rusty cavaliers.

Many kids conceived in those backseat lol lord there's some stories ill never tell my kids about my 84 t/a lol

Did you check behind the cushion?

Same bro. 2000 prelude and it always makes me a little happy to see it get some attention lol

Your right

The same issue happens with the 90s accord and the F series motor. Its easy to do the F series motors with the intake still on.

Yh, you dont need to drill it on the h22a7 (accord type r uk) theres bolts to take the plate off! Egr bolts where a bit of an odd angle though

LOL! Potent? LOL!

@@samiam5557 it's barely over half the displacement of the V8, so yes. It also weighs less and sits further back in the engine bay, improving balance.

87-90 Trans Am GTA would have been better comparison in some ways! Far more torque!😎

I’ve owned and driven both a 2.8 V6 and a carbbed 305 V8 firebird. The V8 is leagues better than the V6

@@erod017 The L98 350 GTA is even better.😎

Those 2.8s will run even after some abuse. I bought an S10 with one and has a severe knock leaks a shit ton of oil and I drove it for a summer added a quart a week but it was good cheap fun. Im saving the chassis for a drag truck after I finish my 66

@@cptnscoob yeah the motor itself was rugged, my problems were all electrical

@@cptnscoob My son & I had an S10 with one in it also, we swapped it out for a 4.3 V6. What a nightmare we had, for not much gain.We kicked ourselves for not putting a V8 in it. How stupid were we?

@@garys9694 the 2.8 in the S10's was inferior to the 85-89 f body version, as it was carbureted in 85&86, and had TBI afterwards, while the 85-89 f body version was a longitudinal version of the Fiero GT engine with port injection

I had the same car in high school! My father had to buy the V6 model because his insurance company told him it wouldn't cover a V8 Camaro with a teenage driver. (That's pretty funny to think of today, when you consider that the smallest-engined Camaro available has more power--LOTS more--than the most powerful V8 model available in 1989. :) The factory anti-theft system (remember the little chips embedded in the keys?) failed within a year, but the rest of the electrical system worked fine for the three years we had the car. Apparently that chipped-keys security system failed a lot. When mine went and I had the car towed to the local Chevy dealer, the guy who ran the service department muttered something to the effect of "not _this_ shit again" and just bypassed it so neither of us would ever have to deal with it again. :)

The Jackson miss area had a huge hailstorm many years ago. 8??. Friends mini van got a broken windshield. The roof and hood looks like the jolly green giant tapped it with a giant ball peen hammer. Area homes had much roof damage.

T...The P... Prelude! (looks like someone didn't attend elementary school)

hahaha man hailstorms are no joke I never experienced one until I was about 16 and it beat my moms car up bad

I use to live in KS(Wichita area) for a few years in the early 00's, and hail storms are fairly common out that way, so much so I would often see hail storm damage auto commericals on local TV, or hear them on local radio after storms, and you could save a lot of money if you could put up with some hail dents. I've seen hail out there that was big as tennis balls, and my girlfriend at the time had one about that size hit the back window of her 99 Saturn SL1, and put a nice crack in it, thankfully her insurance covered it, but after that we bought a 2 car carport, and had it installed in her driveway to put our cars under, and i'm honestly surprised more people out that way without garages don't do that. Here east in SC they are not as common, and the biggest I can ever remember in my 39 years what about golf ball sized.

Yep! Looks just like my two vehicles!

WRX has too be much more fun to drive though

@@210SAi take a 5th gen 5spd on some twisty roads and you'll quickly gain appreciation for the car. Yea its slower than a wrx in a dig but will definitely hold its own in the twistys. Its a very balanced car all in all.

Aston Martin won Gt Pro Class in this years Le Mans 24 Hours.

Put a 383 stroker in it!!!!!!

Or make it fast... I wanted to but then I sold it for a 91 formula ws6 5 spd with the tpi engine

Chazillor makes changing the belts really easy.

I’d like to put a set on my 2010 Civic coupe

Then it became the 3.4L v6 160hp for 1993-1995 Camaro/firebird

Years ago, when Knight Rider was a popular TV show, I stopped at a distant village to visit my aunt, leaving my black Trans Am parked across the street. I looked out her living room window to see two small boys, one whacking the hood of my car with a big branch. Running out I yelled, "What are you doing?" The branch wielder replied, "You can't hurt this car."

@@lorrinbarth1969 A similar thing happened to me. Only I shot the kid, as he didn't realise that my Trans Am was KARR, not KITT.

@@lorrinbarth1969 Go 1982 Trans Am!😎😀

North American market Acura TLX A.Spec is not too different in concept to the Prelude. :)

Few parts are shared but very few. Alot of OEM parts are getting very hard to find and if you do find them they are expensive like you said...its a bummer.

Every guy who owned an f-body with the 3.8 series II would swear up an down they where gonna get a supercharger from a Pontiac or Buick put on lol it's not the same those cars are fwd whole different pulley system obviously not saying it can't be done but the amount of money you would spend you can just buy a car with an ls1 an it's probably cheaper

My 2000 Prelude window sheet shows a list price of $24, 915.

@@ap101081 Adjusted for inflation thats over $37k in todays money. Not at all what I would call budget priced.

@@fanatic26 Wow that's around the MSRP for the Type R. Really puts things into perspective on far we've come.

@@MTE-72 which is why I don't understand why people complain about car prices now a days. They always seem to forget inflation

Did they ever say if his was a V8 or V6?

Wasn't his a Formula? edit: His was a T/A. ;)

Maxwelhse did you find that on an office fandom page?

@@210SAi Just image searched and recognized it as a T/A. I'm also pretty sure all T/As were V8s.

The only TA that had a V6 was the 20th Anniversary 89 Turbo Trans Am.

I had a chance to buy that type s intake for $200 and I passed it up. I kick myself every time I think about it. Last time I looked there was only 1 on ebay and they wanted $999.99 for it!!!

@@DaNiElLl430 Yeah someone will put one up on ebay every now and then for some rediculous price and claim the "rare" tax as justification. It's really worth *no more than* 200. And I'd consider that high. It adds a bit of drivability and makes the car a bit funner to drive, but it's not a crazy performance part like people are trying to sell if for. It does one *quality of life* thing and that's it. If you can get your hands on if for something reasonable, do it.

Lol hurrdurr

Great idea.

Now they’re still hard to find in non- clapped out condition -prelude owner

IMHO a very sensible and humble "not may area of expertise" or "my neighbor will do a better job than me, give hime money , don't waste it on me"

It's a function of financial security I've found myself.When your back's against the wall you'll take any job offered.When you get a bit of cash behind you you think...I don't need this sh*t anymore.Anyway it's a kind of charity in a way.Give the work to guys that need it more.

@@tolrem the wizzard has minions to do his dirty work now

Lol...that is exactly what happened to most of us in the late 90s. Its going to be a civic coupe you couldn't afford the prelude

The era had some of the best looking muscle cars and cool imports, but the handling, braking and road feel was abysmal on most of them.

@@OMGWTFLOLSMH The handling and cornering were not the greatest. Never really had an issue with the brakes on them though. Personally not a fan of ABS or computer assisted braking. The style and look of classic vehicles are timeless. Like seeing new cars(Mustangs, Camaro's, Challenger), mimic the look and style of their older brethren. VT247