Sorry the quality isn't that great and that the pictures barely show what I am talking about but they weren't taken to show the difference.  From these you can see a slight difference between the front and rear.

Sorry I wasn't talking about intake valves vs exhaust valves.  You take the front valve cover off and everything in there, intake and exhaust valves are dark and coated with thick old looking oil.  Now when I took off the rear valve cover, the entire set up looked a lot cleaner and bronze in color.  Let me see if any pictures show the difference.

Hey guys, felt like doing a little tune up to the accord yesterday so my buddy and I adjusted the valves.  I'm only at 65k but I could tell the valves were a little more noisy than two years ago.  The job itself was actually really easy (my first attempt at any kind of motor work). Honda made the job a lot easier with the little sight glass on the side of the cam that tells you which cylinder is at the top.  Either way, when I removed both valve covers I noticed that the front set of valves were real dark with a think oil appearance while the rear set looked like a healthy bronze color.  Is this a sign of something?  I know the gromet for the middle spark plug tube was leaking around the valve cover slightly on that side, not sure if that pertains to this problem or not.  Just wanted to check with you guys who know more about the inner working than I do if I should be worried about something.  Also, the oil was just changed last weekend, ~300miles ago.

Well I do have a cold air intake.  The AEM V2.  It sounds very aggressive and turns many heads.  That's why I didn't want to lose the mean sound with a very airy exhaust and get looks of disgust rather than the inquisitive looks I get now. 

And no, the car isn't lowered at all.  I'd like to and I hate having wheel gap, especially with aftermarket rims.  I live outside Pittsburgh and its not the most friendly environment for lowered cars.  I had my 95' civic crushed to where it was tucking just slightly.  I handled better than I thought possible by laws of physics.  90 degree turns at 60 mph was amazing.  That was a set of shitty 60 dollar ebay coilovers and it really took its toll on the rest of the suspension and car.  If I'm to lower another car, it is gonna be done right without cutting the same corners which will put me at a hefty price tag considering quality lowering kits and then the camber kits/control arm I'd have to buy to get back to proper numbers.  Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what you guys mean in terms of appearance and handling, just not sure if it is much of an option right now.  My friend is trying to get me to get new struts and one inch lowering springs....

Daslowun...You may want to keep a resonator in there.  Get rid of the cat's and mid mufflers but the resonator is what keeps you from getting the airy or raspy sound.  You can find some stuff about people cutting out there resonators and such over on v6p.net.

CrackerTeg, I've seen you say that before about the manifolds being cast to the heads but why would it be marketed strictly for my car and they also seem to resemble riches precat deletes.  I'll have to go look under my hood to make sure, but I thought these would bolt right up to the flange on the upper side of the precats...

Hey guys, sorry if this is in the wrong forum but it seemed the most appropiate to me.  Well I set aside a little more than $600 from my income taxes for the accord.  Problem is, I gotta pick one thing(well 600 dollars worth of things) from my very long list of desired purchases.  I would just like some advice on which upgrades you guys think would be most beneficial to me right now given my current set up.  Or any additional ideas you may have.  My current set up is an 04 Accord coupe v6 6mt NHBP. 

AEM V2 CAI
TLS 20mm Rear Sway Bar
Goodridge SS brake lines
EBC Ulimax black zinc coated slotted rotors
Smoked OEM fog lights
Grillcraft lower center grill (black)
Black Pearl Badges
Tinted tail lights and third light in spoiler
15% tint all around
HFP front lip
Enkei EDR9 17" black rims w/ hankook evo12's

I'm more interested in spending the money on more power than just looks but it comes down to what is most sensible for me right now.  I would like to do some exhaust work but I like the clean factory look and don't want it to be loud until I'm really on it.  From what I gather, Magnaflow seems to be my best bet.  The mufflers aren't the cans and people seem to say it isn't noisy at all.  I had the whole civic thing with the 4.5 inch exit and it was too much attention.  The magnaflow cat back alone would eat up all of the money.  I was curious if anyone has done the jpipe or precat deletes with the factory catback.  I know the factory jpipe is supposed to be super restrictive so I didn't know if it would be more beneficial to me to do the precat delete and jpipe with the factory catback to keep a mellow exhaust or would it be a waste of money?  If i went this route I'd probably go with the new version they are selling over on v6p.net but I did find a set of headers on Ebay that I never heard anyone talk about from OBX...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180811093889&_trksid=p5237.m2000013
I always thought that ideally you wanted equal runner lengths for each side but these OBX ones just come straight down and merge.  It looks like $325 for the jpipe and the precat deletes.  Any opinions or recomendations? 

If I went the OBX route, I'd still be able to afford something like the UR underdrive pulley on top of that or maybe a set of black housing headlights so then my headlights would match the rest of my car.  At the same rate I could always use the money to get the remaining HFP side skirts and rear lip.  Too many things I want and not enough money for everything.  What do you guys think? Any combination of parts that total in the +/-600 range and feel free to suggest other upgrades.  I kinda ruled out any engine work cause I don't think there is anything worth while that I can do for that kind of money.  I wouldn't mind doing the 3.7 intake manifold/throttle body or buying something Paul cooked up but pretty sure those are all out of price range.  Thanks to anyone who helps out.

Sorry, not an answer to your question.  I don't know if you have been experiencing the same issues as others with the headliner making noise or not but at least for me it was a real pain in the ass.  I just wanted to suggest adding some soft foam between the headliner and the interior roof when you put everything back in the car.  Even if you don't have the problem now, it may prevent it later from surfacing later on and it doesn't hurt anything doing it.  I mainly focused the foam between the dome light and the rear window.  I also put two smaller pieces on either side of the dome light.  You just gotta make sure you place the foam in places it won't inhibit the sunroof cover from opening all the way.  Sorry for the off topic, just wanted to make sure you knew about this while you had it all apart.

I did end up getting it.  I went up to a half inch drive with a 3/8's adapter, a breaker bar and a three foot pipe.  It still took nearly all the force I could have applied.  I just didn't feel comfortable with putting that much torque on the bolt and housing.  For having around 65k miles on it, I could still partially see through the oil as it was draining.  I was surprised how good it looked.  One problem with the overflow hole is its diameter is too small.  I filled up till it started coming out...well it took about two hours to stop coming out of the hole.  It's so small that it wouldn't let the oil come out in a stream.  Instead one drip would come out at a time.  On a side note, I thought you guys said elsewhere that the 6speed trannys had factory magnetic drain plugs.  If we do, there was not a single spec of debris on mine, which I guess is a good thing.  I was just expecting to have something to clean up.


And of course, just like every other job recently, I snap the last bolt to put it.  That stupid 10mm overflow bolt just twisted the head right off.  It had to have been damaged ahead of time.  It came out without much pressure and when I went to put it back in, it barely snugged up before twisting off.  Now I have the threads stuck in the tranny and I really don't want to drill it out...

I should have known that such an easy job would turn into a PITA.  Started this job an hour ago thinking it would only be a half an hour job and I still haven't even drained the old fluid yet.  I can't get the top fill bolt out of the tranny.  I can only put so much torque on it before I'm afraid my extension is gonna snap because it is twisting so much.  I'm soaking it with pb blaster now hoping that helps.

On a side note, I have no dealers within about a half hour drive so I didn't get the honda tranny fluid.  I went with royal purple synthetic 10w-40.  I know the manual says you can run either 10w-30 or 10w-40 but do you think it matters that I went to synthetic?

I don't know the exact answer to that but I would think that it would depend how worn the other tire is.  If you run a brand new tire with one that is bald, the effects would be greater than if the new tire was paired up with a tire that still reads a six or seven.  So maybe someone more qualified can help you, what kind of shape is your other tire in?

 well I just read through the posts over at v6p.net and a lot of people were getting this problem fixed by the dealership for free.  It is supposedly the rails aren't very tight in their tolerances.  But the problem is, all those post were from 2004.  There were people having this issue the first three weeks of owning the vehicle and it was all still under warranty.  No one really said anything about getting it fixed for free while being out of their warranty. Some people said they were quoted at 500 bucks to do the driver seat.  Someone else said they have to take their seat out and tighten every bolt once every 6-8months to stop the problem.  Depending on what my buddy at the dealership says, I may just try taking the seat out myself and loctite all the threads.  Even if I bought the rail myself, someone said they cost something like $370...

As for the washers, I don't really remember noticing any loose washers on any of the bolts I could find.  But at least I'll go over to v6p.net and see if I can find any more information on there.  Thanks.

As for the dealership, I do have a buddy who works at a local honda dealer, maybe I'll see if he can talk one of the service guys into doing it.  Hopefully this route works cause I'm not very good at bitching to get what I want, though I could always get my ex to do it...she's an expert.

When you say that it sounds like you think something is probably worn and causing the slop rather than something just being loose.  I'd definately rather do the work myself.  Besides, I'm a little afraid of what it will cost to just diagnose the problem, let alone repair it.  It isn't real bad, just something I was going to fix if it was as simple as tightning some bolts.  I've never had seats out of a car so I don't really know what could get worn or work loose.

Its an 04. They're the heated leather seats if that makes any difference.


EDIT:  I searched automd.com for tsb's dealing with seats and didn't see anything similar.  How do these work? Are these all just common issues with our cars? More importantly, based on what you said, does Honda fix all of those things?

Hey guys, just looking for anyone who has messed with the driver seat at all.  I have a shift in the seat I can feel when I brake hard, accelerate hard or take high speed bends.  I just can't find much to tighten down.  I already tried the four main bolts that hold the rails down and that wasn't it (though I did get a half turn on all of them).  I found one 10mm nut under the seat on the left rail that I was able to snug up and two cross point screws towards the back of the seat near the hinge.  Either way, the seat still has play and I can't see any other option of bolts to tighten up.  Any input?  Taking it easier on starts, stops and bends is not an option....

I asked the guy at Honda what the change interval was and he said 30k miles.  I had my car for over 45k and I never changed it, and I have no idea the last time it was changed.  So I actually did the change twice.  I changed the fluid, drove the car around for like 20 minutes to get the fluid movin around and then did the change again.  Just as a little bit of extra insurance.

The Haynes repair manual says to do the fluid change every 120k miles so you shouldn't have much worry about it being over due. Though the manual doesn't say anything about the fill hole you guys are showing.  It only refers to the one that Paul mentioned that your supposed to fill till it leaks out of.  The top one would be much easier to fill from though, especially for anyone with an aftermarket intake.  But thanks for the write up guys, I'll probably be doing this next weekend.  I'm sure it hasn't been done yet and I'm just over 60k.