Converting A Honda Prelude To Four-Wheel Drive Is Easy: Just Add Another Engine

So you’re prepping your fifth-generation Honda Prelude for drag racing, and you’re thinking of going down the tried and true path of grabbing AWD components off a CR-V to improve your 60-foot times. Totally reasonable, totally achievable, but there’s another way to see those benefits. Something simpler, something cleaner than hacking crossover parts into your coupe — just throw another engine in back to drive the rear wheels. 

That’s what the owner of this 2000 Prelude on Cars and Bids did, matching the 2.2-liter four-cylinder up front with a twin behind the front seats. It’s an elegant solution for installing all-wheel drive in a Prelude, and one you could absolutely do at home in your own build. Trust me, this is absolutely within your wrenching skill level. You will certainly not regret installing a second engine in your Prelude. Just look at how stock the bodywork appears! I’m sure you could get this done in an afternoon if you really put your mind to it. 

Sure this build may just be Prelude body panels with permanent Lexan windows draped over a tube chassis, but that’s totally within your powers, right? You’ve got a Sawzall and a Harbor Freight welder at home, what’s to stop you from putting together a car just as clean? You could build that rear hatch setup, route that front-engine exhaust through the bumper, and slap on a set of Wilwood brakes. You could also link the engines’ throttle bodies and transmissions and ensure the clutches are perfectly in sync. Skill is just something you accumulate as you go, and there’s nothing stopping you from building the skills necessary to put a car like this together.

Oh, you have a job and a life outside of fabrication? Well, I can see the difference in priorities there. Maybe, just for you, it’d be easier to bid on the dual-engine tube chassis Prelude that’s already out there and just go drive it. You could totally build all this, I believe you, but this one’s already kitted out with intake ducting in the quarter panels and working gauges. Just this once, you can buy rather than build. 

h/t The Drive