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STORY AS TOLD ON THE ACURA-LEGEND.COM FORUMS

Ok first off, we will start with the order I discovered it all myself.

-Ordered up a pair of RL HG's. They matched to the legends perfectly.

Bought a Chilton's manual, readily available at any auto store. In the manual it speced out every Acura engine since 94-01. in the spec sheets I did the classic compare and contrast. Obviously the RL block was stroked 300cc's bigger with no bore size increase. the HG's told me that and the manual confirmed. Also the compression depending on the manual publisher said both Legend and RL Use the same compression ratio 9.6:1. To me that confirmed the piston would be a flat dish and they changed crank shaft geometry and rod length.

The PART I've been holding my tongue on for all of you guys Always bring up Fuel management is the fact that the RL's Heads are completely detuned and slightly different than the Legends.

-Legend has 3 intake cam lobe heights
Primary
Middle
&
Secondary

-RL has 1 intake cam lobe heights
Primary

It didn't take a genius to figure that that meant the RL had less top end power, even if I didn't understand what it all meant at the time. It seems that the RL physically is missing cam lobes on its cam shafts, that also means that there are less rocker arms.

Lastly for all you FUEL nuts, the Valve diameters.

The TYPE I Legend Intake valve is 1mm smaller than the TYPE TWO, however the RL is about 4-5mm smaller. Same goes for the Exhaust valve. Right there I knew that I wasn't going to have Lack of fuel problems.

Next I located a RL block at my local junk yard which was convenient. It was still in a 98 RL special edition, heads and everything. The heads however were damaged. I struck up a deal and got to disassemble the whole engine myself after the cut it out of the car. I had a blast, I got to see the whole thing and i got to take everything apart myself so I knew everything was done right. First thing I saw what that although the top end looked similar to the legends, parts were either changed around or gone completely.

-fast idle tube was gone big black tube on the Left side of the engine)
-Fast idle valve was relocated from the back of the intake manifold to the top of the Intake manifold were the TB connects too
-Coolant sensors were swapped around in the intake manifold water passage

- intake air sensor was relocate to the back of the I. manifold
-fuel rail looked different, same layout but square not round.
-injectors had different wire harness connections

That's about it. I pulled everything apart and got the block home. I ran the VIN off the RL and it came back as a wreck in may 02 were the engine had 32,8**. That made me happy. The block sat a while, while I took it further apart checking teeth on the timing belt, cam sprocket, and crank sprocket. Matched it up to the legends and it all came out the same, except the timing belt it was 1 tooth longer. under further investigation it appears Honda increased the deck height of the block to compensate for the added 300cc's of stroke. I made no other thought about this other than the fact I need to use the RL timing belt, which i was right, but later I still got bit in the A$$.

*******

I waited on my Level 10 PTS kit to arrive before I disassembled my car. I was assured by SAM at level 10 that the PTS kit would greatly improve shifting ability and be even more powerful with they're high stall Torque converter. I bought both but the T-C was a retrofit of my own, so I had to tear apart my tranny to get it . The PTS kit arrived and I took the engine out of my car. taking out the engine took me 4 hours, easy since I did it before. Everything went smoothly, I took out the T-C and sent it off. I called up 13 tranny shops to install the PTS kit and went to 1 with a friend that was buds with him. I got the same answer everywhere. NO.

The main reason was liability, who's to say that if in case of failure it wasn't the parts or the labor? Nobody wanted to take the chance-not even a liability waiver. I did have 3 guys say they'd do it, but id have to pay for 10-14 hours of rebuild time as specified by their rehaul book on Legend trannys. That equals about 1300+ over here in labor. The main question i posed SAM at Level ten was the cost for install on a loose tranny, he said no more than 6 hours install; around 500 bucks. I also found out the PTS kit is a soft overhaul kit not a full overhaul, so that means that all the real mechanical parts are not replaced only the ones that are in constant use. what good would that do my 160+k tranny? exactly so i scraped the idea of wasting money on the install or buying a younger tranny etc. Sold the PTS kit on eBay and lost 100. oh well at least I had the T-C on the way.

I prepped the block and during my prep work I was swapping all necessary part over the the new 3.5. Starter, Diff, etc. When I came to the front engine mounts I bolted up the drivers side and then the pass, when I started to turn red with nerves, I couldn't believe what I was staring at, the mount engine bolt pattern on the pass side was different. I swore I made sure both were the same as the Legend, looks as though I was wrong. I didn't know what to make of it I started to think about the cash I already spent on the block and what I would need to overhaul one of my other 3.2's. I said F it went back to the junk yard and picked up the RL mount. as they looked kind of similar I traced out a pattern that would cut the leg off the 3.2 mount and the same for the 3.5. using the engine bolt pattern of the 3.5 and the leg of the 3.2 I devised a totally one off custom mount to fit the engine and mount.



As soon as the T-C came i got ready to drop the block in with the tranny attached and put the heads on later. Although i discovered this before, it worth mentioning that out of the six bolts that bolt the tranny to the engine block only 5 line up, it wasn't a a big deal since the one bolt wasn't in the end or top of the pattern I thought, but because of the added balance shaft the block is a full half circle rather than the 3.2 blocks half circle with a downward slope on one side.

The install was a little more nerve racking than the uninstall. mid mounts and tranny mount didn't want to line up so I had to take many try's until they did. trust me it was no fun AT ALL. after the block and tranny were seated I bolted the heads, everything was going smoothly and quickly now, I could feel the start of the car within a couple hours, until I laid the intake manifold on the heads and it DIDN'T FIT.

So the manifold would bolt to the pass head studs but not the right, it looked as though it was further apart. first thought was that the RL's I manifold was wider, so I went to the j yard and picked it up. I quickly noted the sensor differences, fast idle valve relocation and the biggest one of all were the radius hole-to channel in the upper inner portion of the I manifold. they looked like individual TB's rather than regular channels like the TYPE I and II. A lot better intake manifold design in my opinion. I took it home laid it on and it didn't fit either, that's when it hit me, the deck height was taller and so it must mean the Legend heads are taller than the RL's heads, and that folks it were this whole project gets real custom.

I opt for the RL's imanifold even though mine is ported and polished, i love the relocation of the fast idle valve, no fast idle tube and the real cool radius cut channels, beside i would get some money back from my p & ped type II to pay for the custom work about to be done to the RL manifold. I'm Sorry for all you true legend fans out there but i had another type two stock I manifold and I sacrificed it to the hack saw gods in order to figure out how I was going to make the RL I. manifold fit.

It came down to lacking 3/8 in from left to right. so what I did was split the difference 3/16 each side, centered it by slotting all 8 bolt holes on the I. manifold. the end of each runner was barely covering the intake ports on the head, so I had 3/8 weld added to the end of each runner, added weld on the inside back of the runner and lastly shaved diagonally so that it basically lengthened the runners. granted the injectors are popping out more towards the center of the head intake ports it was the best that could be done on a budget.

Next up was extending the water passage that accompanies the I. manifold. I laid it across the heads and made marks, I cut them on either side of the part that plugs into the thermostat housing. bolted each side down and used plumbers strap with self tapping screws to create the spacing needed to be welded. once welded I had to grind a lot of the i. manifold and the passage to make the passage bolt holes line up. i ended up having to drill out the water passage bolt holes bigger to give me more bolt range. it was a shame when i was pouring coolant and it started to leak out one side of the passage. the passage obviously wasn't welded perfectly flat and so it was creating a gap. first solution was to grind some more. didn't work. final solution after trying others was to buy gasket material and make another gasket to offset the gap.

At that moment everything finally came together, I started her up and listened to it purr. Not a tick was heard. again like most of the rebuilds I've done to this legend I never trip a check engine light and it started on the first try. however I was leaking some oil from the front of the engine behind the ac compressor.

I completed the rest of the car in drivable form and took her out on her maiden voyage. car felt the same driving normal-gentle for about 15 minutes I slowly gave it gas (Stock ECU) and let go to feel any differences, little but I noticed some extra -small punch. granted I was giving it very little throttle.

later that night after putting on the hood and establishing the car was leaking nothing other than some oil, i took her out again with a friend. Normal cruise again until he hit a stop light. I tell my friend to watch the throttle % on the apexi SAFC, when it turned green i mashed it only 47% and to my astonishment I lit up the tires like I was dropping the clutch in 1st on a manual. amazed by my new found torque I got a little more risky and did it again at 58% throttle, once again I light them up. not getting to carried away right before arriving home i floored it for a brief moment, the high stall torque converter live up to expectations and ripped through all of 1st half of 2nd and squealed 3rd.

Yes life is good with a 3.5 liter Legend Hybrid.

Further driving proves this whole swap was a huge success, although it involves lot of customization it can be done.

price breakdown

I got a deal on practically all of this stuff

600 short block
100 I manifold
25 RL mount

250 clean out inspection and lifter check and replace on my existing TYPE II heads (this was necessary since i had lots of previous lifter ticks due to the compound used for the previous copper HG's)

50 Acura RL HG's

50-100 (free for me- machine shop hook up) custom mount merge

250 i manifold weld, resurface radius and gasket match ports only

175 fluids-paint atf-engine oil coolant, ps

600 Level 10 high stall TC

cost 401 sold 300 lost 100 Level 10 PTS kit

50 misc drill bits taps etc

around 2300 total


More driving establishes the fact this car has huge balls now off the line I can stall at 2300 and totally rip the tries through 1& 2 or I can just punch it while at a stand still or at 40 mph- the end result is the RPM's hit between high 3k-mid 5k depending on engine speed and totally take off. mid 14 second car or faster N/A for sure.

here come 12's



~TRu Hybrid