Innovative 94-97 Accord EX & 97-99 CL Auto to Manual Kit

Innovative 94-97 Accord EX & 97-99 CL Auto to Manual Kit

Your CD5 sedan or CD7 coupe came as an automatic EX, you have an H23A or F20B on a stand and a cable transmission next to it, and every mount hole in the bay was drilled for a slushbox. Innovative Mounts part 29759 is the conversion mount kit for exactly that job: a factory automatic 94-97 Accord EX or a 97-99 Acura CL going to an H23 or F20B with a manual transmission. It bolts in, and it does not need the hood notched or trimmed.

What It Is and Why It Works

This is a full mount kit for the CD5, CD7 and CE1 Accord chassis and the YA-chassis CL, not a single mount. When you pull the automatic out of one of these cars, the mount geometry changes at more than one location, and the H23A or F20B sits differently in the bay than the F22B the car left the factory with. The 29759 kit covers those positions in one part number and re-uses your stock and OEM hardware, so you are not fabricating brackets or hunting a bolt kit halfway through the swap.

The mount bodies are steel and the engine load runs through pressed-in polyurethane inserts rather than the fluid-filled rubber Honda used. That is where the real benefit lives and also where the honest trade-off is. Innovative deletes the damping oil chamber that the OEM mount depends on, so the engine stops rocking under load, the shifter and axles see less slop, and wheel hop on a hard launch mostly goes away. In exchange you feel more of the engine through the chassis. Urethane mounts are firmer and louder than stock rubber, always, and higher durometer means more of it, not less. The previous version of this page said these bushings minimize vibration. They do not. They transmit it.

Innovative rates 75A for roughly 250 to 400hp, 85A  for 400 to 500hp, and 95A for 500hp and up. For a street-driven CD5 or CL with a healthy H23A, 75A is the right answer and it is what we would put in our own car. Owners running 85A across the Innovative line describe it as fine at idle and rough between about 1200 and 3000 rpm, which is where you spend most of a commute. If the car sees a strip or a road course more than it sees a freeway, 85A earns its keep. 95A is a race part.

Specs

Available Options

Fitment

The trim line in that table is not decoration. Innovative splits this chassis by trim because the EX and the DX/LX use different mount arrangements, and there are separate DX/LX auto-to-manual kits for the 94-97 Accord and 95-98 Odyssey. If your car is a DX or an LX, this is the wrong part number and you should ask us for the DX/LX version before you order. The same goes for a CD5 that already has a five speed. This kit assumes you are starting from the automatic.

What to Know Before You Buy

The mounts are the simple part. A CD-chassis auto-to-manual conversion also needs the transmission, flywheel, clutch and pressure plate, clutch master and slave cylinders with the hard lines and damper, a manual-transmission starter, the correct axles and intermediate shaft, the shifter assembly and cables, the clutch pedal assembly with both clutch switches, and a manual ECU with the clutch switch wiring added. You will be drilling the firewall for the clutch master cylinder. If you are also going from an F22B to an H23A or F20B, add the swap harness, the correct axles for the H-series transmission, and a plan for the cable or hydraulic clutch actuation before you buy anything.

You need the Honda timing belt post mount, part number 11910-P0A-010, off a 95-98 Odyssey or 94-02 Accord F-series to run the engine mount from this kit. It is not in the box. Get it on the shelf before the engine goes in.

Innovative will not take mounts back after they have been bolted down and the bolts have left impressions, so verify the part number against your chassis and your swap before anything gets torqued. That is a manufacturer policy and it is the main reason people end up living with a durometer they hate. When in doubt on a street car, take 75A. Innovative will change bushing hardness one level through their bushing replacement process, but that is a shipping exercise you would rather skip.

While the car is on stands, do the jobs that only make sense right now. Axle boots, the front torque mount, and the front crossmember are all exposed. If you are chasing consistent launches on a built H23A, the Innovative competition traction bar for this chassis is the logical companion, and the 29740 front torque mount bolts to it.