Brake Check Oct 11, 2007
The seller of our CRX didn't do the swap, so he didn't know everything about the car--including which front brakes were on it. The B-series tranny isn't compatible with the HF front hubs, but he didn't know if the brakes were swapped, too.
Stock HF rotors are 9.1 inches in diameter. CRX Si pieces are 9.5 inches. When doing a track car, generally bigger is better.
While we could have just removed the rotors and measured them, we didn't feel like entering a project that day. A few minutes with a scrap of cardboard yielded our custom brake rotor caliper measuring tool. It only confirms whether or not a rotor is 9.1 inches across, but it seems to work well.
Now we need to find some Si brakes.
CRX gets some spark Oct 28, 2007
Our CRX has been sitting a little dormant in a very un-Honda-like manner. Turns out that the car wouldn't start one day. While checking all of the connections, we remembered something the seller told us: One of the battery cables may have a bad terminal.
Turns out he was right.
The easy thing to do was just replace the clamps, which we did as a temporary fix. However, to install the clamps we had to shorten the cables just a touch. As a result, the wire that goes between the positive terminal and the fuse box barely reached. Since the car came without a battery tie-down, any quick motion would pull that wire loose, leaving the car without power.
The stock setup puts the battery right behind the passenger headlight, meaning it's high in the chassis and way far forward. We'd call that highly less than ideal for a car with a front weight bias.
Traditionally, people would put the battery in the back of the car to solve that weight-distribution problem, but that raises a few more issues. For one, there's all of that cable, which puts a strain on the electrical system and adds more pounds to the car. A trunk-mounted battery also takes up some interior space.
The new trend is to run a small, lightweight battery in the stock location. One of the lightest options is the Braille carbon-fiber race battery. According to our local postal scale, it weighs a svelte 7.5 pounds. It also only measures 5.5x3.4x4.2 inches. Its lightweight aluminum mount adds another 11.5 ounces to that total and is simply screwed to the stock battery tray. (Options for attachment include self-drilling screws or hex head bolts and nuts; we went with the latter and added some thread-locking compound.)
The whole installation went as planned, and the car started on the first try.
CRX Tuning to Come Dec 17, 2007
Back a few years ago, Ed Senf tuned quite a few GRM project cars. He's like the god of air/fuel ratios. Well, Ed got a little busy with some topflight World Challenge and Koni Challenge teams, and we can't hate him for that. If anything, we're proud of him.
We saw Ed the other day, and he checked out the CRX. He says it's the perfect candidate for a Hondata ECU conversion, but first we need to move from the JDM computer to an American-spec OBDI setup involving the ECU, distributor and some wiring. Looks like we'll be back working with Ed in the very near future.
Hondas Feb 8, 2008
I have to admit, I wasn't too thrilled when Honda gave the CRV name to their cute-ute. As a longtime CRX fan, I thought the move was a little disrespectful.
I didn't hold the grudge that long and recently spent a little time with the latest CRV. Nice truck. Or car. Or whatever you call crossovers these days. If this is the modern interpretation of the station wagon, then I guess we're doing okay. It was comfortable, held a ton of stuff, and drove more like a car than a UPS truck.
My CRX didn't seem to mind sharing the driveway with it, either. Ironically only one of these vehicles would start this morning. Guess which one.
CRX (Finally) Gets Some Love May 15, 2008
After sitting in an auto cocoon for way too long, the CRX has been moved to the front burner. How’d we do that? Easy. Just registered for a NASA HPDE track event that takes place this coming weekend at Roebling Road. That phone call got us moving.
First thing to do was make the car mobile. We loved the weight savings provided by the little Braille Auto battery, but it wasn’t happy sitting dormant for so long. The original-style battery is now back under the hood. Sure, we may be giving up some max performance, but at least the car now starts when asked.
The next big project was to get rid of the world’s worst steering wheel. The car came with some cheese-o aftermarket place hooked to an equally lame quick-release hub. Apparently someone else also detested this piece, as the hub bore the scars of a removal attempt.
Yeah, the wheel was on there tightly. Guess they never heard of a steering wheel puller. The half-hour spent going down to AutoZone for the puller and Lowe’s for some hardware was worth the trip. A few turns of a ratchet put the offending steering wheel hub in our hand.
In its place went a retro Momo Benetton wheel. We were looking for something cool and different and found this NOS wheel online. Price was about $150, which is really a great deal for a new Momo wheel. The hub came from LTB Motorsports, and the whole things went together as planned. This was Thursday evening’s project. (By the way, props to LTB for shipping the wheel so quickly.)
On Friday, the car got a new suspension. While the latest and greatest isn’t required for an HPDE event, our car had some suspension issues including positive camber at one corner and a serious clunk. We figured it was best to start here. Out when the old, in went a set of beautiful Progress coil-overs.
Since the Progress rear shocks are designed to work with 1989-’91 lower rear arms, we had to replace our stock 1988-spec pieces. SPC makes some nice aluminum pieces that fit the bill. They also have provisions so we can mount a rear anti-roll bar. We also installed some SPC adjustable upper arms at the same time.
Everything fit perfectly, and the ride is actually pretty darn good. We’ll give a full report once we put on some miles, but initially we’re really happy.
The clunk? A previous owner had fitted a camber kit up front, and one of the bolts had failed. Fortunately the seller still had the stock Honda piece. Geoff Thompson aligned the car, dialing in zero toe out back and 1/32-inch toe-in up front. We now have -.8 degrees of rear camber and -1.2 degrees of front camber.
Now we need to do the brakes. Turns out that really no one stocks decent pads for our HF calipers, so we’re upgrading to Si calipers and rotors.
In other news, our CRX is now rolling on some Rota Beats.
We also took a real look at our air filter, and it was pretty gross. It’s basically a no-name open-element affair. The grassroots thing would have been to clean and re-oil it. The really grassroots thing was to replace with another one that we had here at the office. We figured this move saved us some time so we can get back to editing the next issue.
Finally, we cleaned up some of the under-dash wiring. There were some speaker cables laying behind the pedals, and we figured that wasn’t the safe setup for a visit to the track. A few strategically placed zip-ties made things much neater.
Then we turned our attention to changing the oil and installing new brakes. Since we had a tough time finding some track-ready pads for the stock HF calipers, we upgraded to Si calipers along with the larger, matching rotors. Both pieces bolted to our uprights. (We’re pretty sure they’re Si pieces.)
The HF and Si versions of the CRX used the same master cylinder and proportioning valve that year, so in theory there wouldn’t be any surprises. Now we could install some easy-to-source Hawk HP Plus brake pads. After doing the work, we followed Hawk’s bed-in procedure for the pads.
We also changed the oil last night, and today we picked up our numbers from Hawkeye Signs & Graphics. Tonight the car gets a bath.