The One Lap CRX is back

All back together with new gasket.  
 

Did some damper work today...headlight dampers.

30-year old NLA plastic holders have worn enough with race car vibrations to rattle around quite a bit, also causing headlight beam shake. 
 

Also fills an under hood air gap.  Win-win.

Fresh clutch while the motor is out.  
 

Sourced from our friends at IPGParts.com.  They always give great pricing and quick delivery.  
 

Best clutch alignment tool?  Old input shaft. Way better than those plastic tools. 
 

Pro tip: use cut-off bolts as guide studs to facilitate stabbing the transmission.  That plus some lift assistance makes this much easier. 
 

Why is it that holes always strip out on Friday evening right after all the places close that carry the unique fine thread repair kits?  Every...single...time.

That transmission mounting stud pulled out when we removed  the trans.  Figured the threads would clean up as always, but no.  Not this time.  
 

Fortunately, the hole is full thread to a depth of 30mm, while the stud only occupies half that.  The factory bolt next to it uses all 30mm.  So I found  another bolt like it in my stash, and cleaned up the remaining threads.  It's holding torque now but I'll fix it properly once I can get a proper Timesert kit in this size.  I'm sure this won't be the last one of this size I'll booger up.

Gosh, I love working on old cars.

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Following!

I've seen many transmission case studs pull threads on Hondas over time. They're very fine thread in soft material and take a surprisingly low torque spec. Easy to damage when zapping things together with a cordless impact, especially if using that stud to pull the passenger side of the powertrain up into place while hanging it in the bay. I have always thought about pre-emptively putting in a steel insert on my own Hondas that see frequent transmission swaps.

Update:  built motor is fully installed and it runs.  No leaks. 

Taking it to the track tomorrow to see if it's cured (previous water push was only when run hard).  Fingers crossed. 

Pumping out the 93 in favor of the corn juice.  High compression motor needs the extra octane. 
 

At the track today and...

What's this? An empty coolant overflow?  Our head gasket replacement seems to have fixed our issue, at least for now.

Tom will be thrilled to know that this commits us to an E85 fuel strategy.  
 

I gotta quit this crack habit...good thing I have a welder. 
 

Once home from the track, did a couple of street tuning sessions.  This motor has mostly been used for the track so there's quite a bit of barely-tuned areas (non-VTEC) that need some work for transit use.

There's a nice 60mph parkway near the house with easy turnaround cut-throughs to make loops.  Perfect for tuning.

I did have to swap out the front pads for some Hawk HP+ street pads cuz the DTC-80 track pads squeak so bad in street use.  Also pulled the wing off to stay a little less conspicuous. 

One of the challenges with E85 is availability.  There's a convenient supplier on the way to the track but for local street tuning consumption, it requires pre-dawn, avoid-the-traffic, fuel runs. 

On a positive note, the E85 we get here is rarely lower than E80 and is actually E90 for 9 months out of the year.  It's blended nearby, too.  So always fresh.

Status with two weeks of prep time left before we leave for South Bend.

"It's now fast, but will it last?"

To that end everything else we attempt to get done will be with an eye towards reliability and transit support for this "race car with a license plate".  We'll be spending the bulk of our in-car time driving the crappy US highway system, not making laps.

Big items are:

o Replace braking system...all of it.

o Re-install cruise control and hope it still works

o Hook up heater and hope it still works

o New engine harness

o Acquire and mount our competition set of tires and spare.

o Replace wheel bearings and build spare front corners

o Better headlights

o Swap steering wheel and horn button

Like to haves include:

o Flex fuel sensor

o Bluetooth engine gauge display

"List the work...work the list"

Front brake calipers, rotors and braided lines all refreshed. Will burnish rotors with used pads then swap to new. 
 

This is an old-school 11.75x.81  BBK by Fastbrakes, based on Wilwood parts.  Though rebuildable, Dynalite 4-piston calipers are so inexpensive they can be considered consumables.  

These are Wilwood's best plain-face rotor with curved directional internal venting: Spec37.  Made in the USA.

The local Summit stocks both the calipers and rotor rings.

Rather than off-the-shelf, we chose the optional Therm-lok pistons, which keep heat away from the seals.  Our typical end-of-life failure is weeping/sticking seals.

Here's the take-offs.  Those lines are 13 years old.  The caliper at the bottom is still good, so we'll save it for a spare.  The other was leaking.
 

Cracked rotor was shown earlier.

Next time you swap calipers, take a look at the Wilwood Dynapros. I believe they're both stiffer and lighter and are a straight bolt-in replacement.

With equal sized bores these calipers will wedge-wear the pads, so we rotate them often.  Once they get below half depth, we install an old backing plate as a shim to fill the extra void.  This keeps the pistons deeper in their bores and avoids ovaling.

Keith Tanner said:

Next time you swap calipers, take a look at the Wilwood Dynapros. I believe they're both stiffer and lighter and are a straight bolt-in replacement.

Yeah, Wilwood wanted to send those, but there was concern over fitment within the 6UL wheels on the car now.  These are super-tight against the barrel. Can't even fit a wheel weight in there. 
 

Yeah, I know the Kogeki would provide more clearance...but no silver.  :) 

Silver's coming :)

I'm surprised there were questions. The Dynapro is narrower than the Dynalite (better spoke clearance) and no taller (same barrel clearance). But Wilwood has the full models, I only have dimensioned drawings.

Keith Tanner said:

Silver's coming :)

I'm surprised there were questions. The Dynapro is narrower than the Dynalite (better spoke clearance) and no taller (same barrel clearance). But Wilwood has the full models, I only have dimensioned drawings.

Yay Silver!

The other benefit to the Dynapro is differential bore sizes, which should reduce the pad taper.

We'll check all that out when we aren't in a time crunch.  We've got a couple of things that were in the hopper with partners that didn't make the time line. 

Starting the tear-down/rebuild of this steering knuckle we'll bring as a spare.  The lower left is what remains of a previous one.  The HF parts are not as sturdy as Si/DX versions.