Depends on your interpretation of beauty, I love the boxy 80's look of the crx. I wasnt always a fan of the wagon with the tall roof and the front being so flat, the hood is almost one with the windshield. But its quirky styling has grown on me lately, even more so since I started driving it, lol
I decided to start on the rear of the car first while I'm waiting for parts to put the new engine together. I dropped the rear axle and cleaned it all up. cut off all the old tabs for the steel brake lines for the drums since it is all useless now with my rear disc setup. I welded new tabs for the rubber brake lines. EG civic front brake lines happened to be the right length to reach from the calipers to the tab on the chassis where the old rubber lines started. Its a bit more rubber line than I wanted but it was quick, I had everything just laying around and it worked great.
Here is the axle all cleaned up and painted with a rubberised coating. You can also see I lowered the shock mounts 2". After some measuring I seen I was only going to have 3" of shock travel before bottoming out and the bump stop is 2" by itself leaving me with 1" and I dont want to be slamming into the bump stop on every bump.
Here is a little something I fabed up to hold my coil sleeve
And the coil sleeve in place. The hole in the above pic is for a small set screw that holds the sleeve in the perch and stops it from rotating.
I picked up a set of SN95 Mustang shocks for the rear. They are the same dimentions as the wagon shocks in every way except the body is 5/8" shorter and they are a little fatter. I'm hoping with the mustang being a heavier car they will be valved better for the heavier springs I'll be running.
I should also note the shaft diameter is the same between the two shocks but the mustang uses an imperial thread so the mustang shock nut must be used (now there is a 15mm nut on my car, ahh) The mustangs shock nut has the washer integrated into it and the rubber mount is glued to the washer, just peel the rubber off the washer and use the wagon bushings.
Here is a comparison, wagon on the left, mustang on the right. The mustang also has a heavier duty bump stop.
For the front I plan to use a set of crx struts I have laying around. I read on here they are shorter, here is how much shorter; 2 3/4"
The rear now sits at stock ride height with the suspension at full droop, with the crx shocks I should have something similar in the front. There are few things I hate more than trying to jack up a lowered car and going up and up and up with the wheel still sitting on the ground.
More to come, next on the list is patching the rest of the rust in the rear, dropping the tank to find a small leak I can only smell but not see and instal my inline fuel pump.