13 replies to this topic

[J-MAN]

Well since I've been around the site and had my car for about a year now, I might as well introduce my 1985 CRX SI aka Rexy. It all started in 2005 when I was 15 and purchased my first car with my father, E-Man, in order for us to start a father-son project. The car was a 1992 Honda Civic EX with a professionally swapped B16 SIR II/ GSR trans by the P.O. (who happened to be a Honda Mechanic) and it was love at first sight when I found the car listed on criagslist. I dragged E-Man up to Massachusetts to purchase the car and a few weeks later it arrived via flatbed at my house where it proceded to rob E-Man's 1995 Miata of the much our coveted single car garage. The car was a joy to own and drive as it was outfitted with many OEM upgrades including a full DC2 Integra interior, A/C, GSR quicker ratio steering rack, GSR front brakes and stock civic EX discs, H&R springs, a GSR rear sway bar, GSR Fat Fives w/Khumho tires, EM1 Civic SI rear wing, and an EG hatch front end. I owned the car for just about 4 years, during which I performed a few upgrades including switching to HP+ pads w/duralast rotors, an Apexi WS2 catback exhaust w/ high flow magnaflow cat, gutted factory airbox with K&N drop-in, stainless brake lines, Koni Yellows, and Spun SPG-K rims. During my ownership of the car I got into autocrossing, but after struggling to compete in my class, Street Mod, and dealing with the beginning of the famous Honda cancer on the quarter panels, I decided it was time to move onto a new platform.

I was pretty set on getting an EF Hatch prepped for STS, but was drawn to 1st gen CRX's ever since E-Man came home with ULT1GCRX. Well long story short we found the car on the GRM classifieds page and after speaking with the owner a deal was struck and the car was shiped up from Florida to its new home in NY. A big thanks to Icebox who took tims out of his busy schedule to check the car out for me. Rexy was purchased having already been extensively modified by her previous two owners to compete in the SCCA CSP class and came with a ton of spares, but was definately not daily driving material when purchased. The car was ridng on dry rotted tires mounted on OEM 85 Si wheels, had no seatbelts, no radio/speakers, a shitty Maaco Paintjob, worn out brakes, a plastic bucket drivers seat/ retrofitted go kart passenger seat, and a few other issues. Over the past year I've slowly built up the car to my liking thanks in a big part to the Rpr community and E-Man. I've also attended a few meets with the car, so I'm sure a few of you will recognize it and I look forward to bringing it out again this year. As of now I've changed directions with the car and I'm moving away from auto-x because I've grown tired of the way events are run in my area. You pay $40 bucks as an SCCA member for a total of 8-10 runs (12 is a lucky day lol), but the courses are generally under 40-45 seconds so it really isn't worth the money for me as a young college kid with limited income. So I've decided to take to open track events starting this spring. New Jersey's raceway park is about an hour and a half away and has a pretty good program set up where you participate in the bridgestone driving school (8 hours with an instructor in your own car for $225), which qualifies you for a racing license with the park which allows you to participate in open track days/time trials (6 hours for only $125). Looking to keep the car pretty much the way it is for now with no major mods as my budget is limited and the car is still my daily driver and it needs to stay reliable.

Engine:
Fully built EW motor to CSP Specs (rebuilt at 219xxx) (Chassis has 256xxx)
New Honda pistons and rings .20 over (professionally balanced with rods)
Cylinder head and block machined and shaved .010 (slight bump in compression)
Head is ported and polished 1' into intake/exhaust ports
New Honda valves and Bronze guides (3 angle valve job on head)
Intake manifold/head/header all port matched
Intake manifold ported and polished all the way to Plenum
DC 4-2-1 header
Integra oil pump
Delta Cams Stage 2 272 cam regrind
Mugen motor mounts
Unorthodox Pulleys
3 Inch ram air intake with BPI velocity stack and filter
Custom 2.25 inch exhaust from header back with Magnaflow muffler

Transmission:
1985 CRX SI transmission
Mugen LSD (set to full race)
OEM clutch
Custom 6.5lb flywheel with replaceable friction surface
HD axles
Recently replaced wheel/hub bearings

Suspension:
Fully corner balanced (pretty sure this was f'ed up when I had the control arm changed)
OPM torsion bars
OPM camber/caster plates
OPM coilovers with 450lb springs
OPM panhard abr
Mugen trailing arm bushings
Custom 3 way adjustable spherical bearing rear sway bar and no front bar
Tokico Illumna 5 way adjustable shocks
CRX HF quick ration steering rack with Mugen hard rubber bushings
14x6 Riken Mesh wheels gold with polished lip (circa 1986) with Sumitomo HTR 200 tires with a ton of tread left
13x8.5 Keiser 3 piece racing wheels with Khumho V710 slicks

Brakes:
Duralast front rotors
Porterfield R4S front pads
Rear CRX HF aluminum drums
Generic drum shoes
Stainless steel brake likes
ATE super blue fluid

Interior:
Kenwood CD/MP3 head unit
JBL speakers (front only)
1988 EDM CRX seats in MINT condition
Brand New Honda seatbelts
Momo Mod 07 350mm steering wheel
Gutted from the front seats back
Sealed sunroof with silicon (ugly)
Relocated lawnmower batter behind passenger seat
4pt clip-in Drivers Harness (circa 1987 lol)

So far here is my to-do list for spring:
-Seal leaky tails with 3M strip caulk (ordered)
-Use rust converter on any underbody rust the car may have picked up during the winter (anyone have any experience with this?)
-Respray the hood/roof/hatch with SEM flat black
-Source an 85 SI spoiler
-Lower the car via adjustment nuts/coilovers and get re-aligned
-Plastic weld minor cracks in side skirt/header panel/ door caps using Sarge's method (looking for free OEM broken plastic if anyone is willing to donate haha)
-DS tuning floor mats
-Diagnose short in rear hatch
-Fab up a strut tower brace to use in conjunction with OPM camber plates
-Enjoy driving the car with no problems (fingers crossed)
-Fab a front splitter
-Fab up a beauty panel to cover up the ugly silicon sealing the sunroof
-Get drivers side axle boot replaced

Will post up some pics in my following post and will post up any updates as I go along, feel free to leave any feedback/comments/suggestions good or bad.
Thanks, Jon

[J-MAN]

First a few pics of my civic in its various stages:

When I first bought it


Painted GSR wheels


At an autocross with Spun wheels

[J-MAN]

Rexy:

When I first bought it


With Rikens


With E-Man's Cf-48s




With Keisers



Most recent with a friends WRX, from fall 09


And the engine bay (Old pic with no BPI flowstack, going to ditch the yellow and polish up the valve cover and intake manifold eventually)


Unfortunately I've got no recent interior or good exterior pics, but Rexy and ULT1GCRX will be having a tandem photoshoot shortly to show off their new and improved looks lol. I'm sure you guys have seen pics of my car on the site before but I figured I'd give a timeline of the car for the project build. Jon

[ChrisF-dude]

I like the black with red stripe paint scheme. I almost did that with mine a couple years ago when I had my black/red lip Rota Group Ns, then my Version R2 wheels. What size are those CF48s on there? 13's or 14's. They look good.

[RARECRX]

I like the first pic. I'm a sucker for 85 si 13's.. They look so good.. Good luck on the build

[E-Man]

What size are those CF48s on there? 13's or 14's. They look good.

13's

[OG Wagon]

Great looking car! Nice job with the restore. I particularly like the Reiken's on there (2nd pic).

Have you thought about taking the body-matching paint off of the front lip and just painting it with Bumper Paint/Trim Black? IMO, the OEM look there would be a nice touch to a great ride.

[J-MAN]

Great looking car! Nice job with the restore. I particularly like the Reiken's on there (2nd pic).

Have you thought about taking the body-matching paint off of the front lip and just painting it with Bumper Paint/Trim Black? IMO, the OEM look there would be a nice touch to a great ride.

Actually Dan, the front lip is now flat black to match the flat black hood/lip/hatch. But unfortunately I don't have any good recent pics of it. Hopefully going to have a majority of the aesthetic work done before any meets come around.

[phatboycrxhf]

clean what size are those Keisers wanna sell them ?

[J-MAN]

clean what size are those Keisers wanna sell them ?

Size of wheels is located in the mod list at beginning of thread. Not really looking to get rid of them but PM me an offer and I might consider it, Jon

[Aren D.]

took me awile to find this post, after that pm... dude your car is bad ass.

[J-MAN]

Well I guess its about time I update this build thread with my most recent modifications to the car. I've really be trying to leave the car alone mechanically wise besides repairs as the car has been so well set up by the previous two owners. I got around to take the car out for a open track event and now I'm hooked so most of my car budget will be going into that from now on lol. The biggest change I've made was once again in the wheel/tire department and I think this will be my final set of wheels for the car. After lusting over team dynamic pro race wheels since I had my EG the opportunity arose to get my hands on a set after almost 5 years (thanks again E-man)! They are 14x7 in a low gloos black finish and are wrapped in 195/60/14 Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS tires. I'd like to thanks Zakats for the big hookup with the tires, he works for bridgestone and volunteered out of his own good will to help me "work" the sytem and get my tires for a nice discount, definately a stand up guy even though I;ve never met him (hes in Texas and I'm in NY, but this is a great example of the special communitry we have here on rpr). Also I've repaint the hood/roof of the car with rustoleum chalkboard paint just to play around with, after issues with the SEM paint, atleast until I slurge on a repaint. Lastly, interior wise I've added DStuning floor mats, a Momo Mod 7 steering wheel courtesy of my girlfriend, and great set of 2 gen CRX seats. In the near future i will be designing and building a bolt in rear Z or X brace to stiffen up the rear of the car, a sunroof blockoff similar to the kakabox, and a few other odds and ends as I see fit. Heres a few pictures that I have on hand, but one of these days I'll get around to doing a photo shoot.







Let me know what you guys think, Jon

[Toneco]

lookin good.

What brake lines did you drop in?

[J-MAN]

Raising the dead,

Rexy is still alive and up until the NEC meet was seeing daily use. Unfortunately after years of abuse some of the suspension components have worn out and the car is sitting partially disassembled in the driveway. The spherical rod ends on my OPM panhard bar as well as the spherical endlinks on my rear swaybar have alot of slop and are in need of replacement. The new plan for the car is to detune the suspension to make it more "livable" on a daily basis while still having some prowness for the occasional track day. Plans include a new chedda J phb, hypercoil 275-300lb springs, poly swaybar endlinks, and possibly poly bushings for my OPM camber plates.

Also on the to do list is a new sheetmetal sunroof blockoff with roof vent (ghetto AC? lol), newerish window weatherstripping (if anyone has a pair in good condition I'm interested), and refurb the 85 Si spoiler I finally got my hands on (Thanks again Big Orange!).

In the year since I've updated this thread I've added a few small bits including DS tuning floor mats, Vortex tabs (Yes like an evo), restored the quarter panel window trim, installed new thrush muffler, and performed some basic maintenance. The cars currently got 267xxx and still goin strong despite the recent suspension troubles.

Heres a few recent pics of the car from the Wilq's NEC meet (alittle dirty from the obscure dirt road that the GPS took us down)