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So a few weekends ago, I check my bank account and notice my paycheck was a lot higher than it usually is. I mean more than some people get paid in a year. Found out I got a performance bonus. So, first thing I did was go skydiving. After jumping out of a plane my girlfriend and I were at dinner and an auction ending notice came up from ebay on my cell phone. 15 minutes left on a B16A CRX. The price was lower than I expected it should be, so I just bid $50 bucks more, after asking for permission from my girlfriend. I didn't even think I would outbid the highest bidder. I ended up winning it though. I figure I could use it as a DD.
Listing Photos:
Picking it up
The CRX was located 450 miles away, so me and my girl drove a rental car up to pick it up. I asked the seller if it was good for the ride back and he said it needed tires potentially. I said NP I can bring up a set. As I was leaving to pick it up, I loaded up on tools and the tires. He mentions it also doesn't have a climate control unit, so I grab one of those also. At this point I am like, this ******* already hidden two things, should I go get it or not? Hoping for the best, I reluctantly go to get it.
First seeing it
Although the paint job looks good in pictures, up close it looks like ****. The car wasn't taped off properly, there is over-spray ever where. Most molding, headlights, and the ******* mirrors all have paint on it. The paint is chipped in several areas as if there was no penetration on the base coat. The valve cover has some crappy red spray paint on it which is a horrible wrinkle that is chipping. The intake is made out of a PVC pipe, wire nuts were used instead of crimps or solder, the battery relocation has a cut garbage can over the battery, and the idle was at 2k.
The engine seemed to be running well and the brakes didn't look bad. I figured screw it, I can fix anything if it really bothered me. The title's VIN match and all the logistics seemed legit.
The ride home
Didn't notice the radio didn't work, until my GF tried it out. 450 miles to go, with my bored GF in a CRX. :-(
I make it about 30 miles before the battery dies. Which of course means the alternator was bad. It also happens right at a toll plaza, which is great. I jump out, my gf steers, and I push it off to the side. One of the trucks come over and charge my battery for 10 minutes . When I remove the battery cover, I find the battery with a single zip tie holding it in. A piece of wood on top of it, and a bolt to tighten down the garbage can cover. The bridge maintenance truck driver led me to the closest parts store. When I get to the parts store, they were closing in 30 minutes. I compare a few alternators, and find one that looks the same. As I am removing the alt, I find a ******* zip tie instead of a nut on the lower alt bolt. Who the hell does that? At this point I wanted to take the gun I brought, and head back to the guy and murder him. I mean the guy had to know the alternator was bad, WTF just tell me so I could plan for it. I got back in the parts store buy all the bolts and nut sets they have since they were closing. I get the new alternator in and notice the lower bolt isn't the right diameter, and the upper lob of the alternator didn't line up with the top channel. None of the nuts I bought threaded onto the bottom bolt. I cross thread a nut on, and when I tighten up the belt, which is missing 2 out of the 4 ribs, it goes pass the top mounting point. I torqued down the bottom cross threaded bolt, and put a bolt in the the top channel against the lob to hold it back. All of this in some shady area of Chicago, which I was scared being at. I got approached by several people, which all my Snap-On, and Mac tools out. Seriously still considering murdering the guy, but lost so much time, I started heading back.
420 miles to go.
While I was fixing the car, it got dark outside. When I started driving, and the tach lights didn't work. 420 miles, no idea how fast I am going.
I forgot to mention, IL DMVs were not open when I picked up my car, and I was driving back 450 miles with no temp plate, or any plate for that matter. I made it until something like 4am when I called it quits and stopped at a hotel in Ohio. The next day in the day time I am more self conscious about the fact I have no plate, and am doing the speed limit exactly. Every time I pull into a rest stop I would back against a light post or garbage can. Then one time as I am heading out of the rest stop a USDOT truck pulls up and stops in the lot. He doesn't get out of his truck and as I passed by him, he starts following. Of course, I react badly and gun it. I get plenty of distance between him and then the car starts slowing down. The MPH still is going up, as I push the gas pedal down, but the car doesn't accelerate. I get to the side of the road, figuring I broke an axle or the transmission. 100 miles to go. I call AAA to get a tow to a parts store or somewhere. I am put on hold, and start looking under the hood. AAA hangs up on me, and I find the half shaft popped out. The motor side mount for the axle was just hanging out. Not sure if there was ever bolts in it, if they broke out, or this guy doesn't know how to tighten bolts. I luckily am able to push the axle back in, and take a bolt from the Alt bracket to bolt in the axle. I make it back completely without getting pulled over because of no plate.
After looking at it at my shop
1. Several bolts are just missing. WTF, who loses so many bolts.
2. The wiring is complete **** job, just going to need to start over.
3. So many obvious bad mechanic mistakes. Like not putting the metal collar in rubber bushings, and cheap parts.
4. Coolant leak somewhere, just going to rip out the engine and rebuild it and put it back in fresh.
5. It looks to have a new gas tank in it, but I can still smell gas coming from somewhere.
6. The transmission is leaking somewhere it looks like.
Work so far
First of course I got the title changed and a plate, before doing any more work.
Well my girl friend didn't like freezing and no radio, so I put in the climate control and new radio. That was easy. I also put a better condition oem steering wheel. The rubber spun on the one that was on it.
I started taking off the **** 2.5 inch exhaust that was on it. It raddled, sounded horrible, had the stock duel tips off the muffler, no cat, no resonator, and some silly cut out valve. The genius did a single piece from the axles back. He also welded single piece hangers to the car and exhaust. He used a hose clamp in one location to replace the rubber hanger. I couldn't cut the exhaust with a grinder since of the gas leak, so I attempted to remove the right rear lca, and of course I broke off the bolt under no torque what so ever. I end up getting the exhaust off. I took my $1k exhaust from my other CRX and installed it. The 88 body looks to have one less hanger location, and the B16a header was 4 inches shorter than the B18CR. I cleaned up the gas with brake clean and run water around the gas tank, and weld in the missing hanger. I removed the header, and welded in the 4 inch extension on the header. Still need to fix the rear LCA, but I started it up and it sounds fierce.
I also put new headlight bulbs in, since they were really dim.
Summary
Haphazardly won a YELLOW CRX on Ebay. The previous owner did a bad job on working on it. I am starting to fix it.
Sellers are always shady. Glad to hear you made it home safe. I made the mistake once of buying a 93 hatch with a b16 in the dark and the next morning when I went out to look at it I almost jumped off my roof when I realized how much stuff was wrong with it.. Looking forward to the updates!!!
Wow cool story and glad you made it. Are you planning on repainting it to the silver?
Considering black with silver. Instead of black and gold like my other one. If I ever paint it. Honestly I am going to rebuild the motor, and turbo it. It will be my test run for turboing before I turbo my other build.
Turbo it then rebuild it if it's a test! Haha. Sucks that you ran into that kind of trouble. But based on your extra money for a 'performance bonus', I can't feel too bad. I'm probably that guy you were referencing!
Turbo it then rebuild it if it's a test! Haha. Sucks that you ran into that kind of trouble. But based on your extra money for a 'performance bonus', I can't feel too bad. I'm probably that guy you were referencing!
My Best Friend of 15 years asked me for a loan, so I don't have enough from my spend account anymore for purchasing a turbo.
Student loans, something I will never have. Unfortunately, it also means college has taken me quite a bit longer than most.
As for the best friend thing, definitely know where you are coming from there. Friends and family far outweigh another project, in my opinion.
What was your budget for a turbo? You can go really cheap if you are handy yourself. I still think a T25 (off whatever you can source it from) on a B16A would spool hella quick and be great on the street. Sure, you'd run out of steam on the top end. But if you just street tune it and DD it, doubt you'd ever complain. Just a thought. You can boost on a budget. Plenty of DSM stuff floating around very cheap.
Oh god. That's why we aren't even on the same level. I've got about 2k in my turbo set up. I sourced gently used stuff for massive savings. But, to each their own. Ignore my suggestion at this point haha.
Were you just planning on taking the turbo set up and swapping it to your other car after you had your fun with it on this one?
Geez you will have a monster build with your budgets.. Seem like you have deeper pockets than most of us on here lol.. With lots of research you can def do some work..
Geez you will have a monster build with your budgets.. Seem like you have deeper pockets than most of us on here lol.. With lots of research you can def do some work..
$15,000 is a ton of money to spend on a turbo kit. That is no entry level equipment. I'd assume you were planning to sleeve a block, new pistons and rods, serious head work, and shoot extremely high on the HP goal. I can't imagine you'd set a budget that high for 300-400 HP on a stock motor.
It adds up so quick but the love for the CRX is crazy lol.. Even on my stock si motor I still have a blast driving.. There are times where I have more fun driving that then my evo haha...
This one will be piston, rods, head work, turbo, 3 inch exhaust, wiring, hondata ecu, rollbar, brakes, and coilovers shocks. So 7-8 seems about right there.
The other one will be dart block, BC stroker, full race twin scroll turbo, 3 inch exhaust, coilover plugs, ecu, synctech syncros, better axles, etc. Sure you can find 15 there. That wont be for a while though.
Okay, I can understand that. There is a bit more than just a 'turbo kit' in that budget. I think I've got somewhere around 8k planned by the time I 'finish' off my car. But that is the cost of the car, the motor, trans, LSD, turbo, coilovers, traction bar, paint, bumpers, seats, interior mods, etc.
True twin scroll turbos are pricey irrc. Coil on plug is a cool thing but I have heard mixed things about it overall. Definitely plan it out ahead of time and make sure everything jives haha. Good luck with it!
Again replacing the exhaust meant that I had to drop the left rear lca. Here are some pictures of the **** up I had to fix. The bolts that were used were not the oem ones, in fact they were not even graded. Luckily I had some spare ones. The metal insert that goes into the lower shock bushing was not there so the bushing was just riding on the bolt. Which inevitably wore though the bushing. Additionally, there was an attempt to weld the nut on the other side of the LCA (88), which didn't hold at all. I had to grid off the weld, replace the bolts, but didn't have any right way of fixing the bushing. I temporarily put in some hard silcon, but I will replace the LCA with 89-91 spec, and put real coil overs on.
10-02-2014, 01:58 PM
Whited's Second Build
