EJ8_Man

Being accustomed to rebuilding as opposed to opening up my bank account at a dealer I recently purchased a 2006 CR-V EX 5 speed. Finding a manual version of the 2005-06 CR-Vs without a million miles on the odometer was no small feat. Low mile manual versions of these cars are not common. Accross the entire US I found ~20 for sale, and 90% of them were pushing 150-180k+ miles. After a month of searching I was considering building a manual version of a 2011 CRV with some parts from Europe or Japan... Very expensive option.

Finally a V popped up. Unfortunately it was offered at a Toyota stealer. They listed the car at $11,888. It had 100k on the clock, a clean carfax, but 0 maintenance records.

I let it sit for a week hoping something else would pop up. Nothing did. So my wife and I said screw it, we broke down and went to see the car. This would be my first dealer experience. After a test drive, and a bunch of good cop bad cop sales tactics I got the car for $9,500 (before ridiculous taxes).

The car passed a test drive, but much to my chagrin after 20+ minutes of driving the clutch started to chatter something fierce. I was disappointed to say the least. I should have got the car nice and hot on my test drive - boo for me.

It was time to get dirty, and to bring this car up to my family wagon standards. I purchased a 2004 RSX-S flywheel (new and shiney OEM Honda) with a stage 1 organic Exedy Clutch kit. New slave and master clutch cylinders. New engine mounts (which I reinforced with silicone), New spark plugs, New brakes, a valve adjustment, throttle body cleaning, full hydraulic fluid flush, trans fluid (obviously), rear diff fluid. The passenger lower ball joint was seized, and busted in half on removal, that would also need replacing. It was going to be a long weekend. 30 hours total (everything I could get my hands into was meticulously cleaned ADD style)

This was my first date with the K family motors. Things got serious and intimate rather quickly. You'll notice cheap silver spray paint in the photos. The transmission was out of a smashed 2004 CRV that was declared a total loss in 2014 - tranny was rebuilt I assume. Needless to say the previous owner should have opted for an automatic. They ruined this car's clutch and transmission.

Apart from a stupid starter location (God help me if it ever needs to come out) the rest of the design had me thinking the K is a refined and perfected B series. Well done Honda.

The Exedy stage 1 chatters when babied. Exedy reps said this clutch does not have the dampening capabilities of the OEM CRV clutch. Ouch. It's not bad, but not what I wanted. We will deal with it however. Appropriate throttle cures the issue. After an alignment and $600 dollars in parts the car feels great.

Now it's time to address the archaic head unit, add an auto dimming mirror, roof rack, and maybe a trailer hitch.

There will be more to come. I'll upload some pics soon and link them here for your viewing pleasure.

Cheers

EJ8_Man

As Promised:





Pocket ***** Pink silicone was all I had at the time. Worked out rather well...






































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DrGER

Very nice -- my wife & I prefer the manual gearbox, too, and were looking for a later 2nd gen EX to replace our sound-but-spartan 2000 EX 5MT when we came across a clean '04 EX 5MT white/grey up the road in Ann Arbor recently for a fair price.

A month later, we're finding why the EX had such a good sale price: engine oil consumption is about 1 qt / 200 miles ! No leaks, no blue smoke, not overly sooty around the tail-pipe, but you can't argue with a dipstick. So it goes -- it drives nice, we both like it more than our gen 1, and we figure we could drop a low(er) miles salvage engine in it & still be ahead (given the rarity of the 2nd gen EX 5MT.

EJ8_Man

Ouch... 1qt every 200 miles isn't road worthy. If you are mechanically inclined do a leak down test and see whats not sealing properly. If you're lucky its just a stuck or clogged pcv valve, but even then 1 quart per 200 miles should result in a soot covered exhaust and smoke. Any smoke on startup?

The good news is used JDM K24As will run you ~900. In my experience with 2 JDM replacements both burned oil. If and when my engine dies it will be getting a K20 RSX-S head, and a build. If I'm going to get crap gas mileage I might as well have proper VTEC.