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Finished up replacing the lower ball joint, it now has all new joints. I also removed the washers from behind the brake rotor. Was feeling fairly confident that one of these two things were causing at least some of my problems.
But after driving today, it definitely still has the same vibration, and now some other issues it didn't have before. It made a loud clunk when first pulling out of the driveway, which I shrugged off as maybe the new ball joint settling. It still creaks when I compress the driver's side front suspension, which I was sure was the old ball joint. Must just be old bushings. It also definitely needs another alignment now, it wanders pretty bad. But since I am doing new coilovers this week, might as well wait until I have those in and my ride height set before I align it.
Another concerning issue is a couple of times when hitting a dip in the road or going around a corner, I heard a metallic noise. Hard to tell if it's a rattle or something scraping, but it doesn't sound good. Coming from the left front where I did all the work. I'll have to check if that rotor is rubbing on the knuckle or caliper bracket now that I removed those washers.
Overall feeling pretty defeated. But, coilovers should be here today, and when I install them I will go back over everything. Sooner or later, I'm gonna get this damn thing figured out! Or sell it
Edit: After some more investigating, it definitely sounds like the brake rotor is rubbing on the caliper bracket when I go over bumps. I guess they had the washers in there to space it out for a reason, just not done the right way. Easy fix though. When I take it back apart, I will see if my hub centric wheel spacers will fit in there for a short term fix. Then I will ultimately get the caliper bracket machined down 3mm where it mates to the caliper.
Its pretty low right now, may raise it up a bit but not sure. Depends how much my exhaust scrapes
Ive only started it to pull out of the garage for these pics so far, it’s been too stormy to drive. But already the car feels way more solid. I found when doing the install that the rear top hat nuts were loose, like I could just spin them off by hand. I think it was causing quite a bit more vibration, possibly causing the shaking problem I’ve been having too.
Looks good man. Did you change from the side exit to a full straight pipe?
Oh, yeah I put the full exhaust back on. The resonance in the cabin got to be too much with the side pipe since I have a highway commute. Driving around town the noise was fun tho.
One of the main reasons I pulled the full exhaust off in the first place was due to rattles, but I was able to fix them by removing the heat shield under the gas tank, and hanging parts of the exhaust a bit lower. Which now might be a problem since I dropped the car about an inch more on the new coilovers
I know what you mean. I've had a side pipe before and had to run open downpipe a few times as well. It's fun for a bit but after awhile you just want it to shut up haha. I'm considering doing a bumper exit on my Accord. I feel like that would be a good medium between fun factor and noise.
I’m excited to have it sittin right finally. I added another hanger to the exhaust today and got it back to 2” or more ground clearance, so I shouldn’t have to raise the car at all.
First impressions driving on the Progress CS2’s, these are some quality coils! I am surprised at how well they ride being as stiff as they are (550/550). They feel so smooth and solid, makes the car not feel so much like it’s age
These feel easily as good as the BC Racing BR type coilovers I had on my crz, which were twice the cost. The BCs just had more adjustability. And no comparison to the old, mismatched, clunky setup I had on the crx before. I am very happy with these, and glad I went with the 550# 8” springs. I have them almost all the way down. If I’d have gotten 9” springs, I may not have been satisfied with the ride height.
1.) Figured out that my shudder during acceleration was due to ride height/CV joint angles, so my low-life on the new coils was short lived. I have it raised up to about 1 inch lower than stock now and it accelerates nice and smooth. It's a weird feeling to be able to step on it at any time and not have it feel like the car is gonna fall apart it's done that ever since I bought it. So definitely a huge improvement, just got to figure out whether I will invest in some high quality axles to see if I can lower it more, or just keep it at this height.
2.) Took off my IACV due to coolant leaking from it. Found that this rubber gasket thing was the culprit, so I sealed it up with some RTV and should be good to go now.
3.) I rolled over 10K miles since the engine has been built and boosted doing pretty good I'd say, given the age of everything. Also got an updated full engine bay pic since it's been a while. Did some random clean up like vacuum line routings, wrapping some wires that were just strewn across the bay, etc. Figured it was deserving of a little special attention for this milestone. It's still dirty tho.
4.) Other random goings-on. The car has started to run kind of like crap lately. The AFR will jump at idle to full rich or full lean randomly, misfiring as it happens. I cannot find any cause looking at all the sensor readings. Might be the O2 sensor going bad. I know my fuel system could use some refreshing too, but it holds steady AFR under boost. Could also be an exhaust leak.
Sometimes the S.trim freezes, as in stops adjusting to my target AFR in closed loop. I am still trying to figure that out with Hondata.
Here is the idle acting up this morning as I press and release the clutch pedal.
the ride height your at now is perfect man
when a car is low you can never really have fun with it
your in snail mode all the time making your boost and engine swap useless you know what i mean
when your at a ride height that works the car works .
the ride height your at now is perfect man
when a car is low you can never really have fun with it
your in snail mode all the time making your boost and engine swap useless you know what i mean
when your at a ride height that works the car works .
Yeah the longer I have it at this height, the more I am liking it. Although if I had planned on keeping it raised up like this, I would not have gotten such stiff spring rates lol. But it is good to be able to drive and not worry so much about potholes, speed bumps, parking lot entrances, and the like. Plus if I wanted, I could fit a bigger tire on the front now, like maybe a 235/50
The clutch pedal is pretty annoying. With such a stiff clutch, the whole pedal assembly flexes when I press it in, so much that it makes my brake lights come on if I push it to the floor still trying to figure out a fix for that.
The clutch pedal is pretty annoying. With such a stiff clutch, the whole pedal assembly flexes when I press it in, so much that it makes my brake lights come on if I push it to the floor still trying to figure out a fix for that.
I tackled this for 5 years at one point. Tried everything.
Do you have a cable or hydro tranny? If hydro what kit did you use? If cable, REPLACE the cable with a brand new OEM one.
Once your pedal assembly is bent its best to replace it along with fixing the issue. I have bent/broke reinforced assembly before I figured out the issues was cheap clutch cables that did not have enough lube.
White lithium grease. White lithium grease everywhere.
I think Honda uses some sort of urea grease as well from the factory, but citation needed there.
Good info. Will try
I was wondering if there was a way to lube it up at all. Because occasionally the clutch gets pretty "sticky" right before the point where it engages, so try as I might to ease out on the clutch when taking off I usually have two choices. 1.) stall the engine or 2.) spin the tires.
I was wondering if there was a way to lube it up at all. Because occasionally the clutch gets pretty "sticky" right before the point where it engages, so try as I might to ease out on the clutch when taking off I usually have two choices. 1.) stall the engine or 2.) spin the tires.
Applying white lithium grease on the little push rod behind the clutch pedal may help a bit, but your problem is probably further up the line. You can also try lightly resurfacing/rounding out the pivot ball that sits inside the fork (and clearing any debris from the fork itself), those can make somewhat of a "point" over time or get rough which can affect the way the pedal behaves. Put some grease in there as well.
I'm not sure if that will help with your particular issue but I've done that before with success with other clutch "sticking" or noise problems.
I legit just had that seal go out on me on the IACV too.
Man those HF tacho's are hilarious. Have you wired the eco shift arrow to be your shift light yet?!
Hahaha, I guess I never really paid attention to that 5K red line easy to ignore it when your cruising rpm is only 1,000 below that. And I didn't even know I had an eco shift arrow
Originally Posted by Chance EG
Applying white lithium grease on the little push rod behind the clutch pedal may help a bit, but your problem is probably further up the line. You can also try lightly resurfacing/rounding out the pivot ball that sits inside the fork (and clearing any debris from the fork itself), those can make somewhat of a "point" over time or get rough which can affect the way the pedal behaves. Put some grease in there as well.
I'm not sure if that will help with your particular issue but I've done that before with success with other clutch "sticking" or noise problems.
Awesome, this will be next on my to-do list
I got the AFR and idle issues sorted out now by cleaning up some wiring, and relocating my fan relay to the engine bay. I think I was getting some electrical interference and bad connections. But anyway with the fan relay wiring not sharing a ground next to the ecu, and redoing my TPS and D10 wideband wire connections I don't have the jumpy AFR problem anymore. So the car is running and driving good, which I am happy to enjoy it like this for a while since I have run out of funding for any more upgrades at the moment
Car is super fun to drive right now, if I could just quit chasing this damn tune around!
Had it dialed in perfect for quite a while, running mid-11 AFR always in boost. Tested it in all kinds of conditions, different IAT and ECT temps and got those compensations all set.
Then last week suddenly it starting running consistent 12.0 AFR in boost. I can't find anything else that changed in the datalog to cause it, so I am adding fuel into my maps. It's probably not the correct solution, but there are so many factors... probably variations in the pump E85 I am getting. I did fill up at a different station than usual the last time
I need to get my flex fuel sensor wired up!
Edit: Well I got the tune fixed up so it's back in the 11's and running strong. Did a pull just now though and when it broke loose in 3rd, it shows I held at 18psi and 100% duty cycle for a few seconds
Re: 1991 CRX Turbo B18 project/build thread
still trying to figure out a fix for that.
