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We're alive after a successful trip and I'm still married.
We left work at 3:30 am to the hit the road en route to Michigan to grab this shell.
After 6.5 hours we arrived and Craigslist ad's house. Learned more about the shell, well at least what he knew about it. Super dope, what we think are, Motegi rims. In rough shape but with some TLC can shine once again... except for one. The original owner lost the lug nut key and started to CUT THE SPOKE OF THE WHEEL (pic of it down at the bottom). Hopefully it's something that MAY be repairable because I love these wheels. Ugh. Few spots of rot on the frame but nothing too serious.. overall in really good condition.. just missing A LOT. One of the reasons the dude was dumping it was the inability to find parts for it... a problem we knew we were going to have haha. Signed title in hand we load her up to hit the road en route to Pittsburgh.
Left Michigan around 1pm and arrived at this sketchy house in Pittsburgh around 8pm.
Turns out the guy was actually extremely knowledgeable and helpful. He had a Honda chop shop for the most part. Buying junked Hondas or salvage title Hondas and just parted them out. He had EVERYTHING from many different years and models. It was ridiculous, engines/trannys, body panels, interior... everything. He checked the shell and saw everything we needed and started gathering it all.
He also proceeded to say that the SI model with the 4 way disc brakes were the cream of the crop so we hit a home run with this find.. Props to 2xO for the original Craigslist ad find.
Looks to have a somewhat cheapo coilover kit on it but it looks to be in decent shape so we're going to roll with those for now, save us some money.
He gave us ... hood, fenders, both bumpers and brackets, headlights, taillight, dash, cluster, center console, misc brackets, steering wheel, rearview mirror, radiator bracket. Pretty great find honestly, with everything the car is like 80% back together haha.
Loaded everything he had up (which he says he has more of all the little stuff but he'd have to really look through everything.. will ship stuff at a later date), and hit the road.. returned home at 2:20am and unloaded everything today.
We both realized that building this engine up and to have this incomplete shell would be kind of backwards so we are shifting our focus from the engine onto restoring this shell first.. so the engine build is on hiatus (mods feel free to move this thread if need be).
1. Frame spot welding/sand blasting/powdercoating.
2. Upgrade brakes all the way around (not sure where to start with this yet) and run brake lines.
3. Diagnose/upgrade control arms/sway bar/etc etc
4. Minor body work and repairs
5. Wrap her up real nice.
6. Move onto engine
Heres some pics of her! Sorry about the long post.
Yessir. Lots of work! The wheel should be fixable. I've had cracked rims welded before with success. A good place can restore it to near perfect. Funny story.. About a week ago, an ad on the FB marketplace popped up for 2 CRX for sale not far from where I live. I think he wanted 800 for both of them, and they were in very nice shape and almost 100% complete. A buddy of mine picked them up this weekend as well. He got a really clean 91 that he's been working on to use as a daily. He's got a boosted coyote mustang and needed something a bit better on gas. Lol! Anyhow. He asked if there may be any parts I need when he was done with em or he would just scrap what was left. Let me know if there's anything you are lacking and i can see if it is available. If it's available, just cover shipping and it's yours.
Yessir. Lots of work! The wheel should be fixable. I've had cracked rims welded before with success. A good place can restore it to near perfect. Funny story.. About a week ago, an ad on the FB marketplace popped up for 2 CRX for sale not far from where I live. I think he wanted 800 for both of them, and they were in very nice shape and almost 100% complete. A buddy of mine picked them up this weekend as well. He got a really clean 91 that he's been working on to use as a daily. He's got a boosted coyote mustang and needed something a bit better on gas. Lol! Anyhow. He asked if there may be any parts I need when he was done with em or he would just scrap what was left. Let me know if there's anything you are lacking and i can see if it is available. If it's available, just cover shipping and it's yours.
body harness and front crossmember, the one the control arms bolt to. Definitely need those two things as of right now but I’m def gonna build a little list when I started digging into it. Thanks man!! Appreciate it
Got the inside stripped down and chiseled and cleaned. Def some spots of floorboard rot that we’re gonna patch up.. and then it’s some degreasing and cleaning further... and then spraying some rhino liner down and calling the interior a day. Piecing it back together after that and then to the exterior and suspension/brakes.
Quick question tjough... besides for furniture dollies rigged together.. has anyone built their own Dollie for a frame? I wanna rip the wheels off and brakes apart but still wanna be able to move it around so I want to build a custom frame dollie. Or if people vouch for using furniture dollies, chime in please!!
I'm glad I found this build! Looks to be shaping up very very nicely! Build on!
hey thanks man! Threads hit kind of a lull as we’ve been doing some nit picky work. Inside is all sanded down and we’re gonna spot weld some rust rot holes next and then spray the inside. Then comes piecing it together... will have some before and after pics after we weld the inside!
Bringing this thread back from the dead. The wife and I had a baby so race car sat and collected dust in the garage for a while.. started to get back at it during this quarantine nonsense. Working from the ground up. Rear suspension is completely stripped down (will upload some pics).
A few quick questions if anyone can offer some guidance: Decided to stick with the OEM LCAs and upgrading the bushings. Cheap ebay bling ones caught my eye but Id rather functional over appearance. Will order some Function 7s eventually. Swapping out the trailing arm bushings and now my first debate is:
**Run with OEM compensator arms and upper control arms with replaced bushings? Or find budget friendly adjustable toe links and camber arms?**
I will be throwing Ground Control/Koni Yellows (which is my next question) in to tighten the suspension and don't plan on dropping her too much to maximize the amount of rubber I can throw underneath.
From what I've read the stock arms have enough adjustment for minor drops... if I do just replace the bushings.. polyurethane okay? Prothane makes sets.
Second question: Most affordable place to find the GC/Koni Yellow combo set up.. or should I piece it together myself?
If it’s a car you plan to daily drive, I’d grab adjustable upper arms for the rear, and even a set for forward rear lateral arms so you can dial in the toe and camber so you won’t smoke tires quickly. My car sits a lot. And don’t get driven everyday, I’m using stock arms and a mild drop without any issues. I had to do my upper front arms and I just got some regular ol stock replacements. So far so good. But If your in there re doing it all, I would look into the energy master bushing kits and replace all that old rubber while your in there.
It won't be a daily but it will be driven in the summers pretty regularly. And she's all torn apart which is why im debating on just cleaning up the stock arms and replacing the bushings or "upgrading" while im in there. The LCA old bushings are already out.. going to attempt to punch out the uppers and then the compensator arms when they are eventually off the chassis. The compensator arms both have the floating nut issues so I have to drill into the interior sheet metal to fix this problem..
Thats my project for today haha. Depending on how easily the bushings pop out of the uppers and compensators, I will make my decision then. Ive read a lot about not using polyurethane for these bushings but then I also read that these bushing replacement kits on energy suspension are the way to go.
Welp I got the rear compensator arms off and managed to ruin one I think.. which makes my decision a little easier.
Had to cut into the sheet metal to get to the slide nuts. Drivers sides nut wasn't even attached and just had to hammer the bolt out but the passenger sides bolt was seized to the bushing so had to cut that out from underneath once I got the nut off.
I opted to cut from inside instead of underneath and it was actually pretty easy.
Didn't have a big metal step bit so I went with the connect the dots method. Here's a reference of exactly where the nut is from inside.
Drivers sides nut wasn't even on Passenger side after I had already cut through the bolt.
DONT MIND THE HACK JOB, did passenger side first hence why drivers side is a lot cleaner. Will be cleaned up after some more grinding and sanding.. I was thinking about welding them shut but honestly I might leave it open so that nut Is accessible.
arms and nuts out... the right one is the hacked up one.
couldn't get a real good look/angle from under the car and definitely sawed halfway through the actual arms sleeve and then into the bushing.. I probably could slam a new bushing in there and use this still but its a sign telling me to just get new ones!
So now I have to decide.. and with help from you folks..
Order a replacement OEM set with OEM rubber bushings --OR-- find a decently priced aftermarket adjustable set?
I'm leaning towards just running stock ones since I won't need to adjust the toe dramatically and save some money to use elsewhere.
Ordering OEMs for the compensator arms but going to be ordering a set of wicked tuning camber arms since its cheaper than new bushings. I could always upgrade those down the road if I need to.
Can I trust this bolt kit? SUPER useful having every bolt for rear suspension brand new.. let me know: Bolt Boys!
For the love of god can someone point me in the direction of a rear bumper support or a write up on welding up a custom one? I've scoured every city within decent driving distance on craigslist, nothing on eBay.
There is one at a salvage yard about 5 hours away from me for $250 and the guy doesn't even know the condition of it..
Fabbed up some custom corner slide mounts for the bumpers since I couldn't find the inner white bracket anywhere reasonable and currently in the process of having the rear bumper support fabricated up.. just need my friend to weld it up and then my rear bumper will be good to go.. have some new taillights gaskets coming in and then that'll be all buttoned up.
Can this thread be moved to a more CRX based section rather than forced induction since we're working on putting the shell back together before the motor??
Just random questions... will the trunk release cable from an 89 CRX work for my 91? The description from the ad says it will fit an 88-89 which usually means 90-91 but who knows if they changed something as simple as this cable or the latch.
09-03-2018, 06:44 PM
Re: 716_ISPYPSI's D16 Turbo Build Thread
