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Got the car home, now my search for a new transmission begins....
So far online I'm finding prices in the $500-600 range, more than I'll spend on a used tranny. Going to start calling around junk yards. If nothing comes up, I'd rather shell out for a rebuild kit or a rebuilt unit.
idk if it's because this was a swap, but half of the tranny mount bolts were inaccessible. I had to lower the tranny and engine together on the one side until I could reach them to remove the mounts completely. It was a pain, but it's done.
I haggled with a salvage yard and the best. I could do is $300 for a tranny with 115k on it, including the core. Going to check it out tomorrow, and hopefully have it installed and running next weekend 👍🏻
Junkyard tranny is in, almost got everything hooked up and ready to rip. Going to finish up tomorrow.
Here is the nasty junkyard trans when I got it home, even after quite a bit of cleaning.
Here it is installed with my crappy silver paint job.
I didn't get any progress pics due to being in a hurry to get it done. So far everything spins quietly and it runs thru the gears just fine.
I spent hours just getting the mounts to line up, the traction bar reinstalled, and upper charge pipe. I'm exhausted and just glad to be done. Hope it drives flawlessly.
Oh and Im rebooting my lower ball joints and tie rod ends while I'm at it. Noticed the right side ball joint is pretty bad, which sucks. Adding that to my list.
Car is done, I filled the tranny with fluid and pulled it out of the garage today. It's soo much quieter without the noisy input shaft bearing! Also the clutch feels great since it grabs much closer to the floor now that it's adjusted.
The tranny felt smooth, even just creeping out in first gear. I think the old tranny had a lot of problems causing vibrations and jerkiness.
Unfortunately I won't get to drive it until maybe tomorrow. But so far so good
Drove the car today. The new tranny fixed a couple issues, but some remain.
Fixed:
- Noisy bearing
- Clacking sound upon deceleration in gear
- Leaks
Still a problem:
- Shifting into fifth while driving
- Vibrates under load
I think my lower ball joint is getting pretty bad, and might be causing my vibrations. This will be the next thing I fix for sure. I noticed today that when hitting dips in the road, my right front tire rubs now, which it never did before. Looks like the play in the joint is allowing the wheel to camber out at the top.
Sitting outside at the shop, lower ball joint replaced. Was too afraid to drive it home the other day, it was bad enough the wheel had cambered out and starting rubbing the fender.
I was hopeful it would fix my vibration issue, but it did not. The mechanic thinks it is the front tires. Could be true, since that is about the only thing on the front of this car that hasn't been replaced at this point. Tomorrow we will try swapping the fronts and rears to see if it changes anything.
It was kinda funny, I mentioned how this vibration is making me want to sell the car to the shop lady. She goes, "I'd sell it cuz it's impossible to drive! I killed it twice just pulling it around the building!"
Washed the car today for the first time since I've owned it. Had to get pics of course. It was some nice bonding time, and probably the first time I've spent with the car that wasn't stress ridden.
I also painted the rear hatch window trim piece, since the black had been flaking off and looked pretty bad.
Before
After
Planning to continue tweaking my fuel tables tomorrow.
Yeah, I've got a laundry list of stuff I'm going to do this winter to get it closer to being "finished", if there is such a thing.
- New clutch
- New flywheel
- Rear main seal
- Intermediate shaft
- Koyo half-rad and SPAL fan
For the rest of this year I'm not going to drive it hard, but I'll keep driving it and at least get my street tune dialed in. I think my clutch is warped or getting oil on it from the rear main seal, causing it to vibrate.
Also the radiator and fan upgrade will be due to running 205 ECT's pretty consistently right now. The full rad is too close to the turbo and manifold.
It took forever playing with the low load/vacuum part of the maps in open loop trying to get everything right. I've almost got it perfect, maybe a little rich but that makes me feel better. Closed loop will take care of that.
Then onto the boost, I've got it holding in the 11's for AFR on low cam. Just need to dial back fuel bits at a time on high cam because you can see where it jumps to super rich when VTEC kicks in.
Otherwise the car is running great! Most of the little annoyances I've had were tuning issues. Injector dead times were off, and fuel tables causing it to jump around and run shitty, but now that's all fixed.
The vibration I've had only happens under part throttle, just in third gear now for the most part. I have no idea what it is, but if I go easy on the throttle or hard all the time it never happens. I've got a new intermediate shaft on the way, figure that's easy enough to swap and see if it helps. If not I still intend to get the clutch this winter and downgrade to a stage 3 or 4 to reduce the chatter.
So as you can see in the graph above, I've got it turned down to 12psi right now. The car is ******* scary, I honestly don't know if I'll ever need more than 13-15psi if that. And I'm still going easy on it, shifting early, etc.
When the wastegate opens it is completely deafening with the open dump tube
Overall the car is ridiculous, but I'm happy to have come so far and the progress I've made. It was basically a non-running heap when I got it.
It stopped cranking consistently, so I...
- Remounted battery, redid terminals and grounds
- Replaced main relay
- Replaced starter relay
- Replaced starter
- Replaced ignition switch
- Fixed clutch safety switch bypass
It was working great for a few days after all this, but then today it wouldn't crank again!
Ive determined my vibration to be a warped or contaminated clutch and flywheel, so today I ordered an Action Clutch 2MS (stage 5 sprung) and chromoly flywheel. Not looking forward to pulling the tranny again, but if it fixes this problem it's worth it. I've thrown over $1000 at this issue already with no result, not including the clutch!
Also going to do the rear main seal. Before this I also replaced...
-90-93 axles with 86-89 axles bc they are shorter
-new sk7 intermediate shaft
Got my new Action Clutch 2MS setup and flywheel today, thanks to Aquafina and his labor day sale. Can't wait to get this sucker installed along with my new rear main seal.
Never have been a fan of black wheels on anything other than a black murdered out car. You can't see them well so it might as well have steelies. Decided to go with the white, I think it'll compliment the rex nicely.
And yeah they are just cheap ones for now. Hoping it'll fix a couple issues - my brake caliper rubbing spokes, fender rubbing tires, and also getting them road force balanced to see if it helps my vibration at all.
Lovin the wheels... but of course, one step forward and two steps back. Almost made it home, stopped at a store nearby and the car wouldn't crank again. Must've gotten pretty hot, but idk wtf is going on with it.
I have been fighting the same issue for years with my 88 Si. Sometimes it just doesn't want to crank, and I have to push start it alone to get home.
I have replaced; starter, ign harness, battery, alt, main relay, and rewired everything twice. I don't get it.
The new wheels look great!
Glad to hear I'm not the only one. Going to start testing voltages for the starter signal wire today and see where that leads, IF I can make it recreate the issue by getting it hot again.
Last night I went back and had to push start it, then when I got it home it was cranking again just fine. I am thinking it might be losing signal somewhere through the under hood fuse box.
Have you checked your starter relay? It's right behind the hood latch release.
Tonight I got the tranny back off and the old pressure plate off. Just need to get the flywheel and main seal out then begin reassembly with the action clutch and flywheel. Removing the tranny was definitely easier the second time, already knowing where all the bolts are and how to get at them.
I am not sure how to tell if the old clutch is warped or bad. It does look pretty worn, and there is some coloration on the flywheel indicating it may have gotten very hot.
There was a good bit of oil in the bell housing from the leaky main seal.
Should definitely have her up and running by next weekend.
I also am going to rebuild the shift lever assembly with new oem hardware. I noticed that it was missing one of the two bolts holding the shift linkage to the stabilizer rod, it was barely hanging on at all
That flywheel got HOT! I have not checked that relay. I will look into it. The one time I got it to fail when I had my multimeter it did read only 9 volts at the starter solenoid, so I rewired that wire from the fuse box to make sure that it was good. I'm still having issues.
That flywheel got HOT! I have not checked that relay. I will look into it. The one time I got it to fail when I had my multimeter it did read only 9 volts at the starter solenoid, so I rewired that wire from the fuse box to make sure that it was good. I'm still having issues.
In that case I would definitely suspect the signal wire not making good contact thru the starter relay, or somewhere. Might have to trace it back. My old relay was corroded and looked burnt tho.
So you would say its plausible that flywheel could be warped? I am praying that by replacing it a lot of my issues will go away.
Finishing up the install tomorrow, will get pics of the process. Also doing rear main seal and rebuilding my shift lever assembly.
The old flywheel was actually lighter than my new 10lb one. Not sure what it is. Was a huge pain getting it off tho.
Everything else was pretty straightforward. Except the throwout bearing they sent me didnt fit. I put my old one back in since it was fine anyway. But getting the springs reattached to it took me almost an hour of fumbling, and had a knuckle buster in the process.
Also I don't think they sent an alignment tool, but I need to double check that.
edit: yeah, no alignment tool. Hope I can source one tomorrow or figure out an alternative/make my own.
06-28-2017, 12:40 PM
Re: 1991 CRX Turbo B18 project/build thread
Can't wait to get this sucker installed along with my new rear main seal. 
