Well after not driving the rex since last September. It's finally up and running. Loooooong story but I will give a condensed version.

Bought a CRX on ebay - fraudulantly misrepresented of course. Drive to Lexington KT to pick it up....ended up breaking down in the ghetto of Cincinatti (had to keep it at about 9k rpm to keep it going - that's what prob did it ...and yes I said I had to KEEP it at 9k rpm). Had to come back the next day, miss work and tow it home another 2 hours.

I talked to the guy and told him what happened and he pretty much said tough **** so I went through ebay and tried suin through about a month long process (the whole time not being able to work on it or change anything) only for ebay to tell me, "You took the car so we can't do anything about it." - douschebags, how does that make any sense? Just tryin to find a way to keep themselves out of it. I spoke to another attorney and he said it would be too much hassle especially with the scam artist living in South Carolina and me in Indiana. My roomate works at Honda so I was able to get a free quote from them and they said $2500+ to fix the ****. Nope.

We decided to do a full engine/hybrid tranny rebuild. I wasn't too knowledgeable with cars but my roomate is a mechanic. He had never done this big of a job before so it was a learning experience for him too. I did all the research I could on min-me's so we thought we could fix what needed to be. Little did we know that many of the parts on the parts lists wouldn't work because the block that was in there, wasn't the block that I thought I bought. Instead of the stock D16A6, we had a Jap D16 (most of you have never heard of it, but trust me - do a search I posted a pic of the tag a while ago - it's a vtec e engine) with a Z6 head. This really F*d up all my parts search for timing belts, water pumps, etc. Went through a couple of each before finding out what the problem was.

I said I would make this short. ****. Well, after 8 months of working at it (bent valves, locked tranny, electric problems, distributor probs, battery probs, ECU code hell, working with both of our schedules, so much more...) I finally drove it last night! It ******* pulls and I am so damn happy with it. It does need a little tuning but we can't believe how smooth it runs. Almost like brand ******* new - purs like a kitten. I do have some probs still though, like I only have about 1/2 inch of clutch pedal - just need to play with the cable I think. Don't have reverse lights,...thinking that was something when we built the tranny (possibly forgot a washer or something). But these are very minor things to a great ending. This thing is like new...we pretty much replaced everything you can think of.

Even when we had it running for like 10 minutes in the garage without it dying (for the first time in 8 months that it didn't idle for 3 minutes then slowly die) I still wasn't happy. I was scared to start it up. Scared to put it int reverse. Scared to drive it down the driveway. I just didn't want another let down - there had been so many in this build. Even when I was driving it down the street I had, "Ok, it's driving good so what's next? Is there going to be a 4th gear?". I just didn't want to get too happy. I am so damn happy that I couldn't sleep past 7:30 this morning and I'm gonna tweak the cable a bit and run to DMV so I can drive all damn day. Truly momentus occassion.

I will post pics sometime this weekend. By the way, last night when I was laying in bed, I thought of a name for her. You may not like it but once you see the pics you will prob understand why.... Smurfus Maximus. Smurf Durf for short - says the roomey. Anyway, thanks for readin - hope it wasn't too boring. If you have any questions or want me to elaborate on anything - fire away. Just so much to remember and write after 8 months of hell.

Dub



Modified by doitdub at 1:14 PM 4/10/2005

 

damn.... that sucks. That story was hella long and thats why i'm the first one to reply. Glad to here you got it running. I just did the mini me swap. I was realy happy with the power difference at first but now I think I'm going to have to buy something a little faster. to getting your car going and to those piece of **** EBAY sellers. I say you'll feel alot better if you goto his house and kick his ***. if you do that you won't even think about money. hahahha

 

i can relate man; i got a car of autotrader back in summer of 03. There was a 91 crx si in NY with a b16 for liek 3,200 bucks. I had an uncle that lived there, so i flew out, stayed with him, checked out the car and noticed the paint wasnt as good as the picture mad eit otu to be. Was a little disappointed by the paint, but it had a b16, dc header, tanabe RM catback exhaust, good interior, and i thought i could take him down... From 3200, i talked his *** all the way down to 1800, lol. So i leave NY, for my 10 hour drive back to ohio. I had never driven stock before, i learned on the streets on NY, much fun. Note, the car had ZERO audio equipment in it.
anyways, i get to NJ, and i get pulled over for not signalling on this empty highway when changing lanes. He comed to the window and takes the information, and comes back with his gun unlatched. This car has been reported stolen, i am under arrest. GREAT! So i show them the title which is signed and noted, and they still cuff me, tow my car and let me sit in jail for 4 hours.
They end up talkign to the NY police, and realizing it was stolen one night, audio was jacked, and then recoved the next. Only, the report for it being recovered came first, and then the stolen came in the next day. So the car is actually legal, but ofcourse the guy who sold it forgot to mention that little detail.
Hop back into the car to leave the station and.............. The cops fucked with my car while trying to turn my alarm off, which had triggered by then entering from the passenger door, and i guess not figured otu how to turn it off. So what did they do? pulled some wires. awesome! So i end up hotwiring my own care, every time i want it to start i gotta pop the hood, thanks again officer.
Car makes it all the way back to ohio, i am happy and enjoying the car, i even figure out what they did to the wiring and fix it.
Drive around for 4 days, BOOM. Yep, it appears my car doesnt want to start any more.
Get it towed home, wont budge and start. Shange some wiring, no luck.
Get it towed to a mechanic. He quotes me 2000 to fix the engine, duh. Pay his *** the 75 it cost to have him look at it, bah.
Get it towed home.

And it sat. Yes it ******* sat. I was out of money, no car, and couldnt get a job since i live outside of town and cant walk to a job. So it sat there for some time.
About 6 months later, i find some one who will put a d16 in for free, so long as he keeps the b16 w/ tranny ecu header, etc.... I agree and he comes out. Find out my car is more ghetto than i thought; all the wiring is just so horribly done. Half the bolts int he damn car are missing for what ever reason. I swear, if something could stay in place with one less bolt, it was gone. Also we find out that the ricer body kid thats on it, is actually sittign over top of the original bumper!!! The ricer owner had dry walled screwed the kit into place. We wip that off, whew good.
Car runs for a while. Until i find out that the tie rods are terrible, and not safe to drive on. Out of cash so you know, i wait a month to replace.
Cars doing great now, i am cruising around for about a month without any problems, maybe even 2 months. BRAKES. On so the brakes decide to give. Unfortunitly, i dont have money for brakes; see a pattern? So the car sits for a month, and i save up my cash for brakes. Now i have never worked non cars at this point, so i dont know how to do the rotors. I take it to a shop and get them on for like 150 bucks and i am on my way...
The comes emmissions. Car wont pass. I order a new cat, it comes, i bolt it up, still wont pass. Retard my timing, try the test again. Nope. Warm the car up for an hour before the test, plus try some engine cleaner type stuff. Nope. OK, i read up some, and realize that this guy might have actually just sold me a test pipe, wtf. I take it off, and sure enough, thats all it really was. So i order yet ANOTHER cat, and put it on, and pass.
Drive around for a couple weeks and the good old main relay goes out. Lol. OK i finally get oen shipped to me and i replace it, and am back ont he road.
Cars running well, for a month, until BAM, yep the clutch pedal drops to the floor. WTF is wrong with my car!?!? So guess what happened? The car sat. A couple months later..........................
I decide there is no way i am paying some one do do clutch/transmission work, which is upwards of 700 dollars. I decide i will spend half of what the mechanic wanted, and i would buy my own tools. Spend 350 on some real decent tools, and i go to work on the car. Now understand, i had onyl done tiny modifications to cars before. A short shifter and and intake were about as much as i had done. I read up, learn, read some more, and i tackle my clutch problem on my own. Hold the engine up with a pop cooler iglo thing, and go to work. Turns out that the clutch just decided to have a rivit break and get lodged between the clutch and flywheel . Replace, pop the tranny back on, and test drive it.
IT WORKS@!!!! woot woot, lol, this has been the longest the car has run. A whopping 7 months, but i am happy and i think she's gonna stay running for a while.

So here i am, finally with a workign car. Funny thing is, i am about to pick up an 89 accord for like 150 bucks form this kid. It runs, and its a 5 speed. Who knows how many problems i will run into with this one, lol. good luck and keep the car happy.

Cliffs: bought stolen car, went to jail. Police messed my car up. Get things straight, car throws a rod 4 days later. Replace b16 with a d16. Car wont pass emissions. Main relay sucks. tie rods are toast. Brakes take a dump. Clutch gets owned. buying another pile of problems.
You can add in a couple months and a few hundred dollars for each period in the cliffs.

 

Yeah I've thought about that....just waiting til I could the car fixed first. Gotta have something to drive through 3 states with.

 

man....i wish my car was running... stupid 6 hour mini me...my ***!

 

I'm glad you got it running man. It finally paid off and it feels great doesn't it?

Props for all the work and most importantly for tackling the job (next to someone else) even when you weren't into cars all that much. Experience counts and you can officially be proud of your swap already.

 

whats the deal with the 6 hour mini me? you swaped the vtec head and six hours later you get a KABOOM? or what. I've had mine for like a month and it still runs good. a little smoke in the high rpms but thats alright. next plan is to buy a new car park this one in the garage strip it down and go turbo LS vtec. Planning to completely build that bitch, hoping to run mid high elevens. maybe quicker. let me know what you guys think on the turbo ls vtec idea.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jsw_1986 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">whats the deal with the 6 hour mini me? you swaped the vtec head and six hours later you get a KABOOM? or what. I've had mine for like a month and it still runs good. a little smoke in the high rpms but thats alright. </TD></TR></TABLE> i think he means that 1/2 the time people get mini-me's built in a weekend or less and have no problems. then there are the exceptions...hence - mini-me hell

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by recluse &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Cliffs: bought stolen car, went to jail. Police messed my car up. Get things straight, car throws a rod 4 days later. Replace b16 with a d16. Car wont pass emissions. Main relay sucks. tie rods are toast. Brakes take a dump. Clutch gets owned. buying another pile of problems.
You can add in a couple months and a few hundred dollars for each period in the cliffs.</TD></TR></TABLE>
wow dude - i read the whole thing but didn't want to quote it. **** i thought i had bad luck. good luck with the accord and hope the Rex keeps truckin'

 

Cleaned it up a little - threw on the strut bar - fixed the clutch - replaced window regulator and trim. Now for some pics. Let me know what ya think...


The Rex with my roomate's winter VX hatch and his gf's civic.


Need to get rid of the Tein stickers and paint the trim by the window where the black is comin off.


Dual exhaust...don't know how I feel about it. Was on there when I bought it and I don't have a whole lotta cash right now after this whole experience. They sound great (real low and tough - not raspy), but I'm totally about symetrical **** and I don't want to have to get a new bumper or cut the one I have to make it look better.


"CR-X VTEC" - eh


Notice how the right side of the hood sits a little weird. We have been messing with it and decided that the joint that holds it up is bent. Need to start looking for a replacement because it's drivin me nuts.



The interior was trash when I got it. Another thing that the scam artist lied about...O well, it's comin together slowly now. I really like the seats...they need cleaned though. Got them for $100 picked up - happy with that price.



And some engine pics...
The strut bar is hitting the hood a little bit so I don't know what I will do with that. That's not why the hoods bent because it did that before... Need some new plug wires...they are long as ****. What do you think about the Autzone battery tie down? I got a Bypass valve for the AEM intake but I haven't put it on yet. Will prob do that next weekend if I get some time. Need to do it before the rain starts comin though.

So, what do you guys think? I'm actually liking the stock wheels. Didn't like em before but I think they have grown on me. The only thing mechanically still wrong I know of is a wicked exhaust leak under the car. I think it's where the header meets the cat. It's drivin me crazy. The bolts seem tight so I hope that my cat isn't rusted out. I'm gonna try and F with that tomorrow. Anyway, just thought I'd share some pics on beautiful day. Now to go pick up the girl and go cruisin! Have a good one!

 

man i cant fit my timing belt cover on my a6/z6 swap....and that strut bar didnt fit my rex? it was like 1/2 inch to short for some reason.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LoCoReX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">man i cant fit my timing belt cover on my a6/z6 swap....and that strut bar didnt fit my rex? it was like 1/2 inch to short for some reason.</TD></TR></TABLE> Was it the right one for your car? Mine just took some finess and some rearrangin of wires and cables. Did you try to loosen the adjusters? That could be it and it will go flatter/longer. But if not, dunno. I have no idea about the timing belt cover unless it's not on in the right order.

 

yea it was the right one....on the box it said integra/civic 88-91 which is also the crx since the civic is the same as the crx....

as for timing belt i got the z6 cover for my a6 but it doesnt fit...but after looking at couple other mini mes i see decent amount who arnt running the upper one.

 

WTF your car looks minty it just needed some TLC. stop bitching.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PaImportTuner &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">WTF your car looks minty it just needed some TLC. stop bitching.</TD></TR></TABLE> stop bitching? i'm not bitchin (just a history of an expensive learning experience)...just happy it runs now and i have put a lot of work into it to make it look good. so thanks for the compliment!

 

[<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LoCoReX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yea it was the right one....on the box it said integra/civic 88-91 which is also the crx since the civic is the same as the crx....

as for timing belt i got the z6 cover for my a6 but it doesnt fit...but after looking at couple other mini mes i see decent amount who arnt running the upper one.</TD></TR></TABLE> Yeah I've seen people run without it too. Don't know why mine happened to fit, I guess I was lucky.
As for the strut bar...did you try messin with the tightening bolts any?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by doitdub &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">[ Yeah I've seen people run without it too. Don't know why mine happened to fit, I guess I was lucky.
As for the strut bar...did you try messin with the tightening bolts any?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Whats the code on your upper timing belt cover? Maybe you have a different mount. Cause the stock OEM crx driver side engine mount physically prevents the D16Z6 timing belt from fitting on there.

Maybe your using the D16z6 mount on the D16A6 Block? heh I gotta know =P

Props on your build man. I just finished my D16Z6/D16A6 build as well. Hows the VTEC feel for you?

-Jon

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX-Fluffy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Whats the code on your upper timing belt cover? Maybe you have a different mount. Cause the stock OEM crx driver side engine mount physically prevents the D16Z6 timing belt from fitting on there.

Maybe your using the D16z6 mount on the D16A6 Block? heh I gotta know =P

Props on your build man. I just finished my D16Z6/D16A6 build as well. Hows the VTEC feel for you?

-Jon </TD></TR></TABLE> Yeah I used the timing belt cover that was on there, so it could be dif then stock. Dunno...there were so many different parts on this car.
As for the VTEC...I don't really know. I have been trying to break it in before I do anything crazy with it. I haven't taken it over 5k RPM yet and that was only once. I'm not sure when VTEC is supposed to kick in (I was thinking it was around 4k or so). But my buddy with VTEC del sol rode with me and he said he couldn't feel the it engage. I don't really know what to expect. I have a VAFC1 and haven't really messed with it so I dunno if that has anything to do with it.


Modified by doitdub at 6:57 AM 4/11/2005

 

yea my timing belt cover doestn fit at all...i tried both the a6 and z6....

as for the strut yes i tried everything maybe my towers are just messed up oh well whatever...i just want to get my mini me running....

 

congrats , now i want to see this thing out on the street

 

Your car looks pretty good except for the tein sticker and the dual exhaust. Otherwise it's really clean.

 

I had a y8 head and ordered a y8 upper timing belt cover. It required a little bit of dremel work so it would fit over the engine mount arm. Cleaned it up nice and pretty and it looked 95% stock. The only tip off was a 1/4" gap on one side instead of sealing nice and tight.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by drewthomas14 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">congrats , now i want to see this thing out on the street </TD></TR></TABLE> thanks man. you'll prob hear it comin with the annoying rattle that's under it. i'm gonna try finding what that is tonight cuz it's drivin me crazy.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by michaelOlson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Your car looks pretty good except for the tein sticker and the dual exhaust. Otherwise it's really clean. </TD></TR></TABLE> thanks for the compliment. yeah the tein stickers have got to go. I think the dude that messed this car up before me was trying to model a JDM CRX SiR that was in Car Compact about 3 years ago or so. This car used to have a lip on it and it looked a lot like it until I took that off - it looked like ****. I may smooth it out and paint it put it back on but no promises.
About the dual exhausts...I agree. I just need to find someone willing to trade their exhaust for mine. 2 for 1 sale?

 

Damn this rattle...it's horrible. I'm just hoping it's only the heat shield on the cat and not something worse. Gonna jack it up tonight and have my dad rev the engine. Wish me luck...hope I don't get flattened.