Ok guys and gals... Here's the deal.

About 2 years ago my buddie joined the marines and went off to boot camp, leaving his precious 91 CRX Si in the hands of pretty much a complete stranger. Apperently they had worked out some kind of deal on him fixing the car up, modding it while he was gone. So, 2 years go by and the guy had not done ANYTHING to the car other than let it sit and rot. I don't know the full story, and try and stay away from it because it will probably **** me off. So, being that from the age of 17 i have been digging into cars, i talk my friend into leaving the car with me so i can take care of it. You know, tune up, fix a bit of the rust maybe... So he starts going into what all he wanted to do with the car, but how he doesn't really have much money being that he is now working full time for the marines in North carolina (mind you i live in ohio) and has a house and is starting a family.

Well, i love modding cars... It's just what i do. So he leaves me the keys to his pretty little red CRX and heads back to NC. I drove it for a while untill the head gasket blew. Called him and told him it might be a while before i can get it fixed because im having some money issues myself. Little does he know, the car is now in the bay being completley looked over, painted, and rebuilt. I'm am currenty sitting in the office at work, so i am not able to get pictures up at the moment. As soon as i get back to the garage i will post the pictures i have, along with all the information and specs.

This is my first honda build and so far, i'm liking it. Everything seems to be pretty damn cheapish, and it all goes together so easy. I'm from the nissan field myself but have had my hands in many engine bays. All in all i'm just tring to make this a fun build, a big learning experiance and this is my way of supporting our troops!

 

sounds good, i would like to see some pics

 

im in for this

 

Alright, as promised... here we go:

This build will take me a little while as I am tring to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. I want to give thanks now to the many friends that come over and spend time out here with me working on this thing. I am open to ANY questions and or comments, suggestions and being as how this is my first honda build, and being that i am very familure with internet forums, please call ANY mistakes you see me making, or about to make.

Now I don't have A LOT of extra money to spare, or time for that matter so this is going to be a very mild budget build working off mostly freebies and intense labor on my part. I am hoping to put down some decent number's in the end, and have a pretty reliable, fun weekend car for him to cruise out there. Plus i REALLY wanted to build a honda. Ha ha

1991 honda CRX Si
194,430 miles on the clock
All stock besides the K&N intake
Pretty damn molested


These are picture about 2 days after i got the car.

She had the stock stars on there when i got her. Those went quick as they were peeling and just not my style.

ADR 17x7's wrapped in falken 205/40R's. I really like these wheels on this car.



You can see that K&N intake in this picture, along with the nasty *** engine bay.




Head gasket blew about a week after this, so out came the motor and the clean up started.









With everything stripped, I started sanding, filling and taping. The theme for this car is set with matte/primer black "Murdered"... What have you. He wanted the matte finish, and i personally like it because it takes a lot of work to get a really nice smooth matte finish on a car, and not have that spray bomb primer look. Plus it's cheap if you have the right contacts for supplies.

Engine bay started:



Just a taste of the rust i am fighting. Don't feel like wasting my time taking pictures of cancer. Ha ha





Transmission being cleaned up and polished. This thing was nasty as hell!



Old carbon hood from a black widow wide-body kit. I have no clue on how the fitment of this will be without the wide-body fenders and bumper, but i love this hood, so i'm going to cut into it and see what i can do. It was free... Why not. Plus i can get CF matte for pretty damn cheap.



And as for the heart of the car, and where i would really like some suggestions on what you guys have ran, and what works well:

Stock D16A6 BUILD!

Block is getting cleaned up and stripped down right now to be sent off to the grinder shop. It's getting tanked and bored .20O as of this moment, probably decked too after it's leveled and we talk about it a bit. A buddy of mine has a set of BRAND NEW OE spec slugs (0.20O) and a NPR ring set. Crank will be turned and polished to all HELL. ARP main/rod bolts and thrust waser, all ACL bearings (Size pending), OE set reconditioned rods, ARP head bolts, MLS head gasket and a complete bottom end rebuild.

I haven't yet decided what head to run. That all depends on what condition the stock single slammer is in. I'm staying single cam no matter what. I am tossing around the idea of doing another head on the block, but the plans right now are to stay A6 with some supertech goodies. Me and the mad machinist will have to talk about it. Either way this thing is going to breath hard. Seeing as how i haven't figured out what head to run, the camshaft is still pending too, but it will be a nice mild streetable cam, and probably the most expensive part i actually buy for the motor.

This motor IS going to see boost, but we have to figure out what were running inside before we start calculating the add-ons. I'm shooting for around 210WHP with street-able reliability, so like i said... Very mild build. Seeing as how it will see boost, you can probably guess the rest of the parts needed as far as fuel pump, regulator, blah blah.

Stuff i am still deciding and would like opinions/comments on:

Head
Cam
Half shafts
Oil pan
Intake manifold and throttle body combination's
Radiators
Exhaust sizes

What are you guys tuning on. I plan to put about $600 worth of dyno time into this thing, but if i can run some kind of home-brew tune and play with it before hand, as well as save some money that would be nice. I keep being told to tune it on crom (?), which a buddy of mine is familure with but he isn't around much to show me what's up with it.

A LOT more to come! Time to get to work.

 

looks good man, that bonnet will be a bit of overkill though... they are seriously HUGE!

Cant wait to see more pics! Enjoy the build

 

Head: 3 angle valve job, and a gasket port shall do
Cam: Exospeed has some cams for the A6, and upgrade your valve springs as well
there is no half shafts on the A6
Oil pan: Tap it for your turbo return line, Done
Intake manifold/tb combo: Any B series tb will be sufficient, IM either upgrade to a Skunk2 one, or port the A6 IM
Radiator: Any dual core Half radiator will do
Exhaust size: If you going turbo, do 3in and call it a day

 

Yeah. I did a test fit today. The rise on that thing is ridiculous! I really want to run a top mount air box under the scoop, honed out of course... I love the sound of top mounted air induction in the morning. I'm going to try and cut/trim the sides down A LOT, but carbon fiber is just a PITA to work with.



More updates: Kinda.

Cut almost all of the rust out tonight, but most of the pictures will not upload through photobucket. I got one though.

I will fire up the welder sometime this week or maybe this weekend and get everything patched up.



Also started work on the rear bumper. This thing was ate to hell and back from rocks on the highway and stuff, so it needed a lot of filler. I'll finish it tommarow.



Finished laying the color on the rear interior body, just needs wet sanded and possibly one more coat, then sealed. I just spray bombed it seeing as how it will probably never be seen again, and it looks a lot better in person.



Picked up some parts tonight, including my brand new ARP head studs! $115 for everything including: Head studs, ZC adj. cam gear (For profit sale for other parts), 2" BOV flange (SSQ), A can of VHT nightshade, and a cobra CB!







I'm going to fit these wheels and see which ones i like better. I've always been prone to some kind of lip to my wheels, but i really think these ADR's are going to take the cake with this build.

Unknown 17x7's wrapped in 215/40's

 

I was thinking if running the A6 head to go with the Y8 I/M T/B conversion, .5 over-sized valves, (bowl/seat port of course), 3 angle valve job, hardened springs and all nessecary hardware, port match the head to the manifold and call it a day. Well, still finding the perfect cam that is. I'm going .20O with the bottom end, so i really want this thing to breath good for reliability reasons.

Half shafts in the driveline... I have seen them break on an A6 with just bolt ons, so i was wondering if i am ok with going new OE or if i should upgrade.

The OE pan flows good for boost, especially if i am using an oil cooled snail?

As for the radiator i was really hoping people would chime in with there different cooling set-ups. (I.e. - Thermostats, hoses, radiators, inter-coolers, oil coolers... I would like this motor to run pretty cool seeing as how NC get's pretty hot. I just face palmed... I ment to type cooling.


Thanks for the reply. I'm looking into exospeed again as i type.

 

Whoops I thought you were talking about half shafts/balance shafts like the ones in the K series and H22's...lol I dont know what I was thinking... BUT I heard of people using DA Integra axles in the EF chassis with the SOHC, but they change the inner splines.

But I made 300hp with my A6/ZC with the stock cooling and oiling setup...

 

UPDATES!

Got the bay finished finally. The whole bay is sprayed with VHT flame proof flat black and VHT satin clear. It look's great in person!
I just noticed a few spot's i missed. I need to stop being in a hurry. I know what im doing tonight. Ha ha


Here's a close up. Look's even better than that in person. I got a great deal on the paint.


Still haven't filled the sheet i chopped out last week. Maybe this saturday i will get to that. I have almost the whole car body sanded down and filled, besides the front bumper and fenders. I still haven't decided on running the stock bumper or going with something aftermarket.

The head, block and tranny as they sit right now. Waiting on parts still. I'm going to run the above mentioned head, with the mentioned block, but i've yet to get the block tore down and to the machinist.


Cheap cheap cheap! I will get a better set when i find a good deal on some, but for now i just want this thing to drag the ground.


So far the grand total sit's right under $300 and i have a lot of parts on order. If i can give anyone advice, it's to find a group buy on something expensive!

 

I haven't updated this in a LONG time... Well, honestly i haven't done much to this thing. We decided to put the project on the back-burner basically because my financial situation became a mess. He won't be back around for another 2 years... So i have my sweet time. Now that my *** is back in gear, it's time to take the cover off this car once again. Here are some pictures of my slow progress.



I was able to finish the body work on this thing and get a nice coat of heavy primer laid, and a nice coat of base before it started getting too cold here in Ohio. What you see is one coat of base, with no finish sanding and dust in the spray... This crap takes time.



See, dust.



But it's getting there. Actually, the front clip has been sanded pretty good, and has 3 coats of top already. It look's A LOT different in person. This flat paint is a pain in the ***.



I had to install the bottom end just to see what it was all going to look like. The original block has been sold, but i have another donor now that's 100% stock. No machine work yet. That's the one you see in the picture.


Still torn about having to basically sell out most of the goodies for this thing. I'm left with a stock A6 block and head... Time to do it all over again only this time, it get's done!

 

nice work