This is my 1991 CRX...
It looks ok in pictures but I feel its time for a change.




After owning it for just shy of a year I decided I was tired of driving a car that ran horribly 90% of the time. Burning oil (1 quart every 300 miles) is getting old and I'm tired of an LS/VTEC running like a d15b2 with a blown headgasket. These are the results of my recent and compression test and the starting point for this build.

cylinder 1 = 180
cylinder 2 = 180
cylinder 3 = 245
cylinder 4 = 180

The Build will begin tomorrow in an attempt to make the car more street friendly and comfortable for the driver. This build is not for looks or even crazy performance. I'm going to clean up a car to meet my needs to be daily driven. Any comments at all are appreciated and I will do my best to reply to everyone.

I will start the teardown tomorrow and the pictures of the dirty nasty engine will be posted as I begin the process of saving my CRX.

 

looks great.
doing the same thing wiff my sedan

 

and im doing teh same with my 94 coupe haha..

Good luck!

 

right on. im subscribed to this thread. keep it up

 

Today went according to plan although I started way later in the day than I intended.
The motor came out without any problems and way dirtier than I thought it would be.

Some good news...
-The head either had port work done or is a CTR/ITR head. The intake side is ported but not polished and the exhaust side has too much carbon build up to tell so I'll know exactly what is done once I start cleaning everything up. Either way they swapped out the cams for GSRs. I'll make up my mind on whether or not to upgrade as things progress.

Bad news...
-Block is a bone stock b18a. Previous owner said it had P30 pistons but it is all original PR4 internals so some of the budget is going toward a new set of pistons. The block also has some interesting little nicks around the coolant jacket. I do believe it should still be Ok and there is still plenty of area for the head gasket to seal.

The pictures I know everyone wants. I will have more tomorrow as I continue disassembling the motor and begin cleaning. Unfortunately there will be a week delay on progress starting Thursday because I'm headed to Ohio for vacation.

Before I started doing anything.


Coming out!


Notice the nicks on the cooling jacket I was talking about.


I have a some more uploading but Flickr seems to be acting up right now.

 

Empty engine bay.

Notice the traction bar I replaced the front cross member with. I was stunned with the quality of this part for being an eBay knock off item. It fit perfect and is almost the exact same as the K-Tuned one I just installed in my friends K-swapped rex. I'm sure the spherical ends are probably lower quality but everything seems to be great with it so far.


I also purchased a set of Innovative Steel mounts to replace whatever no name brand ones are in now. Hopefully the motor moves back about an inch it would make everything fit much better. This will be my first experience with Innovative products. Every other car I have ever done I have used Hasports on but I thought I'd give these a shot.

I will be going into detail with the whole front suspension and traction bar install as soon as the rest of my bushings arrive. I will show how to press out and replace bushings for those who don't know how. I unfortunately already replaced the inner and outer tie rods and all of the ball joints recently so I will not be showing that step.

 

looking good. get some pr3 or p30s for that motor its a great combo for a dd all motor setup. car looks great. post some more pics of the traction bars, Im building a set for my car right now and Id love to have some more insight

 

Sorry no pics today the weather here is ridiculous. Today makes 6 days straight of rain. I've only had a few hours each day to work on the car where I was comfortable taking my camera out.

I managed to get the block completely disassembled. Both the water pump and oil pump look brand new both inside and out so they will be reused. The bearings are all in great shape so they will be double checked and if the clearances are good the same color OEM bearings will go back in (New from Honda of course). I will show this in detail even though it has been covered a million times.

Also I ordered some P30 pistons and stock 81mm rings that should be here in a few days. once they arrive I will do a detailed assembly of the bottom end.

The bad news for today is that I had to fight with the transmission for an hour to separate it from the block. The previous owner used some kind of sealant between the block and transmission. I guess he thought there was oil in there. After finally getting it off I noticed it has some no name brand clutch (Not a place to use a knock off). And the stock flywheel is in pretty bad shape. I will definitely replace the clutch and budget permitting a light weight flywheel will go in if not I will have the stock one resurfaced. Either way I have to make up my mind soon because I need to have everything ready to go to the machine shop for balancing as soon as I get back from Ohio.

 

Damn I wish I had 91 crx chasis as nice as yours.

 

I have a used 8lb flywheel if your interested trying to get $95 shipped. its in great shape.

 

Thanks man. Its not as nice as the pics make it look. Its got dents and poor bodywork all over the place. but it is 100% rust free which was the reason I picked it up.

 

Today I scrubbed the motor clean. Inside and out. Since I am painting the motor I didn't want to make the aluminum new looking just get all of the grease, oil, and dirt off of it.

I find foaming wheel gleaner, simple green, pressure washer, and hose do a great job along with a little bit of work with a wire brush for the really stubborn stuff.

I'm working on this alone so forgive me for skipping some steps with the pictures.

Here is the block now all disassembled and freshly painted. The most important thing here is to take the time to properly prep the block and mask off things your don't want painted. I am going to clean out all the threads for every hole I use anyway so those are the only things I didn't get carried away covering.

I am using Duplicolor High Temp Engine Paint. Follow the directions on the can and the Duplicolor website exactly or you will be disappointed when it starts flaking off in a month. When done right this paint can last a very long time before it starts to dull or flake.






I managed to dig up a few h22 barbed fittings for the back of the block so I will be adding a breather system to eliminate the PCV valve. Unfortunately I can't find my 14mm allen key and every store here seems to stop at 12mm so I'm trying to figure that out.

Here is my eBay LS/VTEC kit. Surprisingly well made. I'll have to see how it holds up to the abuse of daily driving and I'll let everyone know if it works out or I end up buying a different one.



As soon as I get the motor up on the engine stand I'll start piecing it together step by step with pictures for everything.

 

Very nice so far man. Keep up with the good work, this CRX looks so dope!

 

keep it going , u made me want to keep my b16 now and rebuild it

 

Sitting at Columbus International waiting on my delayed flight. I'll have some updates tomorrow afternoon. I have some packages waiting for me at home and I'll start assembly as soon as my friend finishes balancing everything. Just waiting on the pistons.

 

Looks great, good job

 

Updates. This is where things start to get tedious. I'll post a description of what was done with each picture.


Got my pistons. PR3s should net a nice street driven compression ratio.


Installed the water pump.
Directions:
1. Clean the threads of all debris with a tap and compressed air.
2. Apply anti sieze or assembly lube to the threads of the bolts
3. use a thin stripe of hondabond in the groove of the pump to hold the o-ring in place and then place it in place on the block.
4. Torque the water pump bolts to factory specs follow the F.S.M.


Reinstall plugs onto block.
Directions:
1. Clean and apply thread sealer to the plug
2. Replace Crush washer with a new one
3. Reinstall in place on the block and torque to F.S.M.
4. Repeat for all other plugs (others use 14mm allen key)

Tomorrow I am hoping to gap the rings and get the pistons onto the Rods. I will also show how my crankcase ventilation is set up.

 

did u go with honda oem or diff makes?

 

The pistons are NPR and so are the rings.

My list of chemicals I am using might be helpful to some as well.
-Permatex anti sieze
-Permatex Ultra Grey or Honda bond whatever I grab off my shelf first (I'm not picky about it)
-Torco Assembly lube for the head studs (comes with the Golden Eagle head studs)
-CRC sta-lube molybdenum Engine assembly lube
-Loctite Red thread sealant

For cleaning I used.
-Purple Power
-Greased Lightning

Cleaning takes forever and a real attention to detail I scrubbed every inch of the block until all the dirt was gone. I DID NOT try to make the aluminum look new since I painted the block. I don't have any recommendations for that other than media blasting.

 

looks like you are going in the right direction with this build.

 

Thanks I'm doing the best I can with a very limited budget. My job just cut my hours down to nothing as well so I might not get to do as much as I wanted to the rest of the car yet.

Everyone wish me luck a local Honda dealership just got an opening in their parts department and I put in an app and my resume so hopefully I'll get this job. It would be great to be back in parts sales.

 

Had an interview at the dealership today find out Monday if I got the job. Didn't get much done today I'm just waiting on parts.

 

Again no big updates. I'm scrubbing the carbon build up out of the head and cleaning up the valvetrain. The valve seals were bad so everything was covered in oil and the build up is pretty caked on in the exhaust ports.

 

Exhaust valves are absolutely terrible. The carbon buildup is so bad I'm having trouble getting some of the faces back to factory clean. The backside of the valves loks brand new though. Sorry I'm slacking with pictures but this is messy and I don't wanna gunk up my dslr.

Should have updates tm. Assuming the last of my parts show up.

 

nice build man. keep up the good work.