Wondering if there was anyone running a 88 CRX ITA (improved Touring A) car

Hoping you can tell me what parts and mods you have on the car and why you are running the parts

Also what you use to tune the engine



Davegt27

 

I dont have one but its pretty basic in terms of rules for the class. My buddy was running in ITA until recently since he changed to ITB, which is where I will probably switch to myself.

Intake, header, exhaust, ignition, chipped ecu, standalone are all allowed.

Digging further in you get to change the compression slightly (.5) by decking/milling and you can go .040 over on the cylinders with oem oversized pistons.

Port matching 1 inch is allowed for the intake manifold

So really minor changes can be made so you have to really get every ounce out of those mods.

Thats pretty basic unless you want to dig into the allowances for other areas which in that case I would download the GCR from SCCAs website under cars and regulations.

 

Download this:

http://cms.scca.com/documents/2011%2...%20version.pdf

It's the SCCA 2011 GCR (rule book). Read the rules for Improved Touring and do everything within your budget that the rules say you CAN. If the rulebook doesn't say you can, then you cannot. That's the most important rule.

You do the quick stuff: I/H/E

I dyno tuned with an adj FPR and a Fuel Pressure guage, then dist timing, then fuel again until I found the best power curve.

Also, don't forget the important "mods" like roll cage, fire bottle, Nomex suit, helmet, window net, etc etc.

 

Sort of looking for someone with an ITA CRX but thanks

edit: my car








Davegt27

 

I built the chassis for one of my customer's cars. The engine made 121 at the wheels. Engine was an IT specific build, 4.9 with a LSD, Koni SP3SS shortened and revalved shocks with a big rear bar, 700 and 900pb springs. I drove the car in 09 at the Roebling School.

 

Like this? http://www.vimeo.com/24144972




Your original post is worded in such a manner that it leads one to believe that you were not a current owner/racer of one. But since you are, I don't have to dumb things down:

.040 over motor because race car
4.7 final drive because the 4.9 will run out of gear on 3 of our tracks.
LSD because race car
Shortened, revalved double adj Konis with GC coilovers

I was being honest about the tuning. Unless you want to go to Megasquirt or something, the rules won't allow you to convert to OBD1 and OBD0 isn't that great for tuning and finding someone who's good at it is rare.

I've tuned with other spec .040 over motors who did all the ecu tuning and my dyno graphs look very similar and make the same power and I never had to open my ecu. Another reason... I had my car dyno tuned with ECU tuning twice with 2 different tuners... the result from both: broken piston rings, loss of compression. Left the ECU alone, made the same power with much more reliability.

 

I have an ITA CRX.

What does the car have now? and what is your budget?

Post more pictures of your car. The first thing I would do is loose the drivers door panel and install NASCAR bars. Then install a drivers window net.

From the looks of the scales, the car may be a bit udner weight? Unless your a 300 pounder like me.

 

Thanks for the info

I have two other race cars so I did not want to spend a ton of money on this car, still my goal is to make the car faster than when I bought it.

The things I’ve learned from this thread are
1) Shocks: it has Koni/ground control but I can’t tell you much more than that.

I need to nail down exactly what Koni shocks I have
(So far I do not like the Koni’s but I could have some yellow street Koni’s)


2) Tuning: I was told it had a Honda Data ECU and a pro built motor. The car has a DC header and an AEM cool air tube with a beat up K&N filter (that's all I can really verify)

The car is smoking fast (at least tell it hits 7k rpm)

A friend’s son co drove with me last Sunday at a local autocross and I noticed black smoke coming from the tail pipe at the start of his first run.

He beat all the other civics’ and one guy came over after the event to ask questions, I took that to be a good sign.



Thanks
David

 

Take the wheels off and use some Simple Green or Purple to clean the shock body off. You should see the model number and serial numbers stamped into the shock body. It will tell you if they are race valved or not. Springs will have their own part numbers stamped on them. If they are GC springs they will use some retarded part number that is irrelevant to the spring rate. If they are straight Eibachs they will have a part number that tells you the size and rates.

AS for the engine, it is not legal to use Hondata. It will have to be replaced to be legal. My customer's car uses a PG7 computer from an 86-89 Integra. I haven't put a wideband on it to see where it is, but the PO claimed they spent a bunch of time on the dyno with a pile of ECUs to find one that worked best. It ran fine and had plenty of power for an ITA CRX. Pulled Miatas down the straight at Roebling. His chassis sucked until he wrecked it. I built the new chassis and it is light years ahead of the old one in safety and in chassis stiffness. If he would put the car back together it might actually make it out to the track before we all grow old.

Do a compression and leak down on the motor, also check the valve adjust and do a basic tune up so you know where the motor is now. Fresh fluids and such.

 

I've done all the basic Mech stuff--no big deal

GCR pg 385 the engine management computer can be altered or replaced

I know what the spring rates are it’s just the shocks I need to get hailed down there was no click on adj and the car went from skipping through turns to pogoing through one turn (this was after I disconnected the front sway bar)

Seems to be a well setup car so hats off to the builder

Davegt27

 

You can't replace the distributor so that means you can't convert to Hondata. Updating the car to OBD1 is against the rules.

 

I second this.

 

Are you going to drive around cones with this or wheel to wheel?

 

GCR pg 386 says internal distributor components can be substituted






davegt27

 

You can't fit OBD1 guts into an OBD0 dizzy. I tried it. The OBD1 uses a different count on the cam sensor and crank sensor. The OBD1 pickups are bigger than the possible mounts in the OBD0 distributor. Thus you can't make an OBD1 ECU work on an OBD0 engine.

 

I second this as well. I've tried it too. If converting the CRX to OBD1 was legal someone would have found a way and we'd all be doing it. But it isn't, so we haven't.

If you want to win races without protest you're going to have to get that remedied. OR, you're going to have to show us how you got OBD1 internals into a OBD0 dizzy... I'd really like to know that!

 

Another ITA CRX guy here. Mine is a '91, running Advanced Design double adjustable shocks (soon to be switching to KONI double adjustable) with 550F/800R springrates, no front bar and a Mugen rear bar (soon to be going to an ASR rear bar). Running '91 CRX brakes all around with Cobalt pads, XR2 front and XR5 rear.

Motor wise it is .040" over and has the head shaved to gain the allowed +.5 bump in compression ratio. Port matching to 1" on the head and IM, with a DC 4-2-1 header and AEM short-ram intake. Just installed a 4.9 final drive (upgraded from a 4.7) and a MFactory metal plate LSD (upgraded from a Quaife). Tuning is done thru a chipped ECU and then tuned with Turbo-Edit, currently putting down 120fwhp on a Mustang dyno.

You'll find that most everyone will have a somewhat similar setup when it comes to these cars as the "formula" to be successful with one is so well documented. Of course, small tweaks between various setups is expected for driver comfort.

Best of luck with the car, they are a blast to drive and can be a rocketship when built and driven properly.

Regards,

Sam

 

thanks Sam--this thing is a rocket (to me anyways)

and a lot of fun.


Davegt27

 

Start with fixing the rollcage.

 

Ok already you want some attention

I don’t know what the car has in it since most of the stuff the guy told me was a bunch of crap.

The car has an old auto power cage that has been welded in and it has NASCAR door bars already
The door panel is just a half door panel, the tech inspector made me change out the window net since the old one did not have an SFI label.

The car is 30lbs under wt (I think)

Yes I plan on running around cones with the car

I weigh 240lbs so I am right up there with you

I have two F production $$ race cars so I don’t want to fix the cage on this ITA car

It would not be competitive with top ITA cars since it has
1 3/4 cage.

It’s just fast to me since I am used to slow cars ha ha

Davegt27

 

Not competitive on ITA because 1 3/4ths cage?

What am I missing?

 

huh? well, good luck.

 

The car has an old heavy auto power roll cage

That means a lot of heavy weight up high

That means if you get a choice or let’s say you’re building a new car you want the weight low in the chassis

That means if you have a choice shoot for the lowest CGHT (center of gravity height that you can)

That means all things being equal the car with the lowest CG will have more cornering HP (or the ability to pull more "G" in a turn)


HTH
davegt27

 

I agree on CG, but since you are limited where you can put the extra ballast, might as well carry it around in the cage where it can help you. The cage I just put in the replacement chassis was 1.75 and The trade off in chassis stiffness will allow the suspension to work better as opposed to piling more weight in the passenger floorboard. With my cage design I could move the driver back further, plus get more weight down low and in the back of the cage than a lighter design with more weight further forward in the floor board.

How ever if your cage is like the old chassis, it had a weld in autopower type cage and it was junk. You could stick a pry bar in between the b-pillar and the main hoop and could flex the cage the independently of the body. The new cage adds significant stiffness to the chassis.

When it comes down to it, in most cases, amateur racers are better off with seat time as opposed to a perfect car. If you happy with it and can race it frequently, you will be faster than the guy with the pimpest car at the track.

 

1 word... Negligible. This isn't Formula 1, it's ITA. You won't be at a competitive disadvantage, but you will be at a safety advantage. The minimum requirements per the SCCA GCR is 1.5" with a .095" thickness. Having a 1 3/4" bar isn't much extra weight and it's distributed evenly throughout the chassis. If anything, you're better off because it's stronger and safer.

You'd be surprised how much you can be "off" with weight, setup, power, alignment, etc and still run the same lap time with these cars.