A little background. I've owned 3 cars in my entire life. My first car when I was 16 was a 1988 Red Honda Crx DX. I swapped in a b16a that my Dad and I built and made 161whp. Then I swapped in a b18a1 to pass smog, then swapped the b16a back in, then back to the b18a1 etc. Ended up just using it as a daily to get me through college and lost interest in building/tinkering with cars. The b18a1 made 121whp with greddy sp2 exhaust and skunk2 manifold. Pictures of it are somewhere on here.

Then at age 25 I got my first real job and had decided that I needed a nicer car. Swore off honda's forever then looked around and insurance on "nice" cars was just way too high. Bought a 1988 white Crx HF shell from a forum member. A year later it was repainted, swapped in a built 2.0L GSR, swapped on a ported JRSC blower, a couple LHT goodies and made 265whp. My Mom wanted me to get rid of the Red crx sitting at the house so I sold it for $1500 to another forum member (I think?). Looking back he got a REALLY good deal, the only issue with the car was an oil leak that was slowly getting worse and oxidized paint.

Got tired of driving a boosted honda for small errands. Told my parents and my friends I was going to buy a beater pickup truck and run over stuff. They said I was an idiot and should buy an old civic. ..My worst nightmare. However, I've always liked the 88-91 4 doors and reading over threads by Misha, My_efSedan, Sp33, etc I knew what I wanted. It also helps that there is at least 10 88-91 civic's in each junkyard around the bay area. Parts are sooo easy to come by. So I searched Craigslist for a few weeks and finally found a decent one in Monterey. Bought it off of a cool old hippyish dude.

So here is the start. Oh wait I forgot. It died 10 minutes after I bought it on the freeway home. Thank god it did not die going back up highway 17 during rush hour. That would not have been fun. My dad and I first thought it was fuel so we swapped the fuel filter and checked fuel pressure, fuel pressure good. Then realized that the rotor on the dizzy was off, so screwed it back in and it ran great all the way home.

Plans for the build:
Originally wanted to keep it stock
Now I wanna lower it on some decent rims
Swap in Woodgrain Nardi from CRX
Everything else will be stock (please help me keep it this way)

Pics:
Got it to my parents house in San Jose late at night, got it to my house in Newark even LATER at night so no pics. I was super tired and didn't even feel like waking up for work, but I did and then decided to wash the car.




Next day decided to clean the relatively nice but dirty interior.




Floor mats before:

Floor mats after:


LOL I bought some new ones from Stockinteriors.com.

Cleaning Seats:


ALL CLEAN:



Went home to my parents house and cleaned the engine bay with some kind of engine bay degreaser and the hose. Started car up and car ran like crap, got some gas because I was out and then came back home. My Dad and I pulled the spark plug wires and they were filled with an oil/water mixture. Decided to do a mini tune up on the car. Cap and rotor, plugs, wires, oil change, vcover gasket, etc. Oh and BTW this will be a relatively cheap build, I already picked fast and reliable for the 88HF. This one will be cheap and reliable, definitely not fast.





Car now runs great, but leaks oil...ugh will need to find and destroy leak. My Dad thinks it's from the Vcover gasket or else the dizzy oring because it seems to be coming from that side of the engine. Will need to wait until Oct 7th to figure that out.

 

Oh I forgot, didn't like the look of the faded old bumpers and side moldings. Bought some bumper trim paint from OSH, enlisted the help of my mother and father and spent 6 hours in the 87 degree heat doing this.

Before:

Kind of hard to see but the paint is super faded.




Pulled off bumpers:



What is the air vent in the trunk for??



Masked everything off:



Had my Dad paint the bumpers:



I painted the moldings:


Aftershots:

 

Love it. Nice and clean. And an uncommon color too. Are you keeping the stock motor?

 

Sweet. Gnna start checking this one out. Looks good so far, crazy what fresh paint did to those bumpers.

 

Yes definitely keeping the stock motor until it blows. It only has 165,000 miles on it now so it should last a while. 92hp FTW.

It's probably going to be one of the most boring builds on here. I'm going to paint the back and front windshield moldings next weekend. Paint the hub caps also. Probably try to fix the oil leak also and if I have time fix the power door lock issue.

Then we wait until mid October for my Progress CSII coilovers, install those along with the gold OG sans I bought. If it doesn't look good I'll probably have to paint the rims black or swap the 949 rims from my white car. But after that it'll just be fixing little things and doing routine maintenance. The crx is the "fun" car, this is the boring DD.

 

What I really love about these cars is you give is a drop and some wheels and it looks great that way! lol

 

That's sure a nice looking 96 Mustang Cobra in the background...

 

Too bad it's slowww compared to my white car

Small update. New parts:

Much needed slightly expensive...


Not so needed and just as expensive box of detailing crap


For the ricer in me.


We'll have to see how these look when (if ever) I get my progress springs...


Wrong color floormats DOH!


Compared to old:


Dirty engine bay



One of the reasons for the dirty


Fixed that and redid the valve cover gasket and no more leaks though you can't tell from this pic


Masked front and rear window moldings and painted with help from my Mom






Then I went home and jumped my white car (crawling through the trunk to unlock the doors is not fun), washed it, then absolutely mashed on it going from Fremont to San Jose to Fremont to pick up my iPad and visit a friend at work.



Plan for this weekend:
Fix door locks
Paint windshield wipers

Yup pretty damn boring, basically the car reflects my life currently.

 

Cancelled my order with Progressauto. A month is wayyy too long to wait especially with their crap customer service. Purchased a set of F+F type 1's locally.

Here they are:




The roommates dog was super interested in the suspension for some reason:


The only before I took:


Comparing the stock vs new ones:



New wheels vs old:


Halfway done:


All the way done:



Future plans:
Take better pictures
Lower it more if possible (might need to pickup EG front forks?)
Roll fenders if needed
Get an alignment
Spray paint wipers

 

damn dude it looks awesome. I just bought a similar civic sedan pretty much a few weeks ago. yours is in better shape tho. props for the wheels n coils.

 

Thanks! Ironically, your car was the reason I decided to pull the trigger on this color sedan. I think I saw your build on efsedanforum though? Didn't realize you had a thread on here too.

Today my dad and I tried to get the front down some more. He was against it, I did have to adjust the preload on the F+F type1's. We'll see how it goes. Here are some side pics:





Forgot to mention. Just calculated my first tank of gas and I'm getting 29mpg mixed city/highway. Pretty good considering I usually cruise 75-80mph.

Plan for this week:
Alignment
Fix power door locks
Brake overhaul possibly

I don't think I'm going to go lower. The fastest route to the freeway from my house requires me taking a pretty steep driveway sideways and all I hear is scrape going over it.