I just sold my 08 cobalt and I'm looking to buy this 1990 crx. Honda CRX w/ B16A and YS1 tranny
It has a b16/ys1 swap and overall isn't in terrible shape. The body has 197k, Motor supposedly has 40k. I test drove it yesterday and it drives pretty well and is sitting on coilovers. The car was also a cali/arizona (desert) car until 2 years ago and hasn't seen ohio winter/salt.

What worries me is that he used to drag race this car, with a different motor/trans a couple thousand miles back. I know this can be hard on the car and there was an occasional rattle/ knocking coming from underneath the car. Probably a 20 min drive and I heard it 3 or 4 times when the car hit a dip or bump in the road.

I'm not that experienced with these cars and wanted to see what some of the weak points are, especially since it was raced. What should I be looking for in terms of potential mechanical/structural/chassis damage from racing?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

IMO It's a total non-issue.

I really wouldn't worry about its former life as a drag car. I mean, we're not talking about funny car type stresses here. Even these cars as all out drag cars aren't THAT quick in the grand scheme of things (compared to domestics and RWD cars).

You're going to have an occasional rattle and noises just from the fact that it's a 25 year old car. Mine has never been raced and has some rattles and squeaks etc.

Structurally, outside of something just totally goofy like the front crossmember being cracked/tweaked or some other obvious type of stress, I really wouldn't give it a second thought that it was drag raced in the past. If you are that worried about it, look over the engine bay and underneath it (particularly in the strut tower/subframe/floor pan areas and factory seams/joints etc), and barring some cracked welds or inordinately separated seams I'd stop worrying about its past. I really don't think you'd find anything out of the ordinary though.

I think the only thing that might warrant a thorough check is the clutch pedal assembly/mounting points seeing as it's got a "stage 4" clutch. A lot of cars are susceptible to clutch pedal/mounting bracket breakage when driven with a stiff clutch. My Maxima's clutch pedal upper bracket broke clean off after only a couple of years with a Centerforce clutch back in the day. It then made the clutch pedal really wobbly and caused the whole assembly to flex over when engaging the clutch and made it really hard to get into gear. I had to remove the entire dashboard and weld up a new mount. So I would check the clutch pedal assembly. Look for cracks etc.

 

Agreed, really a non-issue compared to other things. I would definitely look into that rattle/knock though. The price is fair. The car does need some work.

Going from a '08 Cobalt to a '90 CRX is a big jump. You are loosing out on a lot of modern features.

 

I would check the obvious like exhaust hitting the underside, maybe an exhaust hanger came out of place. But it could be something like sway bar links. The life of the car as a drag car like James said, shouldn't be a problem. Its just good its a southern car. Keep that car out of the salt and wash it often if you do drive it in salt. I'm an Ohio owner as well and these cars DO NOT like salt.