I have a 91 CRX project that I'm trying to turn into somewhat of a rally (or at least rally-capable) car.
Obviously, traveling off-road puts a beating on the whole car and this is best controlled by the suspension. I know I will likely need to raise it up to at least stock height, possibly higher. One friend suggested fully adjustable coilovers with variable rate springs.

Are their any more specific recommendations for brands/models for this kind of application? I saw the sticky for suspension setups but couldn't find anything in the thread addressing anything other than DD/auto-x applications.

 

Tein makes a rally spec damper. There are other companies like Bilstein, moton, Öhlins, etc that will build you a custom setup if they don't make rally dampers. If you're looking to spend $3-20k+.

I think maybe D2 and K sport might make some budget systems for probably like $1500-2k.

 

Or you could piece something together with OEM parts for cheap.

 

I'm not looking to spend more than 2k. I'm kind of surprised to see the numbers that high for brands that normally run 1000-1500 for good road coilovers, but I suppose it makes sense considering the extra they need to withstand off road.

I know a lot of people like to make their first gen CR-Vs off-road vehicles. would those suspensions be too big/high/not fit on the crx?

What OEM parts would be able to handle the same abuse as something designed for rally?

 

Rally suspensions are a specialty type of suspension. Road suspensions are cheap because they don't need to be as specialized or put up with as much abuse. The market for road suspensions is also hundreds or thousands of times greater than rally specific suspensions.

Try a rally forum to see what people are using with success. You may be able to buy a durable off the shelf shock like Bilstein or Koni and pair it to a very tall and fairly soft set of ground control springs with adjustable sleeves.

You'll need to possibly address the amount of positive camber and other suspension geometry issues.

A stock CRX suspension should be fine to get you started. A stock suspension worked for me on a civic that we built to offroad. It already had 150k miles on it and still took all of our abuse without failing. It was a 99-00 Si suspension on a 98 EX, FWIW.

 

The pictures won't load on my computer at work, but I'll keep an eye out at the local junk yards for a stock suspension. It was lowered on some no-name coilovers with blown shocks when I bought it. I raised it about an inch on the adjustment sleeves, but it still sits hella low.