Hi guys, I made an account here a while back a few years ago, thinking I was going to pick up a Civic or something, but never did, however, times have changed and I have actually succeeded in finding a project car for myself
I had been looking for a relatively cheap project to sink my teeth into, well dirt cheap anyways. So I've been trolling craigslist for San Diego, CA for a bit to find a project worth starting, looking at Civics, Accords, Preludes, etc.... So I was looking for around a week, and here in San Diego, you have to go quick when a good deal comes up. So a 1987 Honda CRX Si pops up on Craigslist for $500. Says it's running and drives great, but the registration is dated back a bit to December of 2015, no biggie, I can get past that easy, considering I'm military and out of state, oh and it wasn't passing smog because it was idling high. The pictures show that the hood wasn't closing for some reason and the nose panel was gone as well. So I ask the guy if he can show the next day for me as I'm on duty until I get off tomorrow and he was cool with that as well. So next day for me and my wife head up to the place, that's really small community north of San Diego, so I check it out the interior wasn't as good as I thought, the pictures didn't show the ratty side of the driver seat, no biggie, still functional. The thing that got me was how smooth the engine sounded after startup, but again the high idle which was around 1500-1600 RPMs. So I look around, the missing nose piece was because of a light front end collision, the radiator core support was bent in good but not enough to damage the functionality of the cooling system, so I gotta replace that. Tires weren't bad either, all the normal stuff that happens to a CRX of this age were happening, cracked fenders. Hardly any rust was on the car. So we negotiate the car down to $400 dollars and do the paperwork for me to take it home.

So the drive home was good before I took off during my inspection found the car had brand new KYB Excel-G/GR-2 shocks on it, which is one less thing I have to replace. The drive was pretty smooth, revs smoothly, the gear box has a bit of grind if I shift too fast, which could be just fluid, might use GM Synchromesh to see if that fixes it. The Steering is off by 90 degrees which is weird. AC works, however, it revs up to 2500 RPMs at idle during use. The car has the spare and a replacement radiator that came with it, so I think I got a steal.

It may look rough, but I think all in all for the price it's a good starting point.

 

Good starter for a project, welcome to Honda-Tech!