I want to remove the bumper support from my 89' crx to allow more room for the intercooler and such.. This car is only used for drag racing on the track and a little bit on the street.. If I remove the bumper support will this hurt the strength of the body any and what happends if I do get into a accident in the front..

 

That's one of the first thing I remove on all crx's, as long as its not a street car. It will not affect rigity of the car one bit.

 

Well its part street and part track.. Mostly track..

 

The bumper supports are only 5 mph supports, they only really help in a low speed "bump". Of course, it would also mean the difference between something going through your radiator or IC in a low speed collision. I was going to do the same thing to my 91 civic, but found out two things. 1.) The bumper support is 80% of what holds my bumper cover onto the car, so without it the cover sits too low and kind of flops around. 2.) The supports don't weigh that much anyway so it wasn't worth the weight it would have saved me. The second thing might not apply to you since you're doing it for IC clearance and not weight savings. I'd say if you really need them gone for clearance issues and as long as you can rig some way to keep your cover on there then go for it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Steve91 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It will not affect rigity of the car one bit.</TD></TR></TABLE>
I find your statement hard to believe. It is a serious hunk of metal that doesn't flex much, if any, and I'm sure it keeps some of the unibody from rollin around.
If this was only a drag car it wouldn't matter, but it will probably hurt your handling.
My suggestion is to remove it (if you wish) and make a smaller, but just as strong sort of tie bar.
I highly doubt that Honda threw that metal in there just for crashes.

 

Hmm.. I am going to try to cut it down to fit the IC in there but if it doesnt work im just going to leave it off..

 

I'm taking mine off for my i/c. Driven every day. I made a post about this in the FI forum and there's a good amount of people who just take them off. So it can't be that bad

 

My front bumper on my race car is gone for weight savings. It did not adversely affect handling in any way. JDM Civics do not have them IIRC.

 

Anyone have a picture of the bumper support. Either I am thinking of something different, or it has already been removed on my car.

 

It's the huge metal part that's behind your bumper, can't miss it. You can always go down the middle and trim the hell out of it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B16_madman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
I find your statement hard to believe. It is a serious hunk of metal that doesn't flex much, if any, and I'm sure it keeps some of the unibody from rollin around.
If this was only a drag car it wouldn't matter, but it will probably hurt your handling.
My suggestion is to remove it (if you wish) and make a smaller, but just as strong sort of tie bar.
I highly doubt that Honda threw that metal in there just for crashes.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

i see your point.. but the bumper support is just bolted to the unibody.. its not actually apart of the unibody for strength. with my EF8 front end, i dont have my bumper support on mine any more, because they dont have them in Japan. i believe the bumper supports are for US crash regulations, thats why they are there, cause you can take the rear bumper cover off with 4 bolts.. so i dont think that it is gonna affect the cars strength. having them will help absorb some of the energy from an impact, but not having them i don't think is going to affect the strength of the car. I hope this makes sense and im right

 

here is my front without the bumper support


and here is my rear with bumper support (sorry for the side shot.. its the metal piece sticking out from the back)

 

I think mine looks like the one above, I don't see anything that I have that you dont. I'll have to look again.

 

When I take my bumper cover off, there is a huge, black metal bumper waiting for me. I didn't see one on your car. What bumper support are you talking about?

 

That was the first time I ever took my bumper cover off. Guess I dont have it.

 

Nope.. You dont have one..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ricodemus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That was the first time I ever took my bumper cover off. Guess I dont have it.


</TD></TR></TABLE>

My support came off with my bumper. So if you took off the 4 bolts and 4 screws that hold your bumper on it would have come off with it. But I'm sure you would notice that your bumper cover weighs like 8 pounds.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Civic44 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My front bumper on my race car is gone for weight savings. It did not adversely affect handling in any way. JDM Civics do not have them IIRC.</TD></TR></TABLE>
ok, now im a believer, but dd it isn't that smart to do that. i'd rather it get smashed than my b series or my dash....

 

I know folks that have died from removing the bumper support in their EF. Do it if its for straight line track only drag racing, but I wouldnt risk it on the street.

 

No offence IRVTECH, but that's crazy... the hump of metal truely is just there for the US 5mph crash test regulation... Japan nor Europe ever saw those crazy metal pieces...

I've seen loads and loads of crashes with crxs, some up to 130mph or something... believe me.. people living or dying won't have anything to do with that piece of metal!

Then again, this might become a discussion like the one on rear wings on FWD cars... Everybody who knows their **** on aerodynamics will say it helps (on higher speeds... but then again... low speeds with RWD makes wings useless too)

 

How the hell does the bumper stay on without the support?? Do you guys just use the 4 screws on the side and that's it?? Since you can't use the 4 bolts on the support.

 

In the front, I use long zip ties that go around the hood latch support and run through the holes in the bumper cover that the top mounting bolts use to go through.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by IRVTECH &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I know folks that have died from removing the bumper support in their EF.</TD></TR></TABLE>
hahahhahahhahahha sorry, but, this is just hilarious (not about the people dying, but by the claim).

How can you prove the bumper support was the absolute reason the people died, unless you do crash tests (which i KNOW you didn't do).

Don't try to spectulate too much. The bumper support is hardly any weight (it weighs less than a drive axle) and doesn't offer a whole lot of rigidity in the front of the car, considering there's not a whole lot of stress points there.

If you want to improve on rigidity, a brace across the radiator support connecting the two sides where the hood latch is would be far more beneficial than the bumper support.

I recently took my bumper support off and bolted the front bumper up with two bolts, bolted to the chassis directly behind the lower grill (i'll take pictures later).

 

Buy the smaller 88-89 HF one.

 

It's not so much there just for an accident; that support plays a part in stiffening up the unibody. It connects the left and right side to eliminate some tweak.