Back from the Dead ('84 Honda CRX rescued from wrecking yard)
 

And the journey begins, I saved this little crx from the wrecking yard and $12 in parts, I drove it home. It is sick but I have big plans for this little car. I am new to the ecomodding world. I found this site wile researching to find a gas sipping car. After reading up on and seeing some DIY mods, specifically AndrewJ's 5th Gen civic. I was hooked and this is now my new project. there is a few mechanical issues that need to be addressed before any modding takes place, Brakes are grinding, carb needs rebuilt, needs new wheels and tires and there is an electrical issue in the dash cluster. but I wanted to post and record this journey from the beginning. So I will be posting every change I make from the type and weight of oil I put in to the body and mechanical mods I do.

And here it is

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...2&d=1423902301

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...3&d=1423902301

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...4&d=1423902301

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...5&d=1423902301

If it hasn't been gone over by a pack of wild teens and swapped out with the mandatory cheezy aftermarket parts, heads, intakes, coil overs, etc . . . you have found yourself a nice platform for ecomodding!

No pack of wild teens have been near this car in fact I think it was once owned by granny, It is in surprisingly good shape.

Wish I could find one like that in the state of Florida!

I had been looking for about 2 years before I came across this one, keep looking and don't get discouraged.

scetches
 

Here are a few sketches that I drew up. I am open to suggestions, comments, thoughts, constructive criticism. let me know what you think.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...9&d=1423991386

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...0&d=1423991386

Some food for thought. Areohead post about this picture in several places. Might try a search.


http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/...itled310-1.jpg

Nice save! The sky is the limit with those little things.

Great find! Welcome to Ecomodder!

I will see what I can dig up, thanks

Nice save

Wonder how this matches up with "the template"
 

Sorry for the pic of my screen but it was the only way I could seem to keep them together

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...3&d=1424058537

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...4&d=1424058537

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...5&d=1424058537

Apart from the aeromods, what are the other approaches you're considering to increase the efficiency of your car?

I have been reading up on water injection and think I might give that a try. the car has little power and really dose not like hills. I would like to find some sort of scan gauge as well but everything I have found is for 96 and newer.

I think you may have to use a MPGuino for that one since it is pre-OBDII. Here is the link for the MPGuino

MPGuino - EcoModder

"It still works for just about any car with fuel injection, but for cars built before 1996, there is no OBD-II option. "


My car is carbureted, will it still work?
every thing I have seen says fuel injected

Unless there is some sort of air intake sensor or some way to meter air or fuel into the engine, it won't work sadly.

Convert it to fuel injection :D:D:D or maybe an engine swap is a good target. I don't know much about Hondas, but Toyotas have a semi standard bolt pattern on their transmissions, so engine swaps are mechanically simple, just the electronics that can be the fun part.

The template included with the tool is actually not quite right. It's a bit too shallow.

My recommendation is to use this tool:

Image Overlay Utility

And this template:

http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/...pstiassblm.jpg


Then, when you have them overlayed, hit the "printscreen" key on your keyboard, open MSPaint, and paste, and it should paste a shot of your screen.

Use to have one 86 si model fun car only have the header left of it,changed to 4-2-1 or something like that. enjoy it.

don't use spats aft of the wheels - they add drag
if you want to do anything like that, they'd have to become streamlined fairings
and those won't work properly unless you put a full belly pan underneath the car first

rear diffuser angle is way too steep to be effective

if you want to do aeromods to the CRX, Phil's CRX is your guidance

fixed one problem and received another. Dash cluster is fixed and now the heater quit blowing warm air. that is a project for next weekend, flushing the heater core.

Subscribed. This should be interesting.

$12 in parts to drive it home, that's cool. It suggests that the PO simply got tired of it rather than it experiencing a significant failure.

I was playing around in paint and this is what I came up with

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1424767452

See if you can get a lower picture that is about level with the window beltline, or else hunt around on Google for a perfect profile shot. That overhead angle is throwing off the aero overlay.

Welcome to the forum! Great platform for good MPG.

First Mod
Bought new tires but before putting them on I needed different wheels, I had three alum, and 1 steal on the car. so off to the scrap yard I went. as soon as I walked in, the fork lift (on steroids) was dropping an 85 civic, and on this civic was 4 original Honda wheels with center caps and beauty rings, so I gave the car a once over just to make Shure some kid didn't take the car off roading before taking it to the scrapyard, seems I was in luck so I took them home, mounted the tires with spoon bars (cheaper that way)and slapped them on, they ride grate. now for the mod, I took the beauty rings into my place of employment, (metal fab shop) cut out a few disks out of alum. Clamped the beauty rings to them and threw in a few stainless steal rivets and this is the end result

Not as flush with the wheel as I would have hoped but they should do the trick and they look better to

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...5&d=1426182093

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1426182093

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...7&d=1426182093

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...8&d=1426182093

Looks good! What PSI are you running?

What's next on the list?

That exact year CRX is my fav...the bucket-headlight 1st gen. Great find and try not to butcher that amazing sheetmetal.
BTW, what was wrong with it?

44psi, that is the max pressure of these tires, Kumho Solus KR21, 155/80-13

Well there is a laundry list, carb needs rebuilt, shocks and struts need replaced, brakes need done all the way around (right rear is grinding). then there is the check list that I do to every used car I get, Oil change,(done) Trans fluid change, coolant flush, (done) plugs, cap and rotor, Wires. and just recently I came acrossed a couple oil leeks that need addressed as well. Front main seal, valve cover, and oil pan. And there is still the exhaust leak (Cylinder 1 off the manifold). I am sure there is something I am forgetting but that is all I can think of for now. that is just the mechanical side of it all not one piece of plastic sits right on the car, both front fenders and the plastic in front of the hood are cracked both bumpers are floppy little rust around the rear panels and front pillers. *sigh* it is going to take a wile to address every issue
I am going to try to make every mod reversible just so that I don't destroy yet another crx, high school kids do enough of that for everyone.

Beautiful! We've owned 8 CRXs (including a convertible) and have an '84 just like yours.

If you want to bump mileage, I wouldn't spend a lot of effort on aero stuff, but try to recreate an HF. Our '87 HF was rated at 57mpg. I stuck Honda motorcycle carbs on a replacement SI engine (peppy as all getout) and still got 45mpg, and sometimes over 50. Our other SIs get 45-50mpg, so 60mpg is achievable with no radical changes. There is a guy over by me that does nothing but restore CRX HFs and resells them for big money. To maximize mileage, you should find the HF trans as it was geared really high. They also had very light aluminum wheels- I could kick myself for letting mine go. The rear brake drums were very light aluminum but are very hard to find. A set of headers would be desirable, but they're very rare, too. You will always have issues with that little 3 barrel and the CVCC head. I'm a Welding Engineer (I see you're into welding & fab) & mechanic and wasted many, many hours on our '84s original carb. I got a freshly rebuilt carb and it didn't idle any better than the one removed. I swapped a Weber carb like so many others and it helped but it still doesn't idle perfect. Now if you're really after high mileage, fuel injection would be the way to go.

I love threads like these and I love that '86 CRX. When I was in high school, I had a Blue 1985 CRX HF model just like this with louvers on order and my payments were set at $100 a month LOL.

My stupid older brother talked me out of it and I got a Corvette, which I later regretted. That was pretty much the last time I ever took his advice.

Anyway, I love these cars. Can't wait to see what you do with this one. Make her shine!

seems you and I have a lot in common this is now my 3rd crx. I would like to get this one running to the best of its ability before going after any real mods. this weekend I am doing a tune up (cap, rotor, plugs, wires, air filter and both fuel filters and fix the exhaust leak in hopes that I can get the power back. it is running REALLY week at the moment at 55 mph in 5th It will start decreasing speed. I am pretty sure that isn't right. compression test showed all cylinders at or around 155psi. so its good. I plan to put my timing gun to it just to make sure it is good and I will be checking the vacuum advance tomorrow as well.

After this one is reliable I will probably hand it off to my better half and build an hf for me. for her a car has to be cute, for me a car has to be reliable and peppy is not a bad thing either. if you know of a good place to source parts for an hf that would help tremendously there isn't much in the local scrap yard and craigs list isn't much help either.

CRX parts
 

Rockauto is the best resource I've found for mechanical parts (dirt cheap) for the majority of the wear items -plugs, wires, filters, gaskets, clutches, brakes, rotors, bearings, suspension parts.
Redpepperracing.com has a pretty active trade/swap/buy/sell board for 1st generation CRX's and 3rd generation Civic hatchbacks. And lots of good advice on diagnosis and repairs. Lots of nice people there (and not everybody there is into racing and horsepower--there are quite a few fuel-efficiency modders there too).

Two sites for CRX specific information:
CRX Community Forum • Index page for all CRX info... you can look up some rebuilding articles I posted awhile back.
Portal - Red Pepper Racing has 1st Gen (84-87) specific information.

I've rebuilt a couple CRX, and cut a couple down for parts: The main thing you need to look out for first is RUST in two main areas:
1 - Front Jack points. On the 1st gens, most of the water that got into the frame drained through a hole right in the front jack point (behind the front wheels). Unfortunately, this area is both a drain AND structural center point... and it gets eaten out by rust. It's not uncommon to not have front jack points, as they have so deteriorated that the jack has gone through them at some point. To this day, the first thing I look at on a 1st gen is the jack points!

2 - Seat Belt mounts. While scrapping a non-working car that had sat in a driveway for a year, I made an unpleasant discovery. While maneuvering around the inside of the car, I grabbed the drivers seat belt to pull myself up... and it came out of the floor. The belt was still firmly anchored in the threads in the floor mount, but the mount had rusted out of the floor!

that is my fave body style. can i ask what the cost of the car was? is there any rust issues? it looks like a time capsule.
were there any hidden treasures inside? i found a lot of ink pens and sales receipts on mine when i cleaned it out from 2 owners before.
what was rhe $12 dollar part?

$500, right rear wheel well has rusted threw and the left one is bubbling paint. under the carpet looks good has surface rust but still solid. front jack points are good. I have recently found a leak into the cab. it soaked my crx car bible (Chilton's). I looked for it but had no luck it seemed to just come up threw the floor no trails leading to the puddle, and yes it was a puddle you could see the water not just the wet spot. wet dry vac took care of that but still no luck on finding it. so when it gets warmer I will be ripping out the carpet and attacking it with a hose and see what I can find.as for the treasures well I found half a box of .22 rounds not a bad find lol. a thermostat was the part.

I bought an 84 in Houston Texas. It was a 1.5, serial number was 1018 (last 4 digits). Made 7-83, probably first couple of weeks production. Paid $7k brand new. Drove it two years and 50k miles, averaged 44 mpg, sold it for $5k.

regards
mech