My Civic VX commuter car build

[jlk16188]

I have been a long time Honda guy and as of 2011 switched jobs requiring me to have a long daily commute of 55 miles one way to work 5 days a week. So i decided to re-purpose my weekend race car 1990 CRX into a daily commuter car, stiff suspension, no ac. This lasted about a 2 months before i started swapping out stock parts back onto the CRX to make it more "comfortable" but I could only stand the lack of room and ac for about 8 months total

Picture of my CRX the day I bought it and then again after owning it 6 years and restoring it in daily driver mode.



So after some searching I found basically the same car I drooled over in high school but rather than buying the SI model I opted for the VX instead, for obvious commuter car reasons. I bought what I thought was a relatively unmolested and original 1992 Civic VX.

After 1 day of driving the VX it became obvious that this car was not an unmolested and original car so the tear down began.
-blown struts due to cut stock springs
-Bad transmission bearings
-Blown heater core
-“wire tucked” engine bay which caused an under-hood fire
-Bad brakes
-Broken del sol seats
-Leaking oil and coolant from every possible location
-Bad O2 sensor

So, I rewired the entire car and replaced all of the suspension and brake with OEM replacement parts. All new gaskets, seals and hoses. Mounted new tires on the stock VX rims and sold the Integra wheels. Bought new injectors and did what I could to return this car back to stock form.
At some point this car had a K series engine swapped into it so the transmission mount to the body was missing and there was a hole cut into the floor for the shift box. So this warranted me buying a new welder to patch the hole and install the mount back onto the frame.
Excuse some of the pictures, its rather hard to take good quality pictures with your phone in a single car garage in subzero temperatures











So I drove the car then like this for a few months before sending it to the body shop for some minor rust repair

Then, happy with my progress, fast forward about a year I began parting out my CRX and decided to try on the wheel onto the VX just for grins. They hurt the gas mileage pretty significantly so they only lasted about a week before selling them as well.

I bought and installed a MPGuino from a fellow member on here

My normal one way commute results

By this point I have put over 30,000 miles on the car since I bought it and have been relatively happy with it. I have had a few minor repairs like radiator replacement, main relay, and water leaks.


I did however have my crank pulley bolt shear off, I am assuming due to having it loosened and torqued many times but the previous owners and over torqueing it or stretching the bolt causing it to ultimately fail.

I recently bought new tires and decided to repaint the stock wheels

And more recently I have added some creature comforts to the car, a 2000 civic center console and 2001 integra seats.
I stripped the interior and added sound deadening and solved some lingering water leak issues




And this is how the car sits as of today



I did buy a new OEM Honda O2 sensor to test the difference between the OEM and a $100 aftermarket replacement. The results are looking promising thus far and I will continue to update the community to share my findings.


At this point I have 35,000 miles tracked driving this car to work and back and have been very happy with the transition from CRX to civic.

[Daox]

Dang, thats quite a bit of work. Very nice work. What kind of mileage are you averaging these days (not just the one trip pic )?

[jlk16188]

Originally Posted by Daox

Dang, thats quite a bit of work. Very nice work. What kind of mileage are you averaging these days (not just the one trip pic )?

my average tank with the new tires and o2 sensor is 50 minimum up to 54 for about 400 miles per tank.

I do have the wrong transmission on the car. I have a 96 civic cx hatchback trans so it has a bit shorter gears than the stock VX. my highway RPMs are around 2500 at 65 MPH

[MetroMPG]

Nice car.

Any further mods planned? With that many highway miles/week, you'd benefit from some aero work.

[jlk16188]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Nice car.

Any further mods planned? With that many highway miles/week, you'd benefit from some aero work.

I may do an underbody tray. I do use grill blocks already but I doubt Ill do much. I really like the "stock" look without drawing too much attention like heavily aero modding

[Baltothewolf]

Originally Posted by jlk16188

I may do an underbody tray. I do use grill blocks already but I doubt Ill do much. I really like the "stock" look without drawing too much attention like heavily aero modding

Underbody tray would give a nice improvement, and will reduce road noise as well. So you get 'creature comfort' along with a nice MPG bump .

[Daox]

Extending the rear spoiler or making an extended kamm back would still look great, and give you better aero.

[jlk16188]

Originally Posted by Daox

Extending the rear spoiler or making an extended kamm back would still look great, and give you better aero.

I am not a fan of the look but have considered it.

I gutted my catalytic converter this weekend since it was original to the car with 270,000 miles on it and completely plugged up. I am seeing some positive gains from it already. my daily commute yesterday and today were up about 5% higher than normal making it much easier to maintain a 50+ MPG tank average

Ill be keeping track over the long run but due to this I will have to start my O2 sensor experiment over so I dont have altered results

[Baltothewolf]

Originally Posted by jlk16188

I am not a fan of the look but have considered it.

I gutted my catalytic converter this weekend since it was original to the car with 270,000 miles on it and completely plugged up. I am seeing some positive gains from it already. my daily commute yesterday and today were up about 5% higher than normal making it much easier to maintain a 50+ MPG tank average

Ill be keeping track over the long run but due to this I will have to start my O2 sensor experiment over so I dont have altered results

I gutted the #2 cat on my insight for the same reason. My number 2 o2 sensor was throwing codes. I took a spark plug anti-fouler and installed the o2 sensor into that, the installed it into the cat and presto! No more codes.

[jlk16188]

Originally Posted by Baltothewolf

I gutted the #2 cat on my insight for the same reason. My number 2 o2 sensor was throwing codes. I took a spark plug anti-fouler and installed the o2 sensor into that, the installed it into the cat and presto! No more codes.

Luckily the Civic VX doesnt have a second O2 sensor, only a primary before the cat so I would never get a code for cat performance. I can feel a significant difference between before gutting it and after. The MPG difference is nice as well