I thought I would try and do a thread on my car in that some people have found it helpful or "inspirational" or something. It is not a pretty car like Jadkar's CRX (which is beautiful) and it is "fugly". But it is fast and with the old faded paint and little dings in the body work people make assumptions about it lined up on grid and many times it surprises them (Porsche 911s and Z06s waving me by
) Notice the CRX behind the Z06 on one lap;
Ahead the next and that is at a "power track" Road Atlanta!
. I was instructing for PBOC at Barber the other weekend and another instructor (M3 with a cage) came up to me in the paddock while I was in my car. He said so what do you have under the hood? I told him it was "stock" with a smile and he grinned and said "bullshit" you pulled me down the front straight (when I went by him taking him first out of the turn). I then drove away from him. He then looked inside the car and saw that it has almost no interior whatsoever (tiny bit of dash and that is it) and asked so what does it weigh? I told him "something south of 2000lbs. I jokingly call the car the Honda "Erise". My JDM FWD version of a Lotus Elise. About the same weight, but more power, and "wrong wheel drive".
I use to own a twin turbo 6 speed mkiv supra. It was an awesome car and I had made some track mods to it. But believe it or not the CRX is more fun and yep, faster. I first saw the CRX at a DE at Talladega Gran Prix Raceway
www.tgprace.com when it belonged to my student I was assigned to. The car had a stripped interior, factory seats and belts, no cage, and the Civic EX mag wheels with 195 Azenis. I thought well this is a fun car but no beast. I was about to be surprised. After a warm up lap I told my student that he could now really roll into the throttle. And he did. The motor hit six grand and all hell broke loose and kept going right past the 8,000 reading on the tach (well past the red zone). Damn thing pulled like a V8. I asked him what the hell have you done to it? His response was he put a modded JDM "R" engine in it. But he said the car was kind of extreme and was thinking of sellling it. (it does not have a/c). Well I was thinking this would be cheaper to run as a dedicated track car and wadding up a rare Supra chassis would be very, very bad should I have a big off. So I asked him could I drive the car.
And I did. Wow. What fun. Totally tossable and I ran down a T78 single supra with it. LOL. (TGPR is a tight track). So two weeks later I sold my supra and two weeks after that I bought the CRX.
So I decided to build this thing up. It already had the motor and "fixins".
B18c w/ Hondata, Toda Spec B cams, Toda Portflow retainers, bigger throttle body, bigger injectors, st adjustable cam gears, meziere water pump, ITR header, Meziere water pump, big Fluidyne radiator, Apexi exhaust
Well with that set up, the top of the motor rubs the hood a touch and hangs out the bottom a bit but I have not had problems with clearance. Hasport mounts
So the first thing I did was upgrade the suspension. It already had a ST 22mm adjustable sway in the rear and some koni yellows (rear only!) but stock springs. So I bought new Koni Yellow adjustables and mounted them with Ground Control sleeves to make them ride height adjustable. I also purchased Eibach ERS linear race springs 450lbs. fr. and 550lbs. rear to really be able to get good rear rotation at the track. The Konis are very tunable with the ST bar. What feels great at one track feels like an accident waiting to happen at another. So you do have to play with it.
I must say that I really like the set up and would go higher in spring rate at the same percentage but I don't want to blow out the shocks.
Then I bought some Kosei K1 T-S 15x7 wheels (Damn it Kosei just went out of business too) which weigh only 10.6lbs. I had been running 205/50/15 Toyo RA-1s but now I have taken the plunge and run Kumho V710s which have more "stick" but are more prone to lock up (lighter). Which brings me to this point. Going from ABS mega brakes on the Supra to non-abs brakes on the CRX was a definite learning curve. At my first track event I kept expiramenting with going progressively deeper into a turn and finally found the big time limit (I went over it). Felt the floaty locking up feeling, smelled the tire smoke and then felt the thumpa, thumpa of a flat spot.
The bottom tire was the huge corded flat spot. The top tire was when later in the day I corded the hell out of it. I just put the flat spotted tire on the rear and kept on driving!
The CRX brakes are a weak point in the car. Watching the calipers flex like a mother when bleeding the brakes is proof. I ran my first year on the OEM brakes but I was giving up track to other cars under braking because the brakes were mushy under threshold braking and were not exactly confidence inspiring. But I was pushing the OEM system to the max. I did run air ducting to the rotor and bought a fabricated duct that blew right on the rotor (note Jimfab subframe too).
That helped some but I was really exceeding the brakes capacity and it showed in rapid wear. Even blowing air on the rotors by sunday at track events the rotors were thermal stresss cracked all over. Because of caliper flex my expensive ($120) Carbotech 1109s were tapering after two weekend to the point of replacement. Plus CRX hubs are known to fail under "racing" conditions due to heat stress and people recommend getting a hardened hub for safety reasons (hub failures can be nasty accidents). Well I know I was heating the crap out of my brakes/hub.
So I looked around and decided to go with the Type R big brake upgrade. Much bigger and stouter caliper and significantly bigger rotor heat sink. I really love the set up. I used a 92 integra knuckle for the conversion and contrary to some rumors it does not put a lot of positive camber into the suspension. I am negative 2 on the front and the rear.
I was so excited about my new big brakes that I screwed up my converted type r rotors (to a 4x100) on the first day. I street bedded the carbotech pads on the way to the track. You have to lay some brake pad film down on the rotors to get them to work right. Then you are suppose to do one "light" track session to track bed the brakes/rotors. Well I didn't. I was mr. brake hard, brake deep and crap, I hot spotted my rotors and got the dreaded jerky rotors.
I have the rear disc brake conversion from an integra but still use the 88 LCA. I run Carbotech Bobcats in the rear and they and the disc never seem to wear out. I will lightly smoke the rear tires under braking in some turns where the rear is unloaded more but they still turn enough that I don't flat spot them. Approaching Turn 3 at Road Atlanta is a typical corner to leave a little smoke.
The car had a YS1 tranny in it but the former owner must have abused it a good bit (I think it was street raced for fun) and had a third gear grind develop shortly after I bought it and tracked it some. So I went for a different tranny set up. I looked at all the trannies and gear ratios and then did some looking around on the market. The USDM Type R tranny w/ LSD has some really nice close gear ratios but had a lower final drive. The JDM tranny has a bigger spread in gear ratios but has a 4.785 final drive so I bought the best of both worlds. The USDM close ratio with a JDM 4.785. For a track car I highly recommend it. For a street car well, it is not the best for highway cruising. At about 80mph the car is running about 5,000 revs. Under its gearing set up maximum velocity is right at 150mph but I have only been able to consistently hit 138ish mph at Road Atlanta but in a CRX that is moving. My goal this year is to bust the 140mph mark with stickier tires, better brakes (for staying into the throttle longer and using second gear coming out of turn 7. I have been hitting the apex in third at 5,000revs and Vtec kicks in at 6,000 so I am losing some accleration coming out of turn 7 leading onto the long back straight. I am going to change that this year. A stock Z06 (not the new 500hp version) driven by a very good driver I am told (by that very good driver) hits 142mph. So that is a good goal.
I put in a new clutch/PP by Spec. I believe it is the Stage II with a 8.5lb. lightened flywheel. I will admit that I blew up the first clutch on the first track day at Road Atlanta. A spring window fractured and the spring popped out and look ma, no clutch. I drove it over 3 hours back to Birmingham in one gear. No stops. Spec was great about it even knowing what I was doing with my car. They just drilled some tiny stress relieving holes in each corner of the spring windows and I have not had any problems over the last year with it. It revs great with the lightened flywheel.
I also wanted to be safer in the car in that I drive over 1,000 miles each year in my car on track (and then sit in student's cars for about 2000 miles a year). So I had a cage built with nascar bars on the driver's side and x bars on the passenger side with a full halo over the driver and passenger.
I put in a Sparco Evo 2 on the driver's side and an Sparco Rev on the passenger side. Yeah I know they don't match in color. I could not find that blue in the Rev. No big deal to me. I also install the G Force 5 point harnesses so I can feel all safe and cozy in the car.
Finally last spring I was given a good lesson in why you should replace suspension bushings. The owner thought that the suspension had been replaced with Energy bushings but I don't think so. I was actually getting some tire rub coming out of turn 10b at Road Atlanta (slow sharp right hander headin up a hill under power). That was because my rear suspension was moving enough to get some toe changes. Well that made the ass end more squirrely in an already squirrely car. I was trying to keep a modded M3 away from me down the back straight and was trying to brake as deep as I could (the M3 had big ass Stoptech brakes) and in trying to stay in the throttle as long as possible when I went for the brakes I experienced a big "death wiggle" in the ass end at just under 140mph. I did think of the gravel trap at the end of turn 10 for a moment. I eased out of it enough to get things back under control and make the turn. I decided I would not track the car again until I redid every single bushing in the car.
I redid the supension with prothane and mugen combo (mugen lca bushing). They are definitely tighter and in spite of greasing the up real good they still squeak but then I have a pretty stiff chassis with stiff springs. Sometimes when I park my car in the grass at TGPR a rear wheel will be off the ground depending on location. I highly recommend replacing the bushings.
I love this car. It is soooo much fun to drive at speed at the track.
If I have not had time to talk to my student much or if they don't ask a lot of questions I love to surprise them with the car. I just know when they walk up to it they see the old paint job and the dings and go well it is some old slow track car. Then I wind it up to about 9,000 revs and sometimes they start laughing and don't stop for quite some time. Or we get through and they say what a great time they had but were "terrorized" the first couple of laps thinking we could never make the turns. Driving a light nimble car with power is a blast. The car is fairly low in expendable/maintenance cost and I would recommend a car like mine to anyone who wants a fun, fast, affordable track car.
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