Sobo's CRX Log

Builds
1

Pretty much I’ve decided to keep this car as my project.

I will continually update this thread with every piece of work I do to this car, whether it be performance, cosmetic or a repair.

I bought the car two months ago like so for around $5200 if I recall correctly.

Prior to purchase:

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t77/bleezers/crx002.jpg
crx002.jpg1024×768

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t77/bleezers/crx003.jpg
crx003.jpg1024×768

NOTE 9" stock front brakes
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t77/bleezers/crx004.jpg
crx004.jpg1024×768

As soon as I got it painted the bottom of the car because the paint was very chipped and there where green spots of old paint showing through:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/alexsobo/20090628140003.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/alexsobo/20090628140037.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/alexsobo/20090628140101.jpg

Then I discovered a problem with the turbocharger:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/alexsobo/20090629123337-1.jpg
20090629123337-1.jpg480×640

4 Bolts backed out causing the compressor housing+backing plate to become loose from the bearing housing. Luckily I caught it before any real damage could be done. Precision turbo sent me 4 bolts for the price of shipping and i was good to go! +karma to precision turbo

Next I scraped 18 year old tint out of the car for about 3 hours, and de-badged the rear :
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-07-21134558.jpg
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-07-21134547.jpg
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-07-21134536.jpg
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-07-21134828.jpg

Then I realized my brakes were failing(fast forward to 1:28 on the streetfire video):
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Integra-vs-636-and-vs-am_697940.htm#commentTop
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/7097/brakesh.jpg

The car has too much power for the stock 9" front disc brakes. Brake boosting the stock brakes would cause the rotors to heat up so hot they glowed red hot. In addition this heat caused my brake pads to deteriorate. I looked into and researched a solution. Through my research I discovered the following things:

  1. My car had upgraded steering knuckles from a CRX SI.
  2. My rear rotors(Integra DA) are .5" bigger than the ones on the front of my car.(Lol)
  3. I needed a big brake kit.

I assembled a DIY Big brake upgrade which really saved me some cash. I bought:

  1. Honda Accord Wagon Loaded(With brackets) brake calipers. $44 a piece after the core charge
  2. 2 10.3" Rotors off of a 1991 Honda Civic EX $23 bucks a piece
  3. A set of ceramic pads $37 bucks
  4. Rear brake rotors $17 bucks a piece
  5. Rear brake pads $8
  6. Integra DA master cylinder $36 bucks(Required for the bigger calipers)
  7. Integra DA brake booster $100 after core charge (Required because the DA MC doesn’t fit the stock brake booster)
  8. Goodridge stainless steel brake hoses $125
  9. 4x100 3mm spacers $8 shipped
    So in I have $482 invested in brake upgrades.

A pre-assembled big brake kit(Front rotors, pads, calipers, brackets+adapters, and front brake lines) costs: $585 + $36 for the MC and $100 for the brake booster. So In total $721 and that doesn’t even include rear brakes haha.

Here’s some pre-installation, and comparison pictures of my BBK to the stock setup.

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-07-31123652.jpg
CRX front caliper vs Accord wagon front caliper Comparison
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-07-31123732.jpg
CRX front brake pad (Left) Accord wagon brake pad(Right)

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-08-01155357.jpg
2009-08-01155357.jpg480×640

Broke an axle, but it was under warranty
When I first got the car I didn’t really drive it around turns to much it sat in my driveway for about a month. Then the first night I got it out I took Scspeed for a ride and right away he called that my passenger side axle was going. I didn’t think much of it for one I though it was my tires rubbing as they always do(I’m rolling my fenders soon too) and I didn’t realize axles for my car cost $800 new. Progressively the clicking got worse and worse so when I was inspecting my brakes I looked at my axles. Sure enough, my passenger side inner CV joint was caked in grease. The grease escaped through pin sized holes over time and ultimately lead to the demise of the joint. Luckily, I discovered my stage 2.9 DSS axles were warrantied for a year.

Called DSS and asked them if I could send it in, I explained to them what happened. They said sure get the invoice number and send it in. However I had to go through Innovative Tuning to grab the invoice number. Mike wanted me to bring the axle in for inspection, so I drove there and eventually one of his workers just ended up giving me the Invoice number I needed in the first place(No inspection needed), so that was a waste of diesel. Boxed it up and sent it out the next day and it should be back within 5 days.

Thanks for reading, this brings my Log up to date as of 8/1/2009

2

dont you already have 2397239723 threads about this.

3

Yeah pretty much why I’m condensing it into one.

Kthx for being a fag though, like every single post you make.

4

blow me.

5

Good one.

GTFO of my thread so I don’t need a mod to clean it up.

6

Play nice.

This is a beasty crx, with a few tweaks it will be monster. Keep it going…

7

Thing is a monster already, too much for it’s own good.(More motor than the chassis can handle at this point in time)

Too much for me to handle properly too I must admit.

Big changes are coming soon. I’m happening to fall upon $9000 in the next couple of days :slight_smile:

(Slicks+Cage plz)

8

how is it to much to handle? car didnt even torque steer?

9

Well, for one, it’s hard to put all 440 ponies on the ground and not turning them into smoke+rubber. Then if you’ve ridden in the car you’d realize it’s not stable at all at high speed. The brakes are shit as of right now so it’s hard to keep the car stable as you slow down too.

Gotta take into account that 1. The last “fast” car I owned was a mid to high 12 second car, rear wheel drive, a fuck of a lot heavier(4 months ago) 2. I’ve only driven this particular car 7 times now. 3. I’ve never raced, brake boosted or dragged any car seriously before.(Besides cruise night and back when I thought my siqqq 224hp wrx was fast)

Mostly the lack stability, lack traction, and lack of experience make it a hard car to drive for me.

10

well the only way you will get better is experience :slight_smile:

are your rims/tires 15s or 16s?

11

15" and duhhh haha

12

Finally, something your going to keep :tup:

I will be looking forward to this thread, I’m sure have fun with it. Be safe!

13

Thanks for the motivation guys!

Big brake part mock up progress hampered by problems

Today the whole plan of action was to:

  1. Modify caliper brackets to fitDone

Modified bracket (In order to clear the hub portion of the steering knuckle, I had to trim some of the fat off the bracket. appx 1-2mm)
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-08-03115547.jpg
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-08-03115612.jpg

Caliper bracket fully bolted up:
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-08-03120039.jpg

  1. Mock up the big brake kit and see what the before and after comparison looked like from outside the wheel. Problem

So In order to show you guys how much bigger my new rotors were I was going to shoot a side by side comparison. Then that’s where I realized something wasn’t adding up. The original rotors were 9" in diameter, the new ones I ordered are 10.3". Therefore, the new rotors should be 1.3" bigger in diameter, A very noticeable difference.

However, upon inspection they looked almost identical(Although the new rotor was thicker). I broke out a ruler and found this:
http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/2009-08-03124439.jpg

These new rotors are 9.5" big. Stock CRX SI sized. No good, I ordered a new set of 10.3" rotors right off the bat today, hopefully all my parts will come together soon.

Doh.

Anyway, My 3mm spacers also came in. These are to space the rotor out from the hub so that way they clear the caliper bracket. I found they were much to big(Circumference, so I trimmed them using a hack saw and a pair of snips) I mocked the entire brake system(Using 9.5" rotors) since now I could actually see how they worked out.

As you can see, they look really good, the only problem is these rotors are not the right size. They spin real well and don’t rub on anything anymore.

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae134/alexsobo91/20090803135831.jpg

What do ya think?

14

Looks good

15

This will be sold before the snow comes lol

16

why did you go thru all the trouble of this brake upgrade?

You could have ran Da integra knuckles with da brakes and calipers, just upgraded to nice rotors and hawk pads, with stainless steel lines. its all you’ll ever need and more. plus it all bolts up just like stock

17

If by sold you mean getting a cage + paint job when it snows, then your correct. I have enough money to buy another car for the winter.

So no need to sell it. There’s nothing I could buy that could hope to touch what this car is capable of without doing a massive amount of work. This is a good project car because the expensive parts all done, I just need to finish it up and enjoy it.

What do you mean? This isn’t even hard what so ever.

The only thing that prevents this from bolting up is that the new 25T bracket on these Accord wagon calipers is bigger to accommodate the heavier caliper. Trim part of the bracket takes 3 minute on a bench grinder, and $7 in wheel spacers to move it from the hub.

I would have needed a MC and brake booster anyway, and probably another wheel spacer to clear either caliper.

18

is that an arnold palmer half n half those r the best

19

Hell yeah :slight_smile: makes working in the heat and sun a breeze

20

looking really good sobo