So it worked, this is both good and bad...

So the CRX worked, this is both good and bad. 

The good news is, i didn't have too turn hermit and force myself to redesign everything i'd just built. Furthermore i was happy that I finally had another car that I could take to the track drive 10/10th for a full 20 min session and not feel a tinge of guilt that's its days could be short lived... not that id ever want anything to happen but I realize stuff does and you gotta be realistic about what your out there in and willing to write off.

The bad news is, I know myself and I can NEVER stop tinkering.
     I guess it would be one thing if the car was a ho-hum experience and was just kinda eh. But on the other hand it was totally awesome. How it drove is exactly why i love this era honda, totally raw and larger than the sum of its parts.  Strangely the CRX makes up for its pea size appearance with a scrappy soul. Unlike the NSX it takes no subtle touch to drive it fast. With this car, its almost like its egging you on to muscle around the track. Rough around the edges in everyway but that's what gives it such a definable spirit.

Now that I knew it worked and I had set myself a bench mark couple sessions with the most barebones it will ever be I was anxious to get started in the pursuit of building, learning and refining.

I had know within the first few corners when I got on track that I'd need to so some driver/car interface changes. The seat felt too far back, the shiftier felt too far away and heel riser below the gas and brake was too high causing any bumps in the road to translate into a wahh-Wah-Wah on the gas pedal. It was sort of comical.  After the event had ended and I was driving home I was taking stock of mental notes and putting together a list of things id need to buy to take care of all the little fixes.


In the next week I replaced:
extended shift stock
shifter bushings
transmission bushings
Throttle cable
Added a second gas pedal return spring
Steering wheel spacer
pedal cover realignment

Things were starting too feel much closer to reach and within optimal placement. nice.

Once I finished that I decided I'd give the interior some help in the looks department and cover the naked doors. The car never came with door cards and after seeing what people were asking for a non thrashed matching pair I decided that id make my own.  I made some templates out of poster board and cut the shapes out of alumilite.

Once I had the shapes I drilled provisions and aluma-rivited them into place. 

Shitty picture, I know, but again I doing all of this stuff late into the night after work.

Another decision Id reached on that first track day (probably in the same first few turns) was how badly id need to replace Apexi suspension that was in the car. I mean, calling it 'unsophisticated' would be kind. 'Total trash' would be a more realistic assessment. For their replacement I decided no need too reinvent the wheel, but rather lean on the past 25 years of club racing experience. Everyone and their brother whos ever driven a EF or CRX chassis in any sort of real timed competition will, without question, recommend the Koni race valved shocks paired with GroundControl coilover sleeves.  These are custom valved short stroke shocks with upgraded internals that then have the shock body shortened and rewelded. Theres no 'clicks' to the compression adjustments but its a digressive vavled monotube design that you can get paired with any spring rates you desire. All for well under 2k. Yes please. The only problem is that there long bouts where they are back ordered, I cross my fingers and ordered mine, and they arrived only 5 days later.

 I went with 550lb front 450lb rear to accompany the 12/14kg swift springs that were already on the suspension I was about to pull off the car. I figure that between these rates and the box full of springs I have in the attic i'll be able to find ideal rates for whatever tire or track condition I decide to run.


Now that I had everything ready too go I swapped out the Apexi coilovers and went to clamp on the new set up... except now the new strut was too thin for the lower forks to clamp onto...WTFFF.

Previous owner strikes again. (surprise).. the suspension and forks, that were on the car weren't even for a CRX but rather a dc2 integra.. No wonder it handled like total shit. The good news is its one more thing i'd found that i'd be able to remedy. I would just need to find some DA integra or CRX front forks and it should fit the new Konis and fix the rubbing issue with the axle that I had first noticed a few months ago. A few calls later and Id tracked down the correct front forks that would fit the new Konis AND clear the axles with room to spare. Two birds, one stone.

Back at home with the new parts I test fitted and realized that the fit of the shafts into the forks were a much tighter fit than I expected they'd be. So much so I had to file down the hump of the welded bead left by when Koni shortened the strut.

Once they were into the forks you have to line up the diveted bolt provision and clamp everything down, this was obviously a huge pain in the ass but after slow and steady I got everything sitting pretty.

Here's the fronts fitted using the 12k swifts spring rate, I actually ended up using the  softer Eibach spring rates with the Nt01 tire compound. While I was there I noticed that the upper camber assembly was the older gen1 version made by Skunk2 and they have a reputation of slipping under hard loads.  I ordered the new easier adjustable gen2 version as a precaution, actually I went through and re ordered all the adjustable arms from Hardrace for piece of mind.

I also bought some 15x7 enkei RPF1 so I would have another set of 15" wheels to mount my second set of tires too. That way I could have a mounted R compound and a mounted street tire to run in different classes or drive the car in the rain if I needed too. 

Kyle helped me mount the tires on the wheels using a motorcycle tire machine. Uber sketchy too say the least, but we got it done.

 Unfortunately, and completely out of character for me I picked up the wheels without even checking of they would clear my BBK in the front... turns out they would not...... the barrel of the RPF1 is such that it humps up just before the mounting pad and the calipers on the car are so big that the wheel simply wont fit over the assembly.

 This was a bummer to say the least.  Fortunately the rears fit over the SI brakes fine so I simply swapped 2 tires form one set of wheels for 2 tires on the other. It is a quick fix and not ideal as now I have to run a mismatched set up (not a big deal) but now I can't rotate the tires front to rear at the track without unmounting and remounting them on the other set of wheels. Ill work something out concerning this sooner than later.

While I was there cleaning stuff up I decided I'd paint the roof black along with the runner trim. I'm a fan of the OEM panda paintjobs these cars came with. Also the paint that is on this car is decent but could use some help around the edges.

back to panda paint

I then spent the next few days wiring up headlight and taillight power from the provisions I had spec'd out. More thought went into these systems and I revised some of the circuit designs to go through fused relays an use the main battery as a capacitor. I also hardwired everything into the connectors and hid all the wires though the body panels. It was a pain in the ass to have to be wiring again but the initial planning i'd done made it so I didn't run into any surprises. Now everything works and I don't have to leave the track early to make sure im home by dark.


Now that everything was working, and I was slowly chasing gremlins out of the system (and finding new ones everyday) I decided that it car was in even better shape to go back to the track and come up with a whole new round of things id want to upgrade and refine.

The next trackday on the calendar happened to be round 1 of HFF challenge. The forecast called for rain but I was game to get out there and see how the car would stack up in its first real event. The rain held out for most of the day only sprinkling a few times towards the end.


I was happy with the decision to paint the trim black. the car looked the part and was dramatically easier and better to drive in every single way.

Things got very fun after the rain would pass though and I was on flying laps on r-comps

Driving the CRX hard is not dissimilar to driving a low HP RWD car, im learning its got some interesting quirks in and of itself and definitely not the 'eh' inducing FWD feeling i've had in the past.   In the end I ran 4 25 min session without a problem. Id do a few cool down laps in the middle just to bring the oil temps back down but the car happily revs and will keep going the whole session only requiring a top off of oil after the last session before the drive home.

The only real problem I had all day is when my exhaust fell off the hanger and was being dragged around the track when I was only my timed session for the HFF competition. I got redflagged and had to abort my fastest flying lap so I could come in and have Art ziptie it all back together.

All in all it was an awesome day. There was some stuff (as always) that I knew id be working on in the coming week but I managed to still win my class by over a 2 second margin. Not all the big dogs came out to play for the first round but it was good having committed to doing a series like this and taking the gold on the first event out. Even though there's work to be done out couldn't be happier on the drive home.

I had been toying with the idea of some sort of rear gurney flap for the crx even before I had got it on the track for the first time. The shape of the car is such that if you'd be able to hold the air on the rear trunk hatch you'd see the benefits of the pressure differentials without much drag at all. After getting a favor and a large price of carbon I decided I made something up myself and see if it would help.

measuring 9x, drill once

 Cutting carbon is one of my least fav thing too do, its extremely messy and the dust is so fine that it floats around in the air for hours after cutting.

 

Do not breath this stuff, it'll make you sick.

After getting everything cut straight I spent maybe 6 hours heat forming it into the shape id need. it was bowed in both directions down and forward and it took quite a lot of patience to get get all the gaps to fit correctly and not look extremely ghetto. 

I also have been baffleld why the hood that came on the car has the built in vent up where it is. There's really no benefit too it. I measured everything out and cut holes to vent the hot air from where it'll actually do some good.  

I added a spaced strip of carbon just in front of the holes to create a draw effect of the heat out of the hood.  I'm considering revising this with a jigsawed vent instead of holes but it already made a 10* difference in water temps on the track as is.

Next was a trip over to Nitradyne to revise the exhaust set up. It had been shifting quite a bit since it was built and being driven hard on track. Both Art and I had idea on how it could be improved.

Mid build of V2 exhaust. This time it went up and over the rear axle and we decided that removing the muffler that went across the back of the car would both be lighter and leave interesting options for some sort of diffuser in the future. It was now a straight shot out the back of the car with a much smaller and louder canister.

Much more clearance. Still the turn-down style but with out the pie cuts. Ill do something with the other tip in the future im sure, its too cool not too.

Blued tip, just because its awesome. 

Also ordered a lower chin spoiler that would act somewhat like an airdamn and help with the ground effect of the car. It mounted to the stock locations but I decided to reenforce it and bolt it directly to the bumper.

I also decided to build a front splitter. I had not planned to run one of these but after re juggling some points found I could just squeeze this in. Its frame mounted, of course, and can be put on and taken off relatively quickly for how sturdy it is. The more design and build these the better I get at it.

mid design, not all mounting locations affixed.

I built this version without much protrusion since I want to be able to have it balanced sans GT wing for now. Im sure ill end up with something bigger on the future. I had yet to build the fences and and side flaps but the fit with the chin spoiler was very nice.

After about two weeks I was invited to another track day at Streets of Willow running CCW. I felt I had done enough tweaking and this would be perfect opportunity since it was the same track & layout that I had run the two times before in the car. Id be able to tell if the changes I was making were for the better and if my times were dropping. I was already pretty happy with what the car had in it timewise on the two previous occasions, it was right where it should be for a crx at this track with these mods. I also knew that I was getting more comfortable in the car every time I drove a session and this day would be all about feeling out shifting and braking points. I expected to cut time here and there just by the nature of getting more comfortable pushing harder.

Weather called for high winds, which at Streets means that at about 1pm the track dusts over and your times peak. fine with me i was just getting seat time.

Starting to look more and more business

added some mini latch pins (above the lights) to help hold the hood down

Once again the car ran flawlessly. Overall grip felt better, Streets is a weird track though and doesn't really benefit much from aerodynamic aids. Whatever the case I was surprised when I kept dropping time session after session. In the first 3 laps Id easily bested the time that had won me first place in the HFF competition just a couple weeks prior.  Every session I was braking deeper and learning little tricks too keep the revs where I wanted them on corner exit. Id also started to experiment with lift off oversteer to get the car to rotate in mid speed corners.

by midday id already had broken into the low 27's

 By the last session I was consistently running in the :26 second range.

Last session of the day I did a 1:26:8, 1:26:7, 1:26:6, 1:26:5 it was like clockwork.

check out the video--

Happy happy happy at the end of the day. I even posed with the car for a picture.

I've got some more ideas that I want to try on the car. Still waiting for some back ordered parts to come in.  Im going to do a bushing refresh which should make a HUGE difference on rear end grip; whats in there now isn't doing anything at all.

Also have big plans for some aero, afterall, half of racing is looking good- and I want to build a CRX thats very unique stateside stay tuned for that and the CRX's maiden event out at Buttonwillow for HFF round2.  Big push coming up and hopefully a big update filled with more good news and info.

Cheers!