Getting it dialed

         Whelp, no posting for a while but only because i've been so busy working a real job and wrenching on the CRX. I meant to put something together after the last event but between bigboy work and car work i never found the time, and when I do find time id much rather be doing than writing about doing.  This is exceptionally annoying because I actually forced myself to sit down recently- and after 3 hours of organizing pictures and typing *POOF* it disappeared. fuck.

  Here I am again, still nothing has slowed down but I'm making the time because i'm starting to forget the specifics and small details that i'd like to have logged here. Remember, when I started this it was more for me than anyone else. Because I'm always tinkering and changing I forget the specifics of why I changed something in the first-place. It's a "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" type thing but the bonus, it seems, is that people are also enjoying reading it.

Ill try my best to go chronologically (again)  from where I left off..


      After the event at Streets I last posted I was happy but also mentioned that there was still some immediate work too be done. For one, I realized that the rear pivot bushings that the PO installed were literally flopping around in their hole. They were the billet BLOX type bushing that need to be held in by counter sunk screws in the rear trailing arm, anyway, the countersunk screws were LONG gone but the PO had drilled yet another hole in the trailing arm and was holding the bushings in with piece of scrap metal bolted flat against the bushing too keep it from walking its way out. Problem is, the bushing has so much play that it had worn itself round on the edges and had about a 1/16 of movement fore and aft and maybe about 25* of rotation before it blinded enough to give any resistance at all. The toe link, rear shock and the upper camber adjuster were the only things keeping it somewhat centered and not falling off, to make matters worse they were still the stock oem rubber bushings holding on for dear life. Needless to say this was not and optimum set up too let the shocks and springs do what they were designed for. Instead all of the bumps and cornering G's energy flow through the path of least resistance- which in this case is worn out rubber and sloppy fitted parts. The same types of problems were apparent on the front ball joints and inner tie rods. After looking around and bugging the shit out of Katman with part numbers I was able to locate some Hardrace components that would show up in time for rd.2 of HFFchallenge. I had a week and a half to order and get everything on the car.  I didn't get the solid bushings because i really had too watch my points as not too get classed out of the Mod points total in HFF challenge. Hardrace makes the next best thing which is rubber-rubber (not poly) and it's 120%-150% times stiffer than the OEM rubber and comes with adjustability. I've had Hardrace components on a few cars and have always been happy with the quality, easy choice.

Toe link from a Del Sol fits the CRX

Wasn't sure if I had DC2 or SI trailing arms so I bought both and returned the one that didn't fit. turns out I have SI rear trailing arms, good to know.  

Got rid if the Ebay camber adjusters from the PO and also replaced them with Hardrace arms


 While I was there I swapped to the latest version of the Skunk 2 front camber arms. They have the adjustment nuts on the bottom and come with fresh ball joints for the upright. The old arms are prone to slipping, with fresh rubber it would only be a matter of time before they would ruin a track day so I made a preemptive fix and swapped them over while the car was up in the air.

Also done but not pictured were the front inner and outer tie rod ends

After looking at pictures of J's racing CRX I decided that I wanted to do something to 'spice" up the front 1/4 of the car. Honestly I've never been a big fan of the CRX body style. Its got an iconic shape, sure, but too me it was just always 'eh'. You'd see one in a Vons parking lot and never look twice. I figure I could start to do some small things that wouldn't cost any points to bump me out of Mod class but would help me live with my decision to actually own a CRX. 

After looking at the car a while i figured if there were any improvements too be made that didn't have a points penalty attached it would be at the front fender. Venting the air that gets trapped inside the wheel well would help with both brake cooling and front end lift. I built a smooth vent that riveted flat too chassis and built a stand off flap with about an inch of separation i then bent the lower flap back.The hope is this would create some low pressure air pocket that would effectively help too suck the air out of the wells. After that I used vibration dampened standoffs to affix the fender which i pulled out another inch to give me a bit more wheel and tire clearance and allow for more air to escape in front of the door. I also spaced the rear of the hood up to help draw some of the hot air out of the bay. That and it just looks cool.

On track previously I'd noticed my oil temps climbing and plateau at around 137f, which is fine really, but by simply building a surround I could increase the cooling capacity of the exchanger. You notice the spill ledge at the bottom of the surround.  Its purpose is too meet up with the edge of the bumper when installed, this is so there is no place for the air to roll off, it has to cram itself through the matrix of the cooler if it wants to escape. The whole thing is sealed around the cooler with closed cell foam. 

With the bumper installed.

      Another thing that had too be fixed was the header that came on the car, its a nice piece but a CRX with a b18 already has ground clearance issues... add a over-under 4/2/1 piping layout and you find that the header is the lowest part of the car. This makes loading the car onto trailers hard, jumping apexes dicey and  dropping 2 wheels at streets of willow potentially disastrous. Last thing i want is to crack head studs and tear up the bottom of the car if that were to happen, so it had to go. Already the header showed pretty significant battle damage.

I replaced it with a Spoon rep, everything I read was saying that the quality was decent and it had the most clearance with my chassis and motor combo. I looked around for a Real Spoon header and couldn't find one that would get here in time, since the price was low I jumped on the rep so we'd be able to check fitment and  figure out how much the exhaust would need to be modified.  The different collector design meant the header length was different and therefore the exhaust needed to be extended. Also, with the new angle it needed to be swung out of the way of the Fastlane shifter lower poviot arm that id installed previously and sits about 4 inches lower than stock. I don't know why I didn't get a picture of this but Art at Nitradyne threw in some nice pie cuts so everything played nice.

new header clearance is level with the oil pan.

Also now that i had the extended chin spoiler on the car I'd realized that the tow hooks on the Innovative front radius bar would be behind the bumper and impossible to use. Tow point are a very very good idea so after thinking around we settled for a spot on the front crash support and made up a piece out of steel to weld into place.

purdy rainbow

with the bumper notched and installed

view 2

Meanwhile my ae86 modern art instillation sits idley by

"no one ever pays attention too me anymore"

I'm sure there were other little things I did but everything gets vague for me around here, the few days before an event are always hectic and thing kind of blend into one another...

 For tires I was going to use my ooollllddd ass Nt01's that i had come on the car (date stamp of 2006) with a set of 15x8 front and 15x7 rear wheels.  Since this would be the first day running ButtonWillow cw13 (the track of which all SoCal cars are measured by) i was anxious too see how if felt, especially being so used to the NSX here. Up too this point I had only driven this car on the slower speed Streets Of Willow and was curious how it would feel to have such a short wheelbase on a higher speed circuit where stability is a factor in laptimes.

Sure enough first session, first lap warm up, on a cold track some IDIOT  in a Cadillac decides to brake going through the chicane before Sunset, this unloads his rear tires and he proceeds to drop two wheels off track. At this point I think hes going to just straight shot off into the dirt; but he decides that he'll try and correct and get back on track. I have seen this a million times and 999999 of them the guy spins back onto the racing line and almost (or does) get T-boned. While all this is happening i'm trying to decide if I am going to be the T-bone(er?)  or if I can even take evasive action to not hit him.  By now i'm going over 100 mph and turning into the last chicaine tires are still cold and this moment of hesitation by me not being on the gas just SNAPS my rear end around. I do my best to correct but touch the dirt and It loops sideways over a service road and flatspot the holy hell out of my new tires. Sweeeeeett. 

I come in to the hot pits get a walk-around out by the workers and get sent back out. On my outlap everything feels weird. My alignment no doubt fucked, brakes felt squashy and i have a crazy vibration in the front from both the splitter mounts being broken and flopping around, the dollar bill sized blistered flat-spots on the front tires. I felt it out going up on-ramp but pulled off the racing line and limped it back to the garage to examine everything more closely. After determining the extent of the damage, tires done, splitter toast, brakes full of sand I got to work trying to salvage something out of the day. Thankfully Katman had brought a spare pair of 15x8 gramlites with RA'1's to use after he corded the set of tires that were on his car. He was nice enough to let me use the pair for the next session so I could at least put a time in the books for the HFF competition. 

Grid up, go out. 

With the new wheels and tires strapped on I did 4 laps before my brakes completely failed going into bus stop. I managed not to toss it too far off track and limp back around to the garage with no brake pressure. Double fuck. On the slow drive back around I noticed that i had ran a time of 2:03.8 on one of the only 3 flying laps id managed to do.  I had my fingers crossed that if i had to call it quits for the day that it would still be good enough for some solid points in the competition.  

These pics were taken session 2, filthy and no splitter.  : /

After I came back in and bled the brakes, said Katman needed his wheels back. I decided to check out the tracks tire shop or maybe a used set of take offs or a pair of new ones. They didn't have any replacement Nt01's but they did have some 225/50/15 Toyo RR's. After  talking to a few people and reading online review on my phone I decided to drop the cash and get a set fitted so I could at least get some seat time. I couldn't use them for competition but it'd be cool to have a set to play around with for non-comp days in the future.

  For the next session the car felt awesome, Grip was obviously hugely better than my clapped set of Nt01's i had on the car (even before the flat spots) within my first couple laps I dropped my times all the way down to 2:00:224, just shy of the elusive "sub 2" mark. Video here:

     I was glad to be getting seat time and I was able to settle into the car a little bit, finally. Even with shooting in the dark on tire pressures and having forgot to stiffen the dampers to compensate for the new tire compound, I was pretty excited with how the car was doing. I did find there was a very vague feeling mid corner and under hard braking that i'd want too look into. Just as I was starting to get brave after a few laps  I got a big puff of white smoke out of the driverside wheel well when coming over Phil Hill. Then the acrid smell of burning axle grease. I pulled off track and the steering was pulling to the left on decel; I knew id blown an axle and since I'd not brought spares that was the end of my day.

That next session my buddy Nate blew his motor, double bummer,  in order for us to get his car home without a call to AAA he swapped his axle onto my car so mine could be driven home and his could use the trailer. Dems the breaks for both us, but we pulled together and no man was left behind.

In the end of the day my time from the second session of 2:03.8 that I had run with fading brakes, no splitter and borrowed tires was still good enough for the HFF mod class win by about half a second.

These pics were taken on the front straight just after the awards ceremony as we were literally getting kicked out of the track, you can see I'd already swapped wheels from yet another friends car so I didn't have to drive home on the brand new Toyo RR's

I've gotta say my car is BY FAR the ugliest car in the picture, no idea why I was put in front.

Next update is coming real soon- from here till now is a BIG step forward

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!