Joined
·
1,650 Posts
Well, I thought it best to put something down on paper (so to speak) and start a build thread. As some of you may recall, I joined the forums not too long ago in the hope that I could find a specific year and color combination of CRX. That was a 1990 Y-49 Si… I chose the 90 because I thought it would be a better fit for me down the road for what I wanted to do with the car. Rear disc brakes are a nice addition along with the ability to swap in the EDM cluster gauges so that I have a tach that goes up to 9k rpm.
I used to have a set of EFs in the mid-90s and we owned a Y49 CRX up until February 2005 when I sold it for a MINI Cooper S. (space issues) I think I was probably depressed for some time after selling that CRX… I don't have to go into why as it seems obvious on this forum.
So after reading up on this forum and a few others to regain some knowledge I lost over the years, I decided to cast a net and see if anything came up. This in the form of a signature stating that I was looking for a '90 Y-49 Si… Being skeptical in nature, I did not believe I had a shot in **** in finding a decent chassis to start with…
Then one evening, I received a Private Message via these forums and decided to open it up! Low and behold it was Dave asking if I would be interested in his '90 Y49 Si because he was thinking about selling his. After many PM exchanges, I learned about his car in great detail and then the pictures came in… Very impressive to say the least… Way above what I was shooting for to be honest.
Long story short, my buddy Ryan and I flew up to Northern California to meet Dave and purchase his Y49 CRX on a Saturday morning and drove the car back to Phoenix, AZ. It makes one a little nervous driving an unknown car 85mph on a freeway for 10 hours and 730 miles. But it was quite obvious Dave took care of the car and he had receipts on the car going back to when it was originally purchased. Crazy… In the end, we made the trip back to Phoenix without a single hitch and Mango Bango performed admirably!
You can read up on his post regarding the sale of Mango Bango to me here.
Toward the last couple of miles on the trip, the linkage appeared to go south a bit but we were able to limp him home leaving it in 5th most of the way.
Yesterday, I decided to look under the car to see what was going on. Justin is nice enough to sell me a new linkage so that is on the way as well. But I was able to see what was wrong with the car and fixed him to the point where I could take the car in to get it emission tested and registered in Arizona.
I'm digging the new 2.5t floor jack I bought from Harbor Freight… mighty cool…
![]()
![]()
I found this… turns out the nut on the main shifter bolt fell off on the trip back which contributed to the sloppy shifter… $2 worth of nuts and washers from Ace Hardware tightened that up for now.
![]()
The motor has 229k on it and appears to be growing tired… It lived a good life… I gave him an oil change, but I am on a limited timeframe with the A6. It's our 3rd Car now so he will not see too much action which should buy us some time.
But before the motor comes in, I want to upgrade the brakes with rotors, pads, SS lines. Dave had the car setup with Ground Controls and Illuminas which are a great setup for the CRX. So the only items I want to add to the suspension is possibly a rear swaybar and a front/rear camber kit. Of which, Dave was gracious enough to give me the rear camber kit and Neuspeed strut bar he had on him. Then, after that, I have some 16 inch wheels in mind with 205/45 tires to assist with the handling and braking duties.
I am a big believer of getting out of trouble quicker than I got into it. On my last build ('90 HB Si), I threw the motor in first and that motor had its way with the car.
So thanks for the long read… I promised the wife I would not do too much with the car from now until March-April since we thought it would take much much longer than it did to find a car. So I plan to just enjoy him when I can in this trim until that timeframe.
I used to have a set of EFs in the mid-90s and we owned a Y49 CRX up until February 2005 when I sold it for a MINI Cooper S. (space issues) I think I was probably depressed for some time after selling that CRX… I don't have to go into why as it seems obvious on this forum.
So after reading up on this forum and a few others to regain some knowledge I lost over the years, I decided to cast a net and see if anything came up. This in the form of a signature stating that I was looking for a '90 Y-49 Si… Being skeptical in nature, I did not believe I had a shot in **** in finding a decent chassis to start with…
Then one evening, I received a Private Message via these forums and decided to open it up! Low and behold it was Dave asking if I would be interested in his '90 Y49 Si because he was thinking about selling his. After many PM exchanges, I learned about his car in great detail and then the pictures came in… Very impressive to say the least… Way above what I was shooting for to be honest.
Long story short, my buddy Ryan and I flew up to Northern California to meet Dave and purchase his Y49 CRX on a Saturday morning and drove the car back to Phoenix, AZ. It makes one a little nervous driving an unknown car 85mph on a freeway for 10 hours and 730 miles. But it was quite obvious Dave took care of the car and he had receipts on the car going back to when it was originally purchased. Crazy… In the end, we made the trip back to Phoenix without a single hitch and Mango Bango performed admirably!
You can read up on his post regarding the sale of Mango Bango to me here.
Toward the last couple of miles on the trip, the linkage appeared to go south a bit but we were able to limp him home leaving it in 5th most of the way.
Yesterday, I decided to look under the car to see what was going on. Justin is nice enough to sell me a new linkage so that is on the way as well. But I was able to see what was wrong with the car and fixed him to the point where I could take the car in to get it emission tested and registered in Arizona.
I'm digging the new 2.5t floor jack I bought from Harbor Freight… mighty cool…
I found this… turns out the nut on the main shifter bolt fell off on the trip back which contributed to the sloppy shifter… $2 worth of nuts and washers from Ace Hardware tightened that up for now.
The motor has 229k on it and appears to be growing tired… It lived a good life… I gave him an oil change, but I am on a limited timeframe with the A6. It's our 3rd Car now so he will not see too much action which should buy us some time.
But before the motor comes in, I want to upgrade the brakes with rotors, pads, SS lines. Dave had the car setup with Ground Controls and Illuminas which are a great setup for the CRX. So the only items I want to add to the suspension is possibly a rear swaybar and a front/rear camber kit. Of which, Dave was gracious enough to give me the rear camber kit and Neuspeed strut bar he had on him. Then, after that, I have some 16 inch wheels in mind with 205/45 tires to assist with the handling and braking duties.
I am a big believer of getting out of trouble quicker than I got into it. On my last build ('90 HB Si), I threw the motor in first and that motor had its way with the car.
So thanks for the long read… I promised the wife I would not do too much with the car from now until March-April since we thought it would take much much longer than it did to find a car. So I plan to just enjoy him when I can in this trim until that timeframe.
