[nihkon]

For anyone that's taken out an EF dash, you know that all the metal bits under there are covered in surface rust. Mine was no different. If you look at some of the photos up above, you'll see that the steering column support brace was covered in it's share of rust. After unbolting it, I hit it with a wire wheel brush, then gave it a quick coat of satin black. Much better!

 

[nihkon]

This is how my CRX looked for about 90% of 2020:

 

[dmlemus]

Happy New Year Jason! Car is looking good primo. b

 

[nihkon]

Thanks Dani!
It looks ok when it's in the Garage by itself. But it won't look nearly as good when we finally get yours and mine next to eachother again! lol

 

[nihkon]

Here are my billet aluminum hood hinges that I ordered from 310. I think they're distributed through Hush Performance now.

They came in 2 variants, depending on if you have an oem hood or a carbon fiber/fiberglass hood. I opted for the oem hood version. But I think they do offer the dampers separately for if/when I ever get my hands on a fiberglass hood that I like.

Anyway, here are a couple photos:

Here you'll notice a few things. For one, the sealant around the oem hinge needs to be scraped away to allow for a clean, flat surface for the billet hinges. I haven't re-sprayed that area yet, but I will.
If you have a keen eye, you'll also notice that the rear-most fender bolt had to be changed out to something much shorter. With the hood in the closed position, the damper rests right above that bolt. Luckily I had some of these "wafer-thin" bolts laying around. With a bolt head any larger, the damper would hit it and cause the hood to not close properly. This was the weakest part of the design for sure.

Beyond that, they look great, work great, and allow the hood to open slightly more than the oem prop does.

 

[nihkon]

At some point during this build, I got bored with looking at all of the tired old hardware throughout the engine bay. So a few mouse clicks later, and I had a boat-load of shiny new bolts from Downstar.

I don't personally care for the polka-dot look of having colored washers all over the engine. So I opted for their raw aluminum color. This initial batch covered most of the visible bolts in the engine bay. Everything from transmission housing bolts, to starter, all the fender and radiator support, even all the bolts on the Skunk2 intake manifold. I also picked up a bunch of 6mm bolts for other random places here and there.

For as comprehensive as their kits are, you're always going to run into a special nut/bolt that they don't carry. In my case, the Ground Control top hats were one of those places. The upper shock mount nuts in the Downstar kit are M10x1.25, but the thread pitch on the studs of the Ground Control top hats is M10x1.5. It took a bit of searching around to find a nut that was not only that thread pitch, but that also had a flange that was the correct diameter to fit inside the Downstar beauty washer. I ended up finding an eBay vendor in the UK that had titanium nuts in the specs I needed. I wish I didn't have to pay for the upcharge for a set of titanium nuts, but it is what it is.

And here they are installed. Don't look too closely at the paint. It's one of those things about my CRX that bugs me the most, yet it's also the thing I have the least desire to go through the headaches of dealing with.

Next up on the list of things I had to source elsewhere was aftermarket hardware for the ECU cover. Sure, I get it, what's wrong with the oem screws that hold down the cover? Well, I changed the hardware just about every other place on the car, why stop now? lol Since Downstar didn't offer these, I ended up finding some through a company called Z Spec Design. Of course, a couple months after I purchased these, Downstar started offering them. So, of course, I picked up a set from them. Here are a couple pics of the Z Spec bolts though:

And here are a couple photos of what some of the Downstar hardware looks like in the engine bay.
The "wafer-thin" bolts you see on the VTEC solenoid and on the coil plug plate are from a different vendor, and then of course the Skunk2 low profile hardware on the valve cover that I've had on there for like 10 years now.

 

[synergy10]

b :hail: :applaud: :notworthy: :love2:

 

[nihkon]

I hadn't planned to replace my shifter at any point soon, but I came across a deal on a Hybrid Racing shifter, and I jumped on it. I had been running a Skunk2 dual-bend shifter for probably 10 years, and it's been just fine. But the HR shifter is just so damn cool! lol

Since I was going to be taking things apart to install the shifter, I figured it was a good time to replace the 10 year old Energy Suspension poly shifter bushings. I opted for the Hybrid Racing solid shifter bushings.

The only modification that was needed was to drill a 3rd hole in the linkage to mount the shifter base.

And here it is, installed...mated up to my 10 year old Skunk2 weighted shift knob.

Since my CRX is still stuck in the Garage, I haven't had a chance to drive it around and experience the new shifter. But with just sitting in the car and shifting through the gears, it does feel nice! And the range of adjustment is just phenomenal. The one drawback that I've come across is that I haven't found a good way to retain the shift boot. I'm going to have to get creative with that. Until then, you can see through the large rectangular opening in the center console.

 

[nihkon]

Here are a few random detail shots.

Close-up of some of the hardware and wiring on the transmission side of the engine bay:

More of the transmission and a bit of the custom radiator hoses:

The PLM Toda-rep header, and the ARP hardware. These ARP exhaust manifold studs have been around the block! They were originally on my old D16a6 build, then I transferred them onto my D15b VTEC that I ran for a while. Then they got stored away for a whole bunch of years while I was still running the stock exhaust manifold on the ITR engine. Now they get a chance to shine again!

 

[nihkon]

My brother came over to lend his expertise and artistry with helping me run the front end portion of the new chassis harness. All the wiring was held in place using adel clamps. We utilized factory threaded holes where we could. Where there weren't any, we inserted nut-certs. I think it turned out pretty decent!

I also sanded down and painted the factory horns to match the re-painted bumper brackets. While we were in there, we cut down and rounded the ends of the long brackets that came with the Rywire radiator. Much cleaner after that.

And you can see that my addiction to Downstar hardware ran rampant here, even when you won't be able to see any of this with the bumper installed. It makes for good photos though! lol

We even installed nut-certs along the inside of the wheel well to fasten the adel clamps to secure the harness. The Rywire chassis harness didn't include it, so we added a break-out harness for the sidemarkers.

 

[nihkon]

And here's an overall shot of what the engine bay was looking like at this point in the build:

 

[nihkon]

Since I was going to have to get the engine tuned due to all the new bits, I figured it would be good to install a set of adjustable cam gears. So I picked up a set of Toda cam gears.

Since the timing belt had to come off for this job, I figured it was a good time to do some maintenance, and replace the belt and the other goodies around it. Big thanks to my brother for coming over to lend me a hand with the timing belt/cam gear installation!

Since the cam gears will need to be accessed during the tuning process, I tossed on an old beat up valve cover that has the end cut off. I don't plan to keep it open after that, so my other valve cover will go back on after tuning...keeping the timing belt area all sealed up.

And here's an overall engine bay shot at this point in the build. This is pretty much it's current condition as of today:

 

[nihkon]

Since the electronics / wiring was pretty much done, it was time to finally get the interior re-installed. Man it felt good to see the interior mostly complete again, after being torn apart for the better part of a year!

I installed a usb port in the cigarette lighter hole. It's not a charging port, but more of an extension/adapter port. It allows me to access the Hondata and PDM without having to get up under the dash. I simply plug my usb cables from the laptop into this port, and then I have access to Hondata SManager and the PDM software.

 

[nihkon]

Here's what the CRX was looking like at this point in the build.

If any of you are familiar with JustDrive (member: "sloshed" here at CRX Community), you'll know that he produces some nice CRX car covers. He sent me a prototype so that we can work out the kinks to produce a version of his CRX cover that accommodates CRX's with GT-style rear wings. Here's my CRX with the prototype cover:

 

[nihkon]

For Black Friday, I ended up picking up a new set of lug nuts. I had always run either Rays or Wedsport aluminum lug nuts for years and years. But the anodizing always ends up fading after a while, and they end up looking pretty bad. The other thing with aluminum lug nuts is that they would tend to seize up a little bit on the long ARP extended studs, especially when they're hot, making an awful screeching sound as I thread them on/off.

Speaking of lug nuts getting hot... a bunch of years ago at one of my first track days, I was checking the torque on the lug nuts between sessions. That was my introduction to how hot lug nuts can really get when pushing your car to the limits. The aluminum lug nuts didn't care much for all that heat, and they didn't go on/off too easily in that state. So I grabbed a set of cheap steel lug nuts that I had laying around...and I've been using those ever since. After a bunch of years of use, the finish was chipping and they were looking pretty sad. They've needed to be replaced for a long time now! lol

I just wanted something fairly simple though. I found these Muteki HR38's, and they seemed to be the right fit for me. A simple design, with just a splash of color. They were slightly longer than the typical short lug nuts, but not as long as the extended length lug nuts that I've run in the past. With the 10mm spacers that I run in the front, these lug nuts were pretty much the perfect length. Since I'm running 25mm spacers in the rear, the lug nuts ended up being slightly long. Still much cleaner looking that what I had been running though.

 

[nihkon]

Well, that pretty much gets you caught up with what's been going on over the past year and a half.

At this point, the CRX runs, but it's not quite ready for prime time yet. I had run into an issue with the radiator fans, where Fan1 would kick on like it should, but Fan2 would turn on, then immediately turn off. After it cycled like that for 3 times, it would trip the virtual fuse in the PDM and give me an error. Fan1 was pulling about 3-4 amps, but Fan2 was pulling close to 30amps! No wonder it was tripping the fuse! After a bunch of diagnosis, it turned out that the fan was DOA. So I ordered a new Deraile fan to replace it, and it's all good now. I still need to finish the wiring on that fan though, and get it all done up with the Raychem heatshrink and whatnot to make it match what I had previously done with the fans. I swear that fan issue set me back like 3 months! lol (Granted, that's with only putting in an hour or so every 3rd weekend.)

Once the fan wiring is complete, I just need to wrap up some other wiring projects. The Rywire chassis harness didn't have provisions for the 3rd brake light. So I need to add that myself. Also on that list is to add wiring for the power windows. After that, I can schedule a tune, and finally get this thing back out on the streets!

 

[daveb91]

Good work.

 

[nihkon]

Thanks dude. b

 

[sicknick]

b

 

[ExospeedAMcrx]

wow man. Glad to see you're still going at it with the CRX. Its been a long time since I got on these forums. Love the updates.