The CR-X

[Shakeel]

Awesome news Tom! Looking forward to seeing the painted shell.

What is this fancy track day in October you speak of?

[ChargeR]

Big smile when I saw this thread updated. Can't wait to see it painted!

Thanks Felix, feeling good to be working on it again.

cant wait for more updates prior to october

So good to see an update on this. Hope everything goes smoothly for your preparation for your fancy track day in October.

Thanks guys, not much time but I'll do my best.

Awesome news Tom! Looking forward to seeing the painted shell.

What is this fancy track day in October you speak of?

Just a track day, nothing too special. Maybe I'll see you there .

A couple more bits have turned up over the last couple of days. Firstly a Burns Stainless muffler, 3" in/out, 4.5" diameter, 17" long. My track exhaust setup will use just this muffler with a suitable length of pipe on the end to point it out the back of the car. Then for the street I'll have a different rear section with the biggest oval muffler Magnaflow make with a cat converter in there somewhere too.





I also need a harness for safety or something, and having never been happy with how my old 3" 4 point fit me in my DC5 I went with a 6 point with 2" lap straps which will hopefully fit across the hips a bit better. I looked at a number of brands but surprisingly in terms of features against cost the Takata was a good option, not just because it's JDM yo, it has 2 adjusters on the lap straps to position them better and proper latching mechanism for the 5/6th points unlike some other lower end harnesses that just loop over the shoulder straps.

[ChargeR]

I've been finishing up my design for the traction bar I'm going to attempt to fabricate. After realising the standard front cross-member in the EF8 is different to the one in the Civic, I've made a couple of changes. Some of features that are different to the typical aftermarket part are:

- Non-china rod ends, I'll be using Aurora high performance 5/8" parts
- Caster is adjustable on car
- Correctly locates the front lower control arm, by using the standard radius rod cut down with a 5/8" thread cut into it. Heaps of the aftermarket junk uses a rod end at both ends of the radius rod, making the lower control arm free to rotate and inviting janky binding.
- No front mount provision since I won't need it with the K24
- Should fit my car, since the aftermarket options are all for a D series ED or a DA Integra they won't fit my car without modification



Aiming to order materials and get parts laser cut for it by the end of the week. Over the weekend I made a rough jig to help locate the pick up points of the standard crossmember, and I can use it to assemble the new bar while I weld it.



Some other parts turned up from Summit too, will post some pictures tomorrow.

[felixR]

Aiming to order materials and get parts laser cut for it by the end of the week. Over the weekend I made a rough jig to help locate the pick up points of the standard crossmember, and I can use it to assemble the new bar while I weld it.

Mass production time

[DaRKNT]

Loving the Solidworks (?) drawing! Looks great Tom!

[ChargeR]

Mass production time

Had a couple of guys interested in the traction bar, so if it turns out well maybe I'll make a couple more . It will have to be pretty awesome for me to consider selling it though, as I don't really want to sell junk. Enough companies doing that as it is.

Loving the Solidworks (?) drawing! Looks great Tom!

Thanks boss! Yep using Solidworks, it's simple enough even for me haha.

The massive Magnaflow muffler I ordered turned up, and some other fittings and clamps from Summit, and as expected it's huge. Part number is: 12588 5x11" oval, 22" long, 3" in, 2.5" outlets. Some guy on the internet says this thing will fit under the back of a CR-X, we'll see. This is part of my hopes to get the car to pass a noise test (for engineering purposes, so it will have to be less than 90dB(A) at 5,100RPM) with a full 3" exhaust.





*Burns muffler included for scale.


Will be sending off my Kpro (pilfered from the DC5) to be updated to V4 today, the new update comes with cool features like being able to connect with bluetooth to a PC or phone to monitor stuff and data log, and support for flex fuel sensors.

[ChargeR]

A little more progress today, firstly finished off pulling apart the rear trailing arms and some other parts ready to be stripped and powdercoated. I also added an extra hole to my PCI seat brackets to get the seat a bit lower, so I'll get them re-done in black. The bottom of my seat should be basically as low as it can go without cutting out the original seat mounts in the shell now.

Here's the pile I've got at the moment:



Then I moved on to assembling my coilovers. As mentioned a few pages back I'm using Koni Race shocks with GC coilover sleeves, with 1000lb/in springs at the front, and 900lb/in at the rear (Thanks to Mugsee for sourcing the rear shocks for me). Also fitting the Eibach helper springs and thrust bearings, and Pro Parts USA spherical upper mounts at the front with Koni upper spring seats. I fitted the helper springs at the bottom, as if I put them at the top the coupler would interfere with the upper spring mount.

Unfortunately I seem have misplaced the rear upper shock mounts so I'll pick up a pair at a wrecker tomorrow.







After doing that I fitted up the RBC intake manifold to the motor, with the throttle body adapter to suit a DC5 TB. Will get the rest of the accessories fitted up and bolt on the gearbox this week so it's all ready to go when I get the car back.



Will hopefully get the car back from paint within the next week or two so I can start assembly.

[ChargeR]

Small update: headed to Jollys on Sunday and picked up a pair of rear shock top mounts so I can finish off assembling my suspension. Also found this power steering pump from an '01 Astra for the princely sum of $53. Better than spending hundreds on a 20 year old pump out of an MR2, thanks to Grant (itsu-san) for the recommendation. All I should need to do is connect those 4 wires to appropriate sources of voltage or earth, get some hoses made up and then bam, power steering.



Also collected some parts from the anodizer today. I'm not a big fan of the shiny billet aluminium everywhere look, so I decided to tone it down a bit with satin black. Parts I had done are: ASR rear subframe brace, engine mounts, shifter mounting plate, boss kit and a steering spacer.



Tonight I partially stripped down the steering rack from the EF8. I'll fit some new inner rack ends and boots and then fit a set of the tie rod ends that Grant and I are developing to correct the bump steer at my ride height, which can be seen here: LINK



I also started mocking up my hydraulic clutch conversion so I can test fit it in the car with the dash and steering column in place. Will hopefully make some more progress on that on Friday.

[ievaq8]

keep it up man...

[ChargeR]

keep it up man...

Thanks! Long way to go, and not much time.

Spent a bit more time in the workshop last night, firstly I did a quick comparison of a few different front knuckles that I've collected. On the left is BA4 Prelude, middle is EF8 CR-X and right is DA9 Integra. All the calipers are the same, and I believe the hubs and wheel bearings are the same too despite some part number variances, but will press them apart to confirm and I'll be keeping the hubs as spares as they are now discontinued by Honda.



I compared them to see if either knuckle presented a better alternative for future use, but my rough measurements suggest that the DA knuckle is too tall and wouldn't do anything good for bump steer or the camber curve, and the SAI of the Prelude knuckle isn't right for an EF and would result in excess positive camber. EF8 is best it appears.

Then I started on my hydraulic clutch conversion by cutting off the end of the standard pedal. After measuring the pedal in my DC5R I realised that the pedal ratio is approx. 7:1 whereas the standard EF pedal ratio is nearly half that with way more travel than the roughly 25mm that a DC5/EP3 master has, so unless I tweaked it I'd end up with twice as much pedal effort, which will only get worse if I go to a clutch with more clamping pressure later.



So I made a template from cardboard and then welded a new end on the pedal (excuse the crappy welds), and drilled a new hole for the clutch master cylinder clevis to give approximately 6:1 ratio. Here it is mocked up on the pedal assembly, now I just need to make up a mounting plate for the master cylinder, and add pedal stops at both ends of the pedal travel.



Parts are still turning up. Firstly my Kpro arrived up back from Hondata with fresh V4 update, not bad service since I only posted it 9 days ago. Came in a shiny new box with a new USB cable too.



Also received a whole pile of OEM parts including front wheel bearings, rear hubs and bearings, ball joints, quarter window seals, door lower glass seal, heaps of clips and plugs, tail light gaskets, bumper mounts (though sadly the left rear is discontinued, so I only have 3) and a windscreen moulding.



Pair of splitter brackets from SPMS arrived also, I'll be making my own front air dam rather than using the one from SPMS because it's ugly and who wants an ugly track car.



Progress is happening at the paint shop, will hopefully have an update on that soon.

[M@lew]

Woo paint almost done!

[ChargeR]

I made a little more progress last night, got my clutch conversion plate cut out and partially welded to the pedal assembly. Cut it out of cardboard first then transferred it to some 3mm mild steel and mocked it up with the modified pedal:



To finish it off I just need to add an adjustable pedal stop (as it is the amount of travel will bottom out the master cylinder, so I'd like to limit the travel a bit) and give it a coat of paint or powdercoat. It should be plenty stiff enough, and if the pedal ratio isn't quite right I'll just cut up another pedal.



Also the first of a couple of item from my good friend Mr. Streeter turned up, a J's Racing front lip:



Will drop it off at the paint shop this week, and take some photos of the car as it sits then.

[felixR]

That is a nice lip.

[Toddxxx]

damn! i just read this thread start to finish for the first time.
thoroughly enjoyed it and cant believe i didnt look earlier.

hoping to see you in october

[ChargeR]

That is a nice lip.

It is indeed boss! Actually surprised that it has quite good finish, given my experience with J's Racing parts in the past. I'm thinking that Chargespeed makes the lip anyway.

damn! i just read this thread start to finish for the first time.
thoroughly enjoyed it and cant believe i didnt look earlier.

hoping to see you in october

Thanks for reading. It was pretty boring for a while there, but stuff is happening now! See you in October, I actually just got offered a garage which will be a nice upgrade from the car ports down the back at SMSP, so come past and say hello.