Jamie's Honda CRX race car

[Jamie CRX]

Thought it was about time I posted some specs up for my car - I've gone on about it enough :D
So, for anyone that's interested, bearing in mind it's a) Japanese and b) FWD...

We bought the car in 2006, it was built for the CRX Challenge and Super Coupe Cup, both of which I am led to believe it won. I use the car for DMN and BARC, and my aged father campaigns it (slowly) in hillclimbs and sprints. The car is well used, but it was stupid cheap and up until we messed with the engine was uber-reliable.

Did you know the B16 engine was the first production engine to make 100hp/ litre?

The VTEC engine is very solid - NASP they will make 215hp on standard internals, and free rev to 9000. Ours is set to 8800rpm, which is good enough :)

Shell & Panels
1988 16v CRX Mk2, prepared by Barwell Motorsport. Was originally fitted with a D16 DOHC 1588cc engine making around 130hp, for the 1989 CRX Challenge.
Fully seam welded
Turrets strengthened and gussetted
Engine mounts removed and rewelded (20mm back)
Challenge spec cage, welded and bolted. Triangulated onto front suspension, stiffened at B posts
Door inner skins removed
Bonnet webbing removed
Rear hatch stripped, upper and lower glass replaced with Lexan
Rear side windows Lexan
250mm deep chord twin element adjustable rear wing (now removed to avoid legality issues ;))
Erebuni modified front bumper with custom splitter, lowered to 70mm ground clearance. Vented and ducted to engine/ brakes (not shown in pics)

Mechanicals
B16A1 1595cc VTEC DOHC, stock bottom end
.040" head skim
Mild polish
Integra Type R valves, springs and retainers
Skunk2 Pro2 Cams
Piper adjustable cam gears
Cropped cam cover
Skunk2 Pro Series inlet
Skunk2 70mm billet throttle body, port matched
BMC CDA carbon air intake (ducted into front bumper) on Samco hoses
B18 2.5" collector 4-1 exhaust manifold
Custom 2.5" straight-through exhaust, single silencer in fuel tank well
Y2 rebuilt transmission, replaced steel caged bearings and synchros
Quaife QDF1U ATB diff
Cerametallic Exedy HD clutch
Custom Raxles driveshafts
JDM PR3 ECU running custom maps, mapped realtime on a dyno/ wideband using BRE and Hondata.

Suspension
Bilstein adjustable height coilovers
Various springs (currently 250lb front, 800lb rear)
Spring preloaders and 'bottom out' stops
Rebushed all round
Welded and triangulated front upper strut brace
Challenge rear upper brace
Modified rear ARB, rehung
Std front ARB
Suspension travel limiters

Brakes
Front: Ford M16 pattern Girling calipers on Challenge brackets
Citroen CX vented discs
Yellowstuff pads
Rear: Standard 16v CRX, EBC Green Stuff pads
Wilwood adjustable bias in cockpit
Silicone fluid

Fuel System
Custom 22.5 litre baffled aluminium tank, mounted inside cockpit on rear seat (tank has a 2l sump to avoid surge)
Boxed, vented and splash bowl fitted, box top Dzus fastened down
Walbro 280l/hr external pump

Electrical
Engine and car looms unpicked, stripped and rewound
Varley Red Top 25 mounted on passenger floor
Andersen Plug
Headlights (full beam only)
Rear lights
FIA Approved Rain Light (ahem)
AMB Transponder
RollCentre Lap Timer
Omex sequential shift light

Interior
Motodrive GRP seat
TRS FIA harness
Mountney Alpha wheel
Dash top/ clocks retained
Cutoff switches on carbon plates
Lifleline 2.25l dual-area fire extinguisher

Wheels and tyres
Compomotive CX 6J x 14 rims (we have 14!)
Avon 6.5/21.0/14 crossply (hillclimb)
Dunlop SP 770 radial slicks (circuit racing)/ Avon A61 6.0/21.5/14 crossply
Advan A032 SS (wets)
Made 185bhp on a Dastek dyno, but a poor torque curve at the moment and an intermittent misfire. Projected to make 200hp once remapped.

Probably loads I've forgotten too :rolleyes:
A few pics:
http://uploads.turbosport.co.uk/getrempic3.php?url=http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/frogracer/DSC00148.jpg
http://uploads.turbosport.co.uk/getrempic3.php?url=http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/frogracer/DSC00171.jpg
http://uploads.turbosport.co.uk/getrempic3.php?url=http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/frogracer/DSC00151.jpg
http://uploads.turbosport.co.uk/getrempic3.php?url=http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/frogracer/DSC00144.jpg
http://uploads.turbosport.co.uk/getrempic3.php?url=http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/frogracer/0605071164.jpg

[graham bahr]

its certainly looking the part :thumb: any idea why it went sick sounding at lydden?

[Jamie CRX]

its certainly looking the part :thumb: any idea why it went sick sounding at lydden?
Head gasket went, it was pressurizing into the water jackets. It had a loose ignitor wire inside the dizzy too, which explains the misfire. Oh, and the head gasket blew the water pump gasket too. In the end it blew a hose off and everything was so hot it just made it impossible.

Fixed now though :dance:

[graham bahr]

Fixed now though

good stuff :clap:

[tom burgess]

Glad to see you posted up Jamie:thumb:Cars looking really good mate.And its getting bloody quick too:clap:

[Retromotorsport]

Brillient spec sheet Jamie, and i look forward to your write up after each event ... :D

[Jamie CRX]

Brillient spec sheet Jamie, and i look forward to your write up after each event ... :D
Easy for this season:

Croft - broke it
Loton - broke it
Harewood - crashed it
Loton - 3rd
MIRA - 3rd
SEMSEC - broke it
Lydden - 2nd
Tintops - broke it
DMN - broke it
Shelsley - 3rd

:)

[alfaracer156]

Hi,what happened to Honda reliability? Mike

[Retromotorsport]

Jamie.. your still smiling though :)

[grahamb]

He's going for the consitency award.

[Jamie CRX]

I have to smile - the only problem with reliability is that we keep messing about with it!

In two years I had no engine-related problems, a loose battery terminal and a dead battery were the only issues, then a fried (stock) driveshaft. Since we modified the engine however, we have had:

Stripped gear in 1st (new tranny required)
Clutch
Head Gasket
Water Pump
Radiator
ECU
Crossmember
Ignitor pack

For the moment it is back on stock compression with stock cams, and it runs perfectly - it is making around 170hp in this form.

One of the reasons we like the car is the way everything is so beautifully engineered - all the bolts are zinc-plated with captive washers, cam caps, main caps and rods are numbered and directional to avoid incorrect fitting, gearbox magnet comes out almost clean every oil change etc. In stripping the cars we have cannibalised, there are almost never any seized studs and all the nuts come off without rounding out.

In short? It ain't the car that's bad, just the idiots puting it together :D

[xchipx]

damn been browsing these forums quite a bit lately just hadnt had the time to register.
spotted the crx thread and just had to !!!

Anyways lovely crx, keep us up to date with it....
i have a '91 vtec of my own - currently work in progress - would of loved to of made a " crx challenge " replica , because they seriously handle well !!!
Sorry sound like an excited kid but just a few questions....
Did you do the lexan windows yourself or was that barwell Did they replace all the nuts and bolts with the zinc plated hardware?
The rear arb was rehung in a different position ? why ? any pics ?
Do you take it on the street at all?

Regards
Mark:banana:

[Jamie CRX]

I'll send you a message on CRX-UK :thumb:

[xchipx]

didnt realise you were on there !! awaiting message :P

[jamer]

used to rally a ex challange crx with d16 engine. never touched the engine apart from changing the oil.
fitted a quaife atb diff and it transformed the car.
used to be a bit tail happy until i realised the spacers used on the challange front brake set up gave it a wider track than the rear.
fitted rear spacers, played around with ride height and spring rates and then it really handled.