The CRX is in
 

Just got her in today after a second 2 1/2 hour drive to pick her up. Total driving time: 10 1/2 hours. Extra half hour cause I got lost coming home the first time. What a pain. I was unable to pick it up the first time because I had brought a dolly, and of the course of the time the car had been sitting, aprox. 2 months, both the passenger side wheels were locked/frozen. The guy fixed the problem, he worked at a Kia dealership, and I made a second journey up and that ends the story of the tedious trip to get my CRX.

Nice. Have you decided if you're doing the VX engine swap, or sticking with the HF motor?

that's a lot of drivin, but a nice car you got there!

THe more I think about it, I do believe that a rebuilt HF engine would be very easy and could provide nearly the same results as a VX motor...

and it'll be super easy and cheap to do (relative to the VX swap). If I had a CRX HF, that is exactly what I'd do.

Then again, this isn't about me... it's about hoffmann277. Whichever route your take, there are more than enough of us to help guide you through it.

What motor is in the car now? Usually an aftermarket exhaust indicates a modification to the engine. Possibly an engine swap.

Original motor I believe. I'll take picks of the engine bay in the morning. Brand new full exhaust, new headers, and a cold air intake appear to be the only mechanical "upgrades." It also has fiberglass(I believe) driver's and passenger's side front wheel wells. Wonder how much weight is saved there. Pics of those too in the morning.

Oh, and I'll be sticking with the HF engine for now, that is of course assuming that I fine the block in good condition when I tear it apart.

I'll just be replacing the head gasket. I talked to a Honda mechanic today in his opinion he'd replace the piston rings and the rod bearings while having the engine torn apart like this and with the mileage this car has (210K something.) I'll test the compression hopefully tomorrow and see where it goes from there.

Great find! It looks to be in pretty good shape too. I'm sure with a little TLC it will be a great gas saver.

About the rebuild: don't pull the slugs out unless you really need to. No need to replace the rings and bearings unless it really needs it. I see too many people spend lots of money on rebuilding engines that don't really need it. I'm a fan of just driving it until it REALLY needs it. lol

uh, are you serious? An aftermarket exhaust usually indicates an aftermarket exhaust.

I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the junkyard looking at these old cars with aftermarket exhausts, shaved door handles, custom paint, custom interior, etc., only to find the stock engine in there.

That exhaust is more about looking tough than actually being tough.

Well I will be sticking with the HF motor if it runs fine after the gasket change then. Do you really think though that it could match the VX's engine Matt? I commute 30 miles to work, I would have thought the lean burn for my sort of traveling would give the VX engine the edge. At the moment though, no matter what I'll be sticking with the HF motor if it runs fine after the gasket change for the funds are low at the moment.

Thanks for the advice Standard, I decided not too also because I don't know what other problems it might have. Maybe if I feel like being nice if she runs alright.

The pics though, here we go. You may oogle now, ordered the service manuals, you may gawk then.

That's a D15B6 throttle body all right, anemic and proud...And who's 280 is that in there as well? Any info on it? (I used to have 2 Z's ('72 240z/'81 280zx) til my first college tuition bill...then it became Honda CRX/Hatches...I'll eventually have both again) Nice find on the CRX, Mak

from what I've seen from looking on Ebay at photos of cars for sale, engines are one of the last things people swap, exaust are the first things because it gives teenage boys a warm fuzzy feeling, and because exaust systems rust out, and the aftermarket ones that reduce your horse power are often the same price or cheaper then stock.
If you replace your cold air intake with the stock air intake your car will not only run better, but quiter as well, or at least that was my expeaince when my air intake in front of the filter was broken/missing.
with 210,000 miles, I would replace the rings, with the short shifter, air intake, and exaust, someone bought this car with the intentions of abusing it, with that many miles on it the engine is likely to have been stressed, low compression, and burning oil is going to takes it's toll on your gas mileage, if you plan on keeping this car long enough that you might think about pulling the engine a 2nd time, then think about the time and money invalved in pulling it that 2nd time, I say do a compleat job the first time and then you have 100,000+ miles of worry free operation, and you will have a more solid vehicle to work off.

Do you think that an aftermarket exhaust could truely hurt FE? It is a 2 in exhaust except a slightly more restrictive muffler, not sure diameter.

From all info I've ever gathered, a cold air intake improves both performance and FE, but yes, at the trade off making things louder.

The guy I bought it from bought it form the original owner and he only put 4K on the engine. That's 208K by original owner. He put the exhaust and shifter for his son because it was to be his but the kid ended up wanting his deceased grandma's car instead. Some ugly 1984 GM 4 Door with 40K on the engine. Anyways, either it was the engine's time, the way it was driven, or spontanous head gasket failure (yeah, I made it up, wanna fight about it.)

BTW: That is a 1983 Datsun 280ZX Turbo 2+2, originally owned by a former Japanese ambassador. My dad's toy.

yea you gathered from the wrong info pool. thats all the cai manufacturors marketing cryap.

to 2nd matts notion about the exhaust: 1/4 of the civics i see have aftermarket exhausts 1/20th of the civics i see have swaps. what does that tell you about the amount of civics that have swaps and exhausts?

i disagree about the hf motor out-doing the vx motor. they may be the similar in their mpg but if they are both in proper vx will out perform the hf while providing the similar efficiency.

Bah, and here I was happy for a second.

Welcome to a fellow CRX'er, though I have an automatic CRX DX.

I hope to some day put in an HF tranny and get rid of my damn automatic.

the stock hf exaust is also pretty light, the first generation crx hf had a super light one piece exaust (9 feet long one piece, cat to muffler tip) and the only time a larger exaust is going to improve your mileage is when you are running wide open throttle, but the HF engine is not made to run wide open throttle, it's built for low speed and takes advantage of it's high torqe, the VX engine is built simaleraly to creat low end torqe, but as the engine speed increases, that 2nd intake valve opens to alow it to produce more high end power as well, but unless you have heavy trafic where it helps to be able to accelarate very quickly, and having a high reving engine helps, then most of the time you are not going to use that extra bit of enginering.

Hmm, are you able to use the 84 to 87 HF exhaust on 2nd gen, a 91 in particular, CRX HFs. Assuming of course you have the stock header too.

Also, is anyone's computer part of a college or university's network?