My new DD - 89 CRX HF
 

This is what I have been spending all my time on for the last 3 months. When I bought it the things I was told needed to be fixed ended up only being a piece of the things that I ended up replacing.

If has a completely rebuilt stock motor, HF trans with 88k on it, new complete OEM exhaust, DA front brakes, DA rear disc swap, HR OE lowering springs. I was able to source a busted up CRX driver side front seat and did a seat pan swap to put in a nice 3rd gen prelude seat. Will be picking up a pass side seat on friday to swap in the passenger side seat. The car has been painted Championship White. Interior is totally gutted other than dash and door panels. Likely current weight is just south of 1800lbs.

Brian

You freaking ricer!!!!

<-- jealous.

To increase my street cred a little I need to add some details. I rebuilt the motor myself during the time I took off for Christmas, did the swap myself, installed the trailing arms, changed pad rotors, swapped off shitty ebay coilovers for HR springs on stock shocks, and so much other little shit you can't even imagine. There pretty much isn't much on the car I didn't need to change/adjust/replace to get it to its current condition. I did this during freezing temps in an uninsulated, unheated garage from Dec-Feb. So Scott, eat your fucking heart out!

I have now put about 250 road miles on the motor and its running great. Driving it to work for the first time tomorrow, 50mi each way. I have measured 40mpg city and hwy thus far. It was 65F during the city mileage and 30F during the hwy testing. I think that accounts somewhat for why the two are the same. I think I will get 45mpg in warm temps on the hwy ultimately. It is my belief that my wheels/tires will ultimately limit me from getting to 55mpg. I am running 195 falken ziex tires and the stockers are like 145 all seasons. The HUGE front brakes keep me from running stock 13" wheels. I will be fabbing a hot air intake to draw air from over the exhaust manifold soon and that should bump me a few mpg on the hwy.

Also, big thanks to Dave for helping me out over the phone and the intarwebz when I needed him.

I love it. I remember going to the Honda dealership the year they came out when I was in college. I wanted one bad. First year only available in white or blue. IIRC, it was $5999-$6500 which was WAY too much for me to pay for a brand new car as a college student.:)

what is wrong with me? I'm an upper-middle class adult with a great job and enough money to "tour the wine country" annually and shit like that...and for some reason a 20-year old fwd econobox is more attractive to me than M3s and shit.

Great cars, those. Looks like you're going to save a ton on gas in that, I'm jealous. Why the bigger tires and brakes though? You have the Miata for grins, try to get max MPG out of that one!

It came with the teg front brakes on it already. Plus I wanted to keep them for max braking power for my daily commute. I drive up to and from wash dc every day and its stop and go most of the time, with a lot of sudden stops. I wanted to make sure I had braking power of a modern vehicle using old parts. The car will stop on a dime as it is now. If I find over the next month that it is more than enough I can always swap the fronts with crx discs and sell off the teg fronts.

As for the wheels, I already had them as an extra set for the teg and just replaced the tires with falken ziexs that I got new on ebay for $40/tire. I also do not currently have the miata. I am letting my brother borrow it because he has no vehicle otherwise at the moment. Just helping him out in his time of need. I told him he can drive it indefinately as long as he tells me when he hits 3k miles so I can change the oil, and he pays the additional premium to my insurance.

CRX front discs are cheap and I can buy a set of oem skinny wheels for cheap to. So if I change them out I will end up making money in the end if I go that way.

Omg.

I want.

I was just browsing gassavers.org and stumbled onto a thread where a guy was complaining that his HF with a fresh motor was only getting 32mpg. Turns out he put gear oil in his trans when honda actually calls for regular motor oil in their transmissions. He changed the fluid and his MPG went instantly from 32mpg to 42mpg.

WELLLLLL, as much as I know about Hondas I totally fubed this one. I forgot that they use motor oil in the trans and put in 75w90 gear oil. I'm going to change it tomorrow, rain or shine. I'm getting 40mpg right now, if I get the same mpg increase this guy did then I will go ape shit! Cross your fingers for me.

The word sensible comes to mind. That and 90s cars just have something about them.

Less is more. I know for me, the only luxury I require is a CD player with some decent-ish speakers (gotta have the tunes for spirited driving).

I generally dislike FWD, but the CRX is one of the few cars I'd jump on if I found one for a decent price.

Looks a lot like mine that I've had since 1995. Can't beat them for a daily driver. I have 241K on mine as of this morning and have never had any sort of mechanical failure even down to the the original clutch. It still gets around 44-45 mpg on crappy E10 fuel but has been known to get 50 mpg on interstate road trips without E10.

:bowdown:

this is what I look for in a car. I have dreams of my miatas doing the same.

My old CR-X. My friends dubbed it the HF-R. It was a little ricey but it had a built B16 and 100 shot of gas.:fawk:

I did the same once on my 'Teg, Hondas definitely prefer a lighter motor oil.

Very very nice car.

I'm with hustler, I can afford nicer cars, but am still drawn to the simplicity of great engineering design.

Envy is strong over here, now I've got to figure out how I'm going to explain this project to the SO.

Love CRX's...HF or Si, they both rock.

I was about to say I've never seen an HF that didn't get 45+ mpg. Friend blew his si trans in his d16 crx and swapped in an HF and went from 38-40 mpg to 48-50. He's back to an si trans now and gets ~40mpg, but he just blew his d and he's swapping in a B16 now. And yeah, they work better with motor oil. :)

Has he gotten the swap yet? I highly recommend Zdyne ECUs, the one-wire is a breeze and all you have to wire up is the VTEC solenoid.

He's got the engine and mounts. I think he's got an ECU that will plug in and run it. I ain't no honda person so I couldn't tell you much about it. I just know honda crx > * when it comes to hondas.

There's not much advantage to the one-wire other than only having to run one wire vs. seven, other than that you can specify certain things about your tune when the maps are doubled and flashed. I had them raise the rev limit slightly to 8.5k (so as to not bang off of the limiter at autox) and raise the idle speed to 950. The Gold is like the Hondata of the obd-0 types, effectively a standalone in the original case.