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91 Si build thread

14K views 59 replies 16 participants last post by  NYVTEC89 
#1 ·
Welp, I wasn't initially going to start this thread this early into my build. I'll give a little background, then we can start with the pictures and stuff I've done thus far.

I bought this 1991 crx si in March of this year, for the hopes of just slapping on a turbo, getting a lip kit, and running some pretty decent times/win a few shows for cleanliness of my car. I first checked it out the first week of March, right after selling my 92 Integra GS. The car was really clean and had some nice parts in it. I came back the following week, purchased the car, brought it home and found out how wrong I was.

Got the car on the lift to find out that the struts were blown, the ecu was changed along with the dizzy, the radiator support was bent and all messed up, the front axles were about 300 miles from breaking completely, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Well this is within the first week of bringing her home.

Yikes, that thing is a mess!

First day I cleaned her and waxed, too!


I found someone local on another forum selling this, so I picked it up on the cheap






Picked this up because the Spoon power mirrors are really small and leave me blind on the sides!

Installed!


The seatbelt never retracted and I thought it felt funny, so I decided to take the door panels off and figure out why. To my horror I found the seat belt had been cut and tied in a knot! Thank goodness I didn't get into an accident because that ****ty knot would have not held up against my 130lbs of fury! -___-



After changing the axles, I felt a weird feeling when releasing the clutch on the passenger's side. I got new mounts, replaced the driver's side because it was right there and easy. When I went to replace the mount right in front of the passenger strut tower, I pulled the tranny mounting bracket out and this is what I found..

Still really dirty.

Found this on the cheapy-cheap at a local junk yard. Mine was split right down the middle.

Changing the axles. Idk why this is before the motor mount picture.

This was clearance with jacks holding the engine up while changing the mounts.

Nice and clean interior. :)

I took this picture to send to the parts guy at a Honda OEM dealership in Ohio.

All types of messed up wires to my vtaakk solenoid.


This is not the proper way to run an obd-0 dizzy on an OBD-1 block. Should have just got the correct dizzy IMO. -__-

I was getting a short from my radio harness so I pulled it to rewire it up nice and cleanly!

Mmmmm! That's much better! :)

Clean and lookin' pretty!


The tires on my rear rims were a little bit dirty so I got steelies temporarily and polished these badboys off!



New tires getting mounted!

She looks pretty again! Now with good rubbers!


Old.. too loud for upstate New York, although I liked it's sound. I can post a video of this if anyone would like.


That's right after the install. Since then I've adjusted the height of it!


Got my amber clock from freebay on the cheap! Matches my gauges and gives me that nice different look!



She's just chillin here.

This is me standing next to her. This picture made me realize how small my car actually is! -___-

Here's another random in the sticks where I live.
 
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#2 ·
This was the two seat belts next to one another when I repaired it. Notice how one is stretched out while the other was how it should be.


This was when the new exterior trim arrived! So much better!


This was at Honda Day Englishtown 2011


My buddy's EJ and my boo cruising one night.


My sunroof was rusted out so I found a local guy who was selling on on CL! Picked it up with new tracks and everything for $140. Not too bad I'd say. I'm thinking about doing a CF panel next spring. For some reason the slide seems to slip 4 teeth about halfway to opening. I'm not sure why though.


This is the before on the exhaust note.

This is after.


This is going to be a very slow build until around the second week of February. When Uncle Sam gives me back my over paid taxes, I'm ordering parts like a mofo! I will be updating with when I do various jobs or repairs on this car, and when I start building the engine.
 
#8 ·
I have the d15b7 block, and the pistons. I'm going with Eagle z6 rods and a JDM d15b crank with a t3/t4 setup boosted to 16 - 18 psi for dd status. I figure i'll be in the high 200's with that setup, but my goal is around 22 psi ~ 300whp. For the track, I'd like to be in the low 12's, high 11's. I think it's pretty realistic. I'm not building this to be a straight track car. Once the motor is built, I'd like to find some s2k AP1 black leathers on the cheapy, add heating elements, install a nice 7" in dash navigation, pick up an si-r back seat, and replace my Rotas with some Axis OG Oldskools in bronze. The wire tuck will be done when the motor is pulled. I'm also going to respray the bay probably copper.

My update for today is that I managed to get to the car wash and spray my rex down. It's going to rain on Thursday, so I opted not to wax. ):




I hate the last 2 weeks of summer. I watch my nephew who's 6 during the day because my sister works overnight, so I'm kind of limited to working on the car on the weekends. This one happens to by my anniversary with my girlfriend, so I'll have to make Saturday my day to do some work. I'm gunna have to put a little money away, too, so I can pick up a beater on CL and take the rex off the road come October. I will update soon guys!
 
#10 ·
I was doing research and asked a few members on dseries.org and this fella over there told me he built his d15b7 with z6 rods. He said in order to get the clearance to the deck without overlap, you've got to use a JDM d15b crankshaft. He said that the use of the JDM crank will give me the proper clearance without hitting valves. I've done the research on this. Plus, I'm using SRP forged pistons which have a shorter height then OEM pistons. Thank you for the tip though. I've done the research, it's been done time and time again. Another thing people do when building the d15b7 is that they use Suzuki Vitara pistons (which can handle up to like 300hp!!) and Integra LS rods which can handle like 250hp.
 
#11 ·
Welp, considering the fact that hurricane Irine is supposed to hit real bad in the next 48 hours, I decided to spend today working on my car. :mrgreen: I apologize for not taking as many pictures as i could have, I was also hanging out with my lovely lady. I'm sure a few of you in the community can relate to how great your girl has to be to put up with you working on your car. :)b

First order of business was replacing the hatch support struts. The one on the left was the old one.. obviously it needed some help.


But the "wonderful" guys at Autozone gave me what I thought was the wrong strut. :evil:


So, I decided to continue my list of sh-to do. Next on the list was the battery box install.


I decided to use my tail lights as ground, as it was the perfect spot for me. I cut into the bulb cover a little bit to make it flush.


Random shot of my cat back and high flow cat.


After finishing the battery box, I was looking at a rear lower tie bar I was using to prop my trunk open and decided, the hell with it, might as well install that too!





After that, my girlfriend and I decided to take a trip to Walgreens so she could get some stuff, and I was taking pictures. Those aren't on my photobucket, yet. After that, I decided that since the Walgreens is next to the highway to get to Autozone, we might as well go there, too. :tongueblue: After waiting in line for a good 30 minutes, one of the guys there went and grabbed me another trunk strut from the back. Turns out that my first one must have been a return because they did not include any of the instillation hardware with it. -_____-

Tightening the bolts..


& as Charlie Sheen says, "winning!" :bounce:


This was the other side. That doesn't quite look right. :?


Welp, regardless today was quite productive! Hope everyone is safe with this storm coming!!
 
#13 ·
Clean Rex man! I need to get around to replacing the hatch struts also. It's already hit my back twice... Well I have one of my Integra rims as a spare back there now so I use that to prop it up lol.

Goodluck with the build. Any progress is good. At least youre not going backwards. :)b
 
#15 ·
Sorry for not updating in a while. I haven't really done anything special in the past few weeks. I installed my Viper alarm, but I didn't take pictures for security purposes. I ordered a front lip for my car off of ebay, and it should be here on Thursday, so I'll take pictures and maybe make a "How to" thread considering I don't have the stock Si front lip. Other than that I started running the wires for my o2 sensor. I haven't hooked it up yet because it's been raining out and it would just be temporary seeing as how I'm going to wire tuck in the winter when I pull the z6.

I got a job at a shop about 15 miles away from my house so I will now have access to a car lift. :bounce: :bounce: I'm pretty excited!

My current list of things that I'd like to get done for the turbo build would be to winterize the rex, get a nice car cover for her, and find a nice crappy beater to get me back and forth to work every day. From there, head removal will follow. Then the head will be disassembled and sent to the machine shop for a port and polish. I'll be installing some stiffer valves and springs and a skunk 2 state 2 turbo cam. Then I get to assemble the block. JDM D15b crank with some eagle z6 rods. Then that can go to the machine shop to check for clearance and possibly a mill job on the deck. It looks pretty straight, though. While all that's going on I'll be prepping for the wire tuck. Hopefully the turbo'd b7/z6 will be tuned in April, but until then the updates will be parts coming in!

Meech, thanks! Everything is a step backwards with these cars. Once one thing gets fixed, 3 more things break. ALWAYS! :cry:

Nerd, ebay! http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Wink-5-P ... 1164wt_647 They're on the cheap, too! I'm going to fabricate different brackets for it next summer though, because I had to take my visors out to mount the mirror. A little bit of aluminum should change that. :wink:

Updates soon, I promise!
 
#17 ·
That upsets me when someone's rex gets stolen. People are pieces of **** for that. I have so much HATE for someone that will go and steal someone else's property, ESPECIALLY a car that they put hard work and honestly obtained money/parts into. Thats one thing I love about living in the sticks of New York. There aren't "too many" car thieves up here. At the same token, I always keep my car locked up, and I try not to reveal too much information because thieves do tend to read these sites and get info. It's a shame! If it was up to me, anyone convicted of auto-theft, or theft in general should have their hands cut off. :ninja:
 
#18 ·
I had the same problem when I replaced my hatch struts. After 3 different Autozones an O'Rileys and an Advance I finally got a matching pair with all the hardware. Most were missing the ball mounts.
 
#21 ·
I feel like I've seen this car posted before on here by another NY member.

NYVTEC89 said:
Picked this up because the Spoon power mirrors are really small and leave me blind on the sides!
Installed!


The seatbelt never retracted and I thought it felt funny, so I decided to take the door panels off and figure out why. To my horror I found the seat belt had been cut and tied in a knot! Thank goodness I didn't get into an accident because that [crummy] knot would have not held up against my 130lbs of fury! -___-
Talk about getting into an accident, I'd be worried about knocking your face into those mirrors too.

NYVTEC89 said:
Got my amber clock from freebay on the cheap! Matches my gauges and gives me that nice different look!
I hope it was cheap. Those are DIY clocks, simply putting a transparent orange office folder tab over the face of the clock.
 
#22 ·
It's possible you did. I bought the car from someone in Westchester. To put it nicely, he didn't know his hands from his hubcaps. This car has been a problem since day 1, literally. It's a good project, though. Also, every fix is just a really nice learning adventure. Considering it's a crx, I wouldn't be as worried about hitting my face into the mirror as another car running me over. lol. The clock was actually from a GSR Integra. It was wired up and molded to fit into the crx clock slot. :)b
 
#24 ·
The clock's face was wired to the crx buttons. It's not nearly as bright as the blue clock I pulled out of my crx. It was about as dim in the day light as a GSR clock. I have a buddy that had a GSR a few years back and I distinctively remember the clocks being kind of dim in comparison. I also compared the faces of the two digital dials next to one another, and there is a very distinctive difference between them. If you'd like, I would gladly take pictures to show you.
 
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