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Vthonda's 90' Si RHD build thread

21K views 72 replies 23 participants last post by  VThonda 
#1 ·
Looks like it's time to start a build thread for my 1990 CRX Si. My brother bought the car about a year and a half ago with an LsVtec, intake, exhaust, Neuspeed springs, GSR Blades, a CF hood and TONS of extra parts. The car was nearly rust free, a rarity in Vermont, it had been recently resprayed and came with a few sets of wheels. Within only a few months of buying the car the engine spun a bearing, so the it went up for sale and I was able to buy it as a project car. How it looked when it still ran:




With 232,000 miles on the body, the interior wasn't in the best shape. The drivers seat has a few large tears, the sunroof and trunk leak steadily, but everything still worked!


With the car at a good starting place, I decided to make it my own with a RHD conversion that I purchased from Hmotors. I highly recommend them for anything Honda! The clip as I first unloaded it into my garage:


The clip came in great shape with zero rust and 80,000 miles. It looks to have every component of the auto climate control, although the faceplate is cracked a bit. Nothing some epoxy cant fix!


Has the rare EF8 gauge cluster and looks spotless!


Even came with a cool sony cd player that i've never seen before! And two Seven Star cigarettes in the ash tray.


Now I just need to finish pulling the engine and I'll be able to post some real updates on progress!
 
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#30 ·
sloppyclock said:
I have those too, watch out though, the paint on it chips super easily on them. Well it did at least on mine
Thanks for the heads up! The lettering already looks like it may be coming off in some spots... If they seem to chip a lot I may save them as a back up set.

06DC5 said:
How much were your power folding mirrors? i've been thinking about grabbing a set myself.
I paid $275 with the switch and relay from Hmotorsonline.com. They aren't all that useful, but they sure look cool!
 
#31 ·
VThonda said:
06DC5 said:
How much were your power folding mirrors? i've been thinking about grabbing a set myself.
I paid $275 with the switch and relay from Hmotorsonline.com. They aren't all that useful, but they sure look cool!
that's not toooo bad. was that shipped? my CRX sleeps in a 1 car garage with a fridge on the one side. I only have about 2 inches of clearance on either side of the mirrors, so if i could add another 3 or more inches of clearance to each side it'd be really helpful.
 
#32 ·
06DC5 said:
VThonda said:
06DC5 said:
How much were your power folding mirrors? i've been thinking about grabbing a set myself.
I paid $275 with the switch and relay from Hmotorsonline.com. They aren't all that useful, but they sure look cool!
that's not toooo bad. was that shipped? my CRX sleeps in a 1 car garage with a fridge on the one side. I only have about 2 inches of clearance on either side of the mirrors, so if i could add another 3 or more inches of clearance to each side it'd be really helpful.
that price is not with shipping, but shipping from hmotors is good. $200 for mirrors, switch and relay are $75 + shipping.
 
#33 ·
Dr_Drache said:
06DC5 said:
VThonda said:
06DC5 said:
How much were your power folding mirrors? i've been thinking about grabbing a set myself.
I paid $275 with the switch and relay from Hmotorsonline.com. They aren't all that useful, but they sure look cool!
that's not toooo bad. was that shipped? my CRX sleeps in a 1 car garage with a fridge on the one side. I only have about 2 inches of clearance on either side of the mirrors, so if i could add another 3 or more inches of clearance to each side it'd be really helpful.
that price is not with shipping, but shipping from hmotors is good. $200 for mirrors, switch and relay are $75 + shipping.
Right, along with a few other things I bought at the same time, shipping was still under $40 to the east coast.
 
#34 ·
Been busy for a while but I do have a few updates on the project. First I got the firewall completely welded in. I wish I had taken more pictures of the welds but I tried to tack every half inch, inside and outside the car wherever possible so I know it will stay together. Then I primed over all the welds and used seam sealer to fill any gaps still left behind, and tried to replicate the Honda seam sealer look as best I could.



I'm sure I'll get some hate for this but yes, I did rattle-can the bay. I live on a dirt road, the car will be daily driven in the summer and will see a lot of abuse. I will bring this to shows whenever I can but I have always ranked function high over form and I see no reason for a professional paint job in the bay if it will get dirty anyway. However I do think it turned out pretty well overall. I used three cans of krylon Machinery Gray, and sprayed continuously for about half an hour. After I let the paint set over the weekend I waxed it for a better shine.


Everything lines up well so I was able to get a lot bolted in today when I started to put everything back together.


Two weeks ago I was able to go to Hondafest. There were so many great CRX's and inspiring builds.



One of my favorites was this EF8 imported with nearly every factory option, then left completely stock. No flashy paint, obnoxious exhaust or tucked engine bay, It really shows the greatness of this car in original form.

 
#37 ·
There is a very small import scene where I'm from so this was a pretty big meet for me! The meet was much bigger than it looks but I just wanted to focus on one car. :)b
Unfortunately progress has slowed for a while and I will have to go back to school soon but I do have a small update today! I have continued to bolt on more pieces from the RHD, and I finally got a very ugly bracket made for my clutch master cylinder!








Excuse the mess of wires, they go to the power folding mirrors, and the sunroof because I had to extend the plug to reach.






Incase someone may look to this for help doing their own conversion, I found this very helpful link to making a cable long enough to reach the fuel release door: http://eastcoastefcivics.com/index.php?topic=2546.0
I could not find a cable long enough to reach the trunk since my clip did not come with one. I heard that by running the LHD cable a shorter way, it may be long enough to work but I didn't have a LHD cable either so I made my own. I took the unused portion of the old fuel door cable and ran that as far back as I could. Then I used part of another hood release cable I had to make up the last few feet. I cut back the plastic on both sides to give myself enough cable to work with.


I then spliced the two ends together with aluminum crimp connector.


I then found a small ridged metal piece and epoxied it to the outside of both cables so that the inside could move freely between and actuate the latch.




Finally I put new weatherstripping on some of the heating parts where the old had fallen off before I put the RHD dash in.
 
#38 ·


I'm beginning the second year of the build of my 90 Crx Si. I ran out of time last summer before I had to go back to school so I was forced to throw the dash back in, get a windshield installed and store it for the winter.



This is how it sat all winter, with no engine and wiring far from perfect as I didn't have time to sort it out before putting the dash back in.



While I was away at school and couldn't work on the car, winter did allow me time to acquire a few pieces I knew I must have.





I would love to do the JDM front end but I don't plan to buy that until everything else is finished and I could repaint the whole car again, so for the meantime I got a set of ef7 single beam headlights. I was also able to get one of my favorite exhausts of all time, as well as an autographed Spoon kevlar intake along with a ek9 air box and intake arm!



I'm sure I have a few other parts that I got over the winter but I'll post them when I get there. Finally I've begun rebuilding the engine I'm planning on using, an LsVtec that I had originally built for my civic.

 
#42 ·
fraglerock said:
Fujitsubo! :)b
One of my favorite exhausts by far! I love how it looks so subtile and sounds great :)b

Claysonw said:
I want a fujitsubo. :( where did you get yours at? I thought that they were discontinued...?
Nope definitely not discontinued! Although the HKS is and looks similar. I got mine brand new from nengun performance :)

HARD2BEAT said:
:)b looking great
Thank you very much!
 
#43 ·
It's been a while but I've finally gotten enough done for another update!
I started by tearing the interior out once again to clean up wiring, which should hopefully be done shortly! I also made the decision that I would ditch the under-dash BMW master cylinder setup, for a Honda master cylinder mounted in the engine bay. This allows me to retain all drivers side heating/AC ducts, as well as not have to worry about clutch fluid leaking onto my legs if the master cylinder ever leaks. I got the idea from redsolturbo on honda tech, but I will be using the crx stock pedal assembly, rather than using an EG pedal. http://honda-tech.com/honda-crx-ef-civi ... l-2924598/ Its not done yet, but I'll have pictures soon of my best attempt at fabrication!

I got a few parts about a month ago for the my engine rebuild! Wiseco Pistons, Supertech oversized intake and exhaust valves..


And had the machine shop prepare the block with a supertech block gaurd and build the head!






Finally I was lucky enough to find a deal on some brakes from another member here. However when I was installing them I noticed that the wheel bearing I had just replaced last year was already bad even though I have not yet driven the car. With that replaced I was finally able to get the front brakes installed! I should be bleeding the system soon, slightly worried about where I had to cut the lines inside the car to install the clip, but hopefully won't have any problems.

 
#44 ·
I have finally finished the fabrication of my custom clutch master cylinder that allows you to keep heating ducts under the dash and uses Honda parts, rather than the BMW master cylinder under the dash I was considering using last year.

After getting the idea from another forum, I decided I could design a similar setup, without the need to custom mount an EG pedal under the dash: http://honda-tech.com/honda-crx-ef-civi ... l-2924598/
So after determining how far the master cylinder travels, I found the area of the pedal that travels roughly that same amount, and made an area to mount the new master cylinder.




You can also see that I had to remove that bracket which mounts the fuel filter, but I plan on using a tucked kit anyway, so this shouldn't be an issue.
These are the two master cylinders I had to choose from. Since I was fabricating this as I went, I was not sure how close my pedal bracket would be to the firewall, or if I would be able to get the master to sit flat against the firewall. The one on the right is the EG/EK civic master, while the one on the left can be found on preludes and accords of the same era. Both mount roughly the same, and travel the same distance, but the accord master comes further into the car. With proper fabrication either one could have been made to work perfectly, but in my case the longer accord one lined up perfectly.


Mounting the cylinder on the firewall is also a challenge, as I had to weld on and build up metal until the top and bottom had something flat to sit on.




This shows the cylinder mounted from inside the car. The stud on the left was way too long so I had to replace it with a bolt, and the stud on the right came through at the corner of the brake booster indent, so I was able to use a door hinge bushing that took up the space and allowed the nut to sit flat so it sits very tight with no movement at all.


Next I made a bracket anchored to the clutch pedal that would line up with my master cylinder. This needed to be to the left so it would not interfere with the brake booster, but not effect the overall feel of the clutch. The bottom of this bracket is also the area I had earlier measured to have the same travel distance as the master cylinder.




Mounted the Accord master, seam sealed over to prevent leaks, and painted. Reservoir and bracket taken from an EK, (possibly the same for an EG.) Certainly not the prettiest, I'm sure I could have done better my second time around, but I built this car for the fun of driving and function over form, so some messiness doesn't really bother me.


The final pedal assembly, hole drilled and attached to the end of the master cylinder. (It was way too tight to get this on from inside the car.)


And, back in the car fully assembled and feels smooth. No engine in yet to test on, but the adjustability should be just as a stock Honda clutch! Overall happy with how it turned out, can't wait to see how it compares to the cable clutch and a stock Honda clutch. :D


The clutch line will be flared and bent once the engine is in the car and I know where it needs to go. Next project will be wiring the engine, as I have that fully assembled. Only problem, is the car harness is from the EF8, which uses a 14 pin connector on the left, (now passenger side) shock tower, and my engine harness, uses an 8 pin connector because its the stock USDM Si harness (the only one I have.) I do have a spare 14 pin connector and I have begun de-pinning the small Si connector, and matching the wires to the larger SiR connector so everything plugs in as if it was factory. Unless someone has done a conversion like this and would like to give me pointers, or if someone knows the pinouts of the 14 pin left-side connector that would be great! I've figured out a few so far, 1-4 injectors, VSS and Vtec. Either way, I'll make a short write up on what I do (for those of you dumb enough like me who didn't just import one) Or if someone has a reasonably priced EF8 B16 harness I would consider buying that as well as that would be basically a plug and play for me.
 
#46 ·
Not a huge update but after a few hiccups the engine is in! Wiring was interesting converting the Japanese body harness to work with the American Si harness, and if anyone is interested I can do a writeup on the changes I made to both harnesses.


More to come soon as I start to put everything back together again!
 
#49 ·
ohisofly said:
Looks like this is going to be a great build - keep at it 8)
Thank you I'm finally getting to a point that I can drive it but it will never be done!

civicsir07 said:
looking good!
Thanks!

So I got it out of the garage finally! Did a few laps around the front lawn and it ran pretty well. It was idling a little rough but has gotten better with a little time. Still have a few more issues to work out but it's getting there!


Still looks very small next to my lowered WRX, and if it wasn't for the awful ground clearence on the 4-1 headers it would be a lot lower!





Hoping to work out some of the issues in the next few days, then I'll be able to focus on getting it registered and on the road!
 
#51 ·
Great job man! BTW, rolling your car around with no axles in it can run a wheel bearing cause nothing is keeping it all pressed to the hub. May have been the issue. I did the same thing on mine.

Congrats on all the wiring! Best of luck. Hope you have less wiring issues to work out than I did when I got mine on the road after my build.
 
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