Rebuilding '86 CRX Si to stock
 

Back in November, I picked up an '86 CRX Si for $800. It was running, but I when I bought the car I was itching for something to tear apart. It looks like I got what I wanted. The car was idling funny and the starter was working about 50% of the time I turned the key.

I'm about halfway through the build, but I'll upload pics in the order that I took them.

For $800, I think I got a decent buy. The last owner changed the head, but he gave me the old one. I also got the old intake manifold and a new door handle for the broken passenger side handle.

My current major goals for the car are to:
-bring the engine back to stock to use as a daily driver
-replace the torn control arm boots for both the front axles
-completely redo the interior

Some minor goals that I'll take on when convenient:
-fix the sunroof
-touch up rusty spots on the paint
-replace the front upper lip, lower lip, both front wings, and get new splash shields (the current ones are missing)
-clean up the engine bay


The old head
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The old intake mani
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Passenger side wing
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Driver side wing
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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

So I realize I don't have pics of the entire car. I'll snap some tonight if I can remember to.

Here's some pics of the engine bay after I went at it for a few hours with degreaser. *sigh* I really should've taken before pics. The sludge on the transmission was between half an inch and an inch thick. Oh well, I still think this looks pretty decent as far as cleanliness goes. I'll probably wipe down the engine bay with degreaser one more time before I put everything back together. I'm not looking for a polish, but I want to at least be able to see everything.

For degreasing, I started with an aerosol degreaser that I got from Autozone, but because I can't hose down the engine bay in my garage, I decided to switch to a different approach. For most of the degreasing job, I used a 1 gallon degreaser concentrate that I got from Harbor Freight for under 5 bucks. Mix that with some water, put on some nitrile gloves (and tighten the gloves to my wrists with rubber bands) and I was good to degrease for a couple of hours with an old sponge and toothbrush. I had to stop a few times since the rubber bands cut off circulation to my hands This was better than having a glove full of degreaser. That really screws my skin up for the next few days.



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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

So apparently I do have a couple pre-cleanup pics of the engine. Here's some of the block after I pulled off the head. It seems like people tend to prefer engine swaps when there's major internal wear or damage, but I still like the idea of taking a worn down motor and replacing a few relatively cheap parts to get it working.

Btw, does anyone know of a way to pull the head off the block without making an oil dripping mess? This is my 3rd time pulling a head off a block and I still get oil all over the place. I drain the oil first, but it seems like there's still a bunch of oil in the head that only comes out when I'm pulling the head and it's tilting.

There was some weird white foam at the top of the coolant sleeves. I think it came from repeatedly pumping small amounts of oil that got into the coolant. The last owner didn't bother fixing a coolant leak--instead, he just kept a jug of water in the backseat to refill the overflow tank whenever it went low. The head gasket seems like it wasn't crushed or torn, so I'm still trying to figure out why the coolant was leaking. The last owner told me that the coolant didn't leak all the time. He'd drive it 10-20 miles to work and back. On some days, he'd have to fill up a gallon's worth and on some days, he wouldn't have to fill it at all. A leak through a hole should be draining pretty constantly.

My theory is that the leak comes from having the wrong head on. When I bought it, the installed head was D15A2. I didn't see the engine code stamped on it, but that's the engine on my '87 civic and I've worked with that one enough to recognize the head. I posted some pics of the differences here. That head was made for carbureted cars and this engine (EW4) should have a fuel injected head. I think running the carbureted head with the CRX's FI setup caused the precombustion chamber in the head to run super lean. So my guess is that the lean burn in the head was heating up the coolant a lot more than normal driving would, causing it to build up high pressure and escape out the radiator cap. Maybe on colder days or lighter driving, the coolant wouldn't get hot enough to do this, so that'd explain why the last owner didn't have to fill up the same amount each day.

If anyone has any other ideas on why the coolant was leaking, let me know. I'd like to be able to address all the problems this car was having in one teardown.




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the foamy stuff
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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

that engine needs lots of elbow grease...

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

You haven't even seen the interior yet. I'm sure redoing that'll take me a couple of weekends at least. I kind of like applying elbow grease to my car, so it's all right ;)

I found out that I have some more pics of the engine bay before degreasing. They were taken after I used a screwdriver to shovel off a few layers of grease, though.

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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

Is it an Si? You could so a swap relatively easily.

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

It is an Si. I think I've read that the ZC and similar year integra swaps are easy, but I didn't want to spend the cash on getting a new engine yet. I still want to research possible swaps and I wanted to get another daily driver out of this car for a while. My mom's driving around an old Toyota van and at her age, that's just asking for an accident.

I'd love to drop a B18C1/5 into this car and maybe eventually turbo it, but I still need to find out what I'd need to do and check a few sources to be absolutely sure of everything I have to do. I also need to scrape together the cash for that job :D Oh yeah, this car is also my first stick and I'd rather learn stick on a junkier transmission so I don't have to worry about messing it up.

Here's some pics of the upper lip and lower lip. The paint looks pretty jacked up on them, so I'm going to see how much it is at a local auto paint shop to mix the right color for me. If the price is right, then I'll get some to redo both of these pieces. I might also want to scour junkyards for first gen CRX's to get a new upper/lower lip since parts of mine are damaged. I'll probably try to get another upper lip and then just paint that, if necessary.


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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

So this thread is pretty much caught up with the work I've done to the car so far. I've started removing the valves from the original EW4 head. Two exhaust valves seem to be stuck. I've included some pics of the pistons which show that the valves probably hit them hard. I'm thinking that maybe these two valves hit the pistons hard and the valve keepers got pressed into the valve. I sprayed the two locked valve stems with Kroil yesterday, so I'm gonna see if that loosened them up at all. Does anyone know how to loosen these valve keepers?

By the way, I discovered that when removing the camshaft bearings, it helps to have a long, thin piece of wood like the one shown below. I used a hammer to tap at an upwards-angle on the bearings after I loosened the bolts. That knocked them up without damaging the metal. For the first engine I worked on, I used a screwdriver to pry the bearings. It worked, but it's a bad idea on an aluminum head...

Oh yeah, another small tip: if you're doing this and you have a magnetic pickup tool, then it really helps when you try to remove the valve keepers. I got the orange one below for .99 cents at Harbor Freight. You could probably rig up one of these with a stick and refrigerator magnet too.

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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

Last night I was able to get all the valves out of the original EW4 head. The keepers were really stuck for a few of the valves, so I put the head on the ground, compressed the springs, then hit the spring compressor with a hammer. I had to really whack those valves hard to loosen the keepers...I even damaged the garage floor, haha

Oh yeah, I found all these metal shavings. I'm not sure if they were in the bag that was holding this old head, but they're all over the head. In the third picture, you can see little bits in the oil under where the camshaft sits. I've determined that they're iron since they stick to a magnet. I'm not sure what they're from, though.




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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

dam brings back memory's of my first honda.... 86crx. tho i got a steal for it at only 500bucks.
wish i still had the thing. its worst downfall was its crab tho..... other than that i loved that little ugly turd!
cracked fenders are VERY COMMON! i was told to buy new ones and then scuff up the gutts and fiberglass the insides preaty good so they would hold together beter. but you can fix the cracks also....

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

Haha, yeah it's kind of ugly, but I know I'm going to love driving it. Hell, my other car's an '87 civic. It's just as boxy. I love driving tiny, lightweight cars.

What's a crab? I like the idea of using fiberglass to reinforce the fenders. I'll look into it, thanks for the suggestion!

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

So my progress has slowed a bit. Having too many interests means that I can't put too much time into any one thing.

Last week, I spent a couple of days cleaning off the valves. There were some heavy carbon deposits on the exhaust valves, especially on the valve face. I cleaned them off by locking them into my drill and spinning them while i pressed the face against a screwdriver. Afterwards, I stripped off the black material with sandpaper. I'm actually not sure if that black material is high-temp paint or some kind of treatment. Anyone know? I figured that I can make the valves a lot smoother than they were, though...I thought I read online a while ago that smoothing the valve faces can protect the engine against detonation. I can't find where, though...can anyone confirm? After my valves are all smoothed with another application of sandpaper, I'll use lapping compound to mate the contact surfaces with the valve seals in the head.

After this, I'll probably change my oil pan gasket, check the tolerances of the oil pump and maybe replace it (the block is around 220k miles) and then start putting this baby back together. Hopefully I can have this running in another week or two, with the 4-8 hours I'm putting in each week.

Here's some before-and-after pics of the valve surface cleaning. Pay no attention to that chipped valve. That's an old valve that I've replaced with another (used) exhaust valve from a d15a2.


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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

Reviving an old thread...

I lapped the valves and ended up not getting the head milled--my parents rushed me to finish up so that I could clear up some garage space. I threw everything back on, then had to take a few parts off to replace leaking coolant lines going to the fast idle sensor. After that, I took off and reinstalled the timing belt 4 times because I couldn't get the marks aligned right. It turns out I got it right the first time. I think one of the previous freaking owners changed the crankshaft pulley. I'm supposed to set the engine timing to 12 degrees btdc, but the marks are for 16 +/- 2 btdc. I was able to get it to 12 with my adjustable timing light, I just thought that maybe I was doing something wrong. Ugh.

The radiator fan wasn't spinning up, so I replaced the thermostat and radiator temp sensor, but the parts I pulled out looked pretty new. The last owner said he recently changed them, but I was in doubt about their condition, so I wanted to be sure. The last owner shorted the radiator temp sensor wires to always have the radiator fan on. This part of the wiring harness got damaged when I was driving it around testing the motor, since the shorted part got scraped on the ground...bleh, anyways, now instead of 2 plugs to connect to the radiator temp sensor, I have a plug and a wire. My cheap solution was to crimp some copper on the loose wire using pliers.

The ECU kept throwing a problem code with the TDC/CYL sensor, so I replaced the distributor. When I later checked the old distributor with a multimeter, it was within spec. More ugh.

Yesterday (4/21), I smogged the car to complete the transfer of ownership. The car failed smog!!! Too many hydrocarbons (hc) and carbon monoxide particles (CO). I'm reeeeeeeeeeeeaaally hoping that this is an o2 sensor issue. Tomorrow I'm going to run the o2 sensor test in Chilton's (which is the same as in the helms service manual). I'm crossing my fingers that the o2 sensor falls out of spec--I know some of you would rather just change the o2 sensor, but after swapping a few parts that looked like they were still good, I want to be sure. I really don't want the problem to be with the catalytic converter. If that's the case...my backup plan is to swap it from crx 2--I bought a second one for some body parts.

I'll post up some pics during my down time at work later today. Anyone have any experience with treating smog fail cars? I'll probably have to take this to a smog garage, but I'm hoping that the problem might be something small that I can test first, like the o2 sensor or map sensor.

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

Some pics of the car's interior

I replaced the hatch lifters since the hatch barely stayed up on its own. Now it'll clock someone in the chin if they're not careful.


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The carpet is nearly gone. I've been keeping my eye on craigslist for spare parts and parts cars (RSS is my friend). It looks like the car had rugs stock that are gone now. I got some shag carpeting that my friend's parents were throwing away. I'm going to give it a once-over with a carpet shampoo-er that I have and then fit it to the back. I guess this isn't quite going to be a stock car, since it'll have fuzzy carpetting on the inside . I'll want to eventually replace these deteriorated boards. Once I'm done in the engine bay, I'm going to go to home depot to get some generic board and cut it to fit.

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The inside door panels are just hideous. They're some sort of off white, but rubbed away in some parts. I have a hard time believing the stock panels were this color. I think one of the last owners tried to paint this with cheap paint. I'll probably swap these panels with another 1st gen CRX.

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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

More pics of the cleaned up engine and engine bay, the transmission was coated in a 1-2 mm thick layer of grease when I first looked at it.



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The dangling connector down below was supposed to connect to a fuse box on the left...which connects the alternator to the battery I didn't connect this or realize I forgot to wire it up until I was on the road and the car was driving sluggish.

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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

New hatch lifters installed

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My 3 1986-7 Hondas. The Civic is my DD, the far CRX is a parts car. I bought it mostly for body panels and splash shields.

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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

Side/rear views...things I'd like to address in these pictures (who knows if I'll get to them all)

1. missing CRX si spoiler (unfortunately, it's different from the spoiler for other CRX's)

2. bad tint job on the 2 rear windows

3. scratched up rear window defroster lines (the hatch on CRX 2 is amazingly immaculate, but it doesn't have a wiper or upper brake light :()

4. moonroof that won't open (the motor sounds like it works, but the moonroof won't go up)

5. bad paint job on the front bumper, upper lip (I think that's what it's called--the piece in front of the hood), hood and moonroof

6. cracked front fenders


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For 5: I'll probably swap the front bumper from the other CRX and then swap the underbody so it'll match. I've been having second thoughts about this though. It seems like it'd look tacky. What do you think? I was also thinking of getting an HVLP gun and repainting the car myself. The underbody doesn't seem repaintable though (not in a way that looks good).

For 6: I might take the suggestion to fix the cracks, scuff up the underside and add fiberglass. If I could find a way to make these thin enough, I wouldn't mind using them as the core to make my own carbon fiber fenders

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

Last picture post for today--the bad paint job on the front bumper. The last owner might've used a spray can. Cracking, blobs, overspray and running are his style.

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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

ya i would pull the fenders off and clean and ruff sand the inside ruffly clean again and fiberglass/matt/resin over them... those things break so easily! at least if you resin/glass the insides of them if they crack they will be held inplace instead of shattering the whole fender! then you can fix them easily enough by just filling cracks with some plastic bondo....

and the crx in the middle didnt have a SI spoiler... im pretty sure thats the DX spoiler. im pretty sure the one on the left is a HF or SI spoiler... i would just swap hatches and drill holes for the wiper motor if you want to keep it.... most people delete the rear wiper tho. IMO i wish mine had one. :(

and most likely the sunroof is siliconed shut.... very common bad leaking area!!!!

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

If I wanted to keep the spoiler from the other hatch, I'd have to do what you said and then make the rear wiper thinner at the base somehow, because it doesn't fit under the spoiler.

Oh yeah, and I'd be giving up the upper brake light if I swap hatches. There's no way I could make this work short of drilling holes in the glass of the new hatch, since the light is mounted through the glass (unless I'm missing something here)

Edit: oh ya, thanks for the tip about the moonroof...maybe I'll try using a knife to cut the silicone...

I found a few pics of some 1st gen CRX's, some have the SI badge and have the rear spoiler and some don't have any spoiler or badge (which I assume is the dx) So I think it's possible that this is the stock SI hatch

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RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

hum....
i know my old 86dx had that rear mounted spoiler removed. it had those back holes just quickly bondod over, and fell out when i had it.LOL


i see 3 different types of spoilers there... i thought there was only 2. hum. LOL

guess i didnt see that many crxs. you could always pull the headliner down and check out the sunroof more. not to hard to take the interior apart. took me 1 hour to figure out how to put it all back in, from the kid i bought it from did WEIGHT REDUCTION BS!!!!!! luckely he kept the parts and i figured out how it all went back in and only missed 3screws.LOL tho if i got another crx id want the newer gen with the back hatch with the glass in it...


i had a TURD 86dx. stupid carberator! of course mine was messed up as well.... secondaries never kicked in!
and a rusted out 84HF parts car.

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

my craigslist RSS feed shows 95% 2nd gen CRX's. It really makes me wish that I got one of those. The plus side to owning a first gen crx is that it's lighter and the front suspension is a torsion bar instead of coilover springs (what?! torsion bar a plus side?! -- torsion bars offer lighter unspring weight than a coilover)

I think there were only 2 spoiler types in the pictures I saw.

I want to get this car up and running so I can learn how to drive stick and have a high mpg dd. Originally, I wanted to prepare the car for a swap and have a lightweight car that could haul. With all the stuff wrong with this car, I might be better off starting with a different base chassis.

Edit: oh yeah, my favorite part about this car is that it's mpfi... no more carbureted crap like in my 87 civic

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX to stock
 

ya the MPFI kicks the crap outta the carb setup! from what ive heard the COMPLETE carb rebuild kits are a HUGE PITA to find!

worst part about older crxs is RUST...... i wish i had pictures of my old 84 HF.... it was super light weight... light weight from factory and even lighter from rust.LOL i swear my torsion bar was ready to rip loose from the car!!! suprisingly it never did while driving it around the yard ruff. i wanted it to fold up but it just didnt.LOL
it was super sized fist rust holes around the torsion bar mounting location!
it was bad! ended up selling it cheap to a guy for parts. same reason i bought it... always cheaper to have a whole decent car than it is to buy new parts.LOL

RE: Rebuilding '86 CRX Si to stock
 

Okay, so I didn't pass smog 2 weeks ago. I had high HC, but that passed. I didn't pass the CO test at 25 mph, but passed at 15 mph. I've run some basic diagnostics, and I figured out that my o2 sensor is good. My map sensor also appeared to be good.

This is when the problem started.

Checking the map sensor involved disconnecting the vacuum hose running to it and applying vacuum with a hand pump. I applied 40 mmHg of vacuum then performed the test according to my service manuals. After that, I didn't reconnect the map sensor right away. I was sitting in the driver's seat, so I decided to rev the engine a few times. I heard some pops in the muffler (which is a fat rice can, in case you hadn't noticed in the pictures). I don't know why I didn't stop, but I continued to tap the accelerator. Then I heard some pops in the engine bay, of the same variety that I heard in the muffler. This freaked me out so I turned the key off.

Now I also tried to spray some carb cleaner in the throttle body while the engine was running. My memory of the night is out of order, so I can't remember if I did this before or after the popping. In any event, I later remembered that I applied some rtv between the throttle body gasket and the t/b + butterfly valves. I'm thinking that maybe the carb cleaner could've dissolved some of that rtv, which the engine would've sucked into the intake manifold and possibly into the engine. I don't think this is likely, but I'm presenting the two things I did which I think could've caused the problem. (I admit that revving the engine with constant vacuum on the MAP sensor and using rtv and/or carb cleaner in the throttle body were bad decisions on my part, lets not focus on that =P)


Now...the problem: I start the car, if it catches, then it idles at around 300 rpm. Opening the throttle a little bit or all the way to WOT has little to no effect. The idle may climb as high as 1000 rpm.

Things I have tested/eliminated:

-Fuel pump, pressure regulator, injectors: I used a fuel pressure tester and the pressure I get at the service bolt is 40 PSI dead-head (key at "on", didn't crank), and 39-41 PSI when "idling". The pressure regulator could be bad, but from what I've read, the pressure should rise slowly or have too many PSI. Neither was the case. I recently replaced the injectors with remanufactured ones. It's possible that one or more are the wrong type. Tomorrow, I'm going to test if any individual one is bad by running it and disconnecting/reconnecting each injector electric connector, checking to see if the idle drops.

-Spark plugs: pulled, look good, albeit a little dark and a little wet. One su****iously had a centimeter-thick ball of lint on the electrode. Very strange, but it could've been a dirty intake.

-Spark plug wires, distributor: used a spark plug tester to check all wires for spark, all looked good. The distributor is also a new/remanufactured one.

-o2, catalyst: the catalytic converter might be poisoned, but it isn't melted and blocking the exhaust. How do I know? I took the exhaust manifold off and the car still idles at 300 rpm. (I think it was actually 500 rpm before I took the exhaust off).

-gas: I added half a gallon to the tank. There wasn't much in there to start with, but I just wanted enough to be sure that the pump wasn't sucking in air sometimes.

-compression: this is questionable, but I can't do a "proper" compression test. I compression-tested the engine cold (with such a low idle, I can't warm it up). The pressures were 90-90-80-80 psi. At first, I thought that these numbers could be just about right because the piston rings won't seal well when cold. They could still be way too low even with that in mind, though.

So, that's all I've done so far (that I can think of), thanks for reading all the way through to here. If you have an suggestions or ideas on what the problem might be, or even a relevant keyword I could search for (I tried searching for "hesitation" and "staggering"), please do share!