J Male
Rally EK9/crx build
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2009
- Messages
- 98
Hi! and welcome to my project thread
Firstly to introduce myself as I haven't been posting much. I am Josh Male, I live in Somerset and am 23 years of age! I have always been into my cars and after buying a Honda I wouldn't go back! I own 3 Hondas although only my daily ep3 actually is driveable
I have wanted to build my own rally car for many years I have finally decided to have a go. I am reshelling my civic rally car into a crx. I am hoping to have it finished by next year and am aiming at competing in stage rallies and hill climbs in the south west. I chose the crx as I wanted to stay 1600cc class and to keep costs down I can swap many of my civic parts over (engine, gearbox, suspension etc) and had to be a Honda!
These two pics above are the last rally I competed in and where the car sits now. On that event I won the class and finished 5th overall out of 90 or so cars. I am hoping to continue the success of the civic and possibly improve!
This is how the car looked when I bought it for £700 (I think was a little while ago) like most crxs the project started with the usual arch and sill repair. luckily the shell was in very good condition and only needed one arch and sill. The car had done 140k miles so all of the bushing will be replaced. There wont be many crx parts left on the car when its done :roll:
A replacement panel was welded in and then epoxyed to protect from rust. This was the first time doing this kind of body work and I am pleased with how it turned out. I then set about filling and smoothing the repair but don't have any pics of this
After the arches and sills were repaired the next mission was to remove all of the underseal. This took a huge amount of time and is something that I would never want to do again! while the shell was bare the seams were seam welded (stitched) to strengthen the car. I coated the bottom of the car with epoxy primer.
WIRING LOOM
While the car was away for the roll cage o be fitted I attacked the wiring loom removing what is not needed. fingers crossed it will work, I bought a spare loom just incase. The pic above shows all the wires that I have removed
I decided to start collecting parts, I bought the suspension parts I needed to make sure that I can fit the proflex suspension off of my civic.
Began cleaning up a few of the bits I have removed
Jenvey ITBS
Few parts waiting to be fitted
crx Honda parts
After a long wait the cage was fitted. It looks a bit overkill for the size of car but better to be safe than sorry :wink:
The seat mounts are welded into the car to allow the seat to be as low and central as possible. I have more room between me and the bars in this car than I did my civic. One issue with this I overlooked was the gearstick position. The stick was too far away to reach so I removed the plate and cut a section out of the tunnel further into the car to move the linkage back toward the driver. Luckily the civic linkage looks to have the same angles but is longer so may fit otherwise the crx linkage will be extened
cage triangulation to keep the car rigid
Cage was connected to the strut tops. Wont be needing to use a strut bar brace!
I decided to fit a pedal box and do away with the assisted braking. The pedal box is mounted to the car and as the seat position cannot be moved the unit is adjustable to bring it closer/further away.I will run braided lines to the brakes, and hydraulic handbrake assembly which I need to find room for.
It also has a balance bar adjuster to allow the change of braking to front/back
The next step is painting! I am currently working on this. After having quotes of £3500 to paint the car inside and out I thought it was now time to learn how to spray At the end of the day it doesn't matter what it really looks like as I will plaster it with stickers
All the pics were taken with ipod/iphone, was surprised how bad quality some of them were which is why the pics are so small!
More to come!