1987 CRX Build

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Tristan TOTALLY seemed like the guy, who's last words would be "Watch this!"

Speaking of that day, I DO believe Clayton owes me $100 :) I'm still alive after riding for the season.
 
Yeah, motorcycles are awesome. I told myself though, if I ever start getting really comfortable with them and start modding and thinking about tracking riding and etc (like I already do with my cars) that I would stop. Because... unlike with my cars, it seems much easier to get in over your head and consequences are much worse.

The 12XR is a nice bike, the Busa and ZX14 are just too big and heavy, I'd MUCH prefer a super fast, lightweight bike. Look up ZX2 or ZX4R, they're like our bikes but 250cc or 400cc and they're still 4 cyl inlines :). The 400 would probably be enough power to keep me happy, the ZX2 is lighter than the 250R and it's 4cyl instead and has an 18K redline and 40+HP. I blows the 500R out of the water in power and obviously everything else out of the water in handling. Stupid US doesn't get it though, because just like all we want is gasguzzling SUVs, all we want is 600cc and 1000cc bikes....

Ok, I'm done ranting :). Yes, I know when to get out of a project, and rust is a bike one, but this bike keeps taunting me. I like the old school look and the power, I mean I know there are faster bike, but I can already go 0-60MPH in <3 seconds, do I need more? I actually really like the 636s though and the ease of FI, I will probably wait another year or two and try to pick one up. My bike ran great the first year and then slowly started getting an issue of not starting and stalling. After months of trouble shooting I finally bought a new ECU (CDI brain/black box/etc) which is way too pricey and that fixed it for a few months but it still didn't run 'right'. I clean the carbs regularly and replace the pulsing coil (that senses engine timing) and wires and plugs and tested the coils, etc.

Then I decided it was finally time to put the new tires on it and paint it up a bit and etc and somehow lost my exhaust :( (note: do not rest things on the bumper of your truck, it IS a stable place and not dirty but... at LEAST remember to take it OFF before you go to the store.... yeah.... ).

Anyway for fun I'll barage you with pictures:
Before (2 years ago).
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And after some paint, new tires, grips, cutting off the melted/scratched/broken fairings and creating my own fender eliminator, oh and fabricating a new exhaust out of auto stuff since I'm cheap :( :
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I do love the red tank, sides and gold trim and tires, but it took 2 months and I haven't been able to start it since... I'm just going to clean the whole fuel system again in the spring and hope for the best. Losing my exhaust really sucks... The cherry bomb doesn't look too bad, but the plumbing leading to it is... yeah and the tractor topper :) !! And I really like the side fairings now that I cut out the broken areas, I tried to make it look vaguely ZX11ish or the new 600cc ish, I glued a dark window screen in the hole to try to darken the look and engine behind it.

If only it ran....
 
Yeah, you should bring that by here. I may also have another exhaust for you (Single pipe, not tuned). And I would be open to trade windscreens :)
If you need any help with it, or finding parts, lemme know. And also, not to go off on a tangent, but my ZX12 is the lightest bike in my collection. It's just very wide and so long that you can fit two of me in the front saddle (And my nuts are pressed against the "tank")

If you wanna do some rides this year, we ride up and down the NY side of CT quite often. One of our first trips is going to go over the state line on opening weekend of the season.

Anyway, I came in to run some pings for my dad, I'm back to the garage now to work on the CRX.
 
you put a cherry bomb on your bike lmao you fucking loser.

Yes, I am a loser, I had no exhaust and looking around (I looked for months) the best price I could find to replace what I lost was like $100, which I just couldn't put into a nonrunning POS, so I had a cherry bomb laying around and figured.... that's pretty much straight through with some sound deadening... Just like the old muffler :).

Celebrity: bike rides would be awesome but this crap has to run first! And you might be a bit far away from me, I'm about 15 mins from the border of NYS... but it's the NYS/VT border and there's all of MA in the middle :).

In the mean time I'm trying to resurrect a '64 Yamaha YA-6 Santa Barbara that I picked up for free, seems like all it should need is a full fuel system clean and a battery but I can't figure out how to remove the carb and it really need to be dipped (this is the foulest gas varnishing I've ever seen, it's at least 30 years old, last inspection sticker was '75 and it still had a gallon of 'gas' in it). That's a whopping 125cc 2cycle... so I doubt I'll be cruising that much in a group :).

As for exhaust, it was a full 4-1 Vances&Hines and all I'm missing is the muffler, so now it's a 4-1 glasspack. I'm sure I can make whatever you have fit it.
 
Celebrity

Celerity. It's ok though.


In the mean time I'm trying to resurrect a '64 Yamaha YA-6 Santa Barbara that I picked up for free, seems like all it should need is a full fuel system clean and a battery but I can't figure out how to remove the carb and it really need to be dipped (this is the foulest gas varnishing I've ever seen, it's at least 30 years old, last inspection sticker was '75 and it still had a gallon of 'gas' in it). That's a whopping 125cc 2cycle... so I doubt I'll be cruising that much in a group :).

AWESOME ! God damn, you need a garage. These things need to be kept indoors. We have a guy that we ride and show with who has a 400cc two stroke. We do ride with 2strokes quite often (And my Scooter group is all about em). If you need help with that, lemme know. If I can't help, I know people who can.
As for exhaust, it was a full 4-1 Vances&Hines and all I'm missing is the muffler, so now it's a 4-1 glasspack. I'm sure I can make whatever you have fit it.
The original was 4-2. That's why I don't know what it will need now. I have some things lying around, but nothing matched for a 600. That glasspack is doing the job of keeping the sound out of your ear, but it's doing a number on your valves. These engines are precision, and need precision engineering in everything that you do or run.

That's why I'm making this EW4 build along the lines of bike engines. I LOVE how they do things, and I think that most of what they had in mind, can be done to this motor.

The differences are found in the block. I can't put a 1500cc bike engine block in it (If I could, I WOULD.) but pardoning a few things that Honda did for longevity (Motorcycle engines run so tightly wound because they aren't meant for 100,000 miles. If car makers did that, we would have 200hp 1.2 liter cars). I had thought of taking the ZX14 engine and trying to adapt it to the car transmission, or doing something else to allow sequential gearing from the original trans, but getting that power to the front wheels is somewhat of a challenge that I haven't figured out yet. I was also thinking of installing a VTX1800 Vtwin in the CRX (110hp, 120 lbs/ft torque) but again, the design of the car doesn't lend itself to the shape of the engine.

The inspiration of this build are those Hayabusa powered go-karts and Smarts. I want something that does... that.

Also, it's tough to power a heavy car with no flywheel. That's the primary problem with those motorcycle powered cars - they need to be so light that the inertia in the sprocket is enough to launch it.

Tight and compact = fun as hell and powerful as hell
Loose and spread out = reliable and easier to work on. I went half way with this engine design.

Now the individual O2 sensor and TPS thing is something that I always wanted to do. To be able to tune each injector (Even though they are primarily doing the same thing at all times) is something I want to try.
 
nice crx. and yep the smart people know crx's are where they are at. now if I could find a 89-91 si, with no rust I would buy it no questions asked. I almost bought one a month ago, but found out at the last minute it bad body rust. :-( oh well.
 
Yeah, not sure if you can see it here: That car was 100% rust free before I parked it. Now the paint is lifting on the sunroof panel and rear quarters.

I'm going to wind up re-painting it at some point.. I should stop kidding myself. I've even been photoshopping some stripe options so I could cover the damage.

But I saw this green / copper accord wagon in New Haven (CT) that has a marble paint job. And marble is easy enough to do, it's very forgiving and easy to mask (No fades to worry about)
 
sell it?

no way....I've been waiting for years for someone to start re-making them

I've got all kinds of goodies going on over here :)

2 motors..browntop ZC (in the car) and a D16A1 (being built/turbo'd)
lots of suspension parts
a rust/rot free 1g w/crackless fenders...header panel has broken mounts, but I bought a (brand spankin) new one
more EDM stuff on the way

its shaping up to be a pretty nice project
 
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AWESOME ! God damn, you need a garage. These things need to be kept indoors. We have a guy that we ride and show with who has a 400cc two stroke. We do ride with 2strokes quite often (And my Scooter group is all about em). If you need help with that, lemme know. If I can't help, I know people who can.

Yeah, it's in the basement right now, so it's pretty ok. I love how light it is, very easy to roll into the basement (still not sure how I'll get it out :p). The only things I'm hung up on are how to remove the carb and how to verify the autoinjection of 2cycle oil is still working.

The tank and lines and everything else was self explanatory and even though I thought I'd have to line the tank, it's actually really clean now that that varnishy gunk is out.

The carb is 'inside' the crank case sort of, it's inside a crank case cover that's sealed with a gasket. This was easy to remove and I can try to clean the carb where it is, but the needle is a little rusted and I really just want it all apart to dip. There is only 1 bolt that I can see that's holding the carb, but the carb is in front of it, so there's no wrench I can get at it with. There was probably a special tool or something.

Next, I don't know how to 'trust' the autolube system. I doln't want to put this together and have it seize or over oil it by putting 2 stroke oil in the tank directly.

But anyway, I'm very curious in your build. I have thought about motorcycle engines in cars too and thinking how to mate them is hard. When I thought about it I was going to keeping the motorcycle tranny and fabbing linkages, etc, but no idea how to fit it to the axle, I could be lazy and weld a toothed gear on the intermediary shaft and use chain :).

As for the build what else are you doing to make it more motorcycle like? The other motorcycle trick I thought was cool, Yamaha has each bank of cylinders closed off but has 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 open to each other to save on pumping losses of the oil moving out of the cylinders way. In this way it will not inrease oil pressure just move it from one cylinder to the other. Not sure what the honda's block looks like at all but thought that'd be cool to look into.

Also are you looking for high revving? I'd get some stiffer valve springs first.
 
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