New guy in southeastern Massachusetts
tshire
Band Wagon
Hi,
My name's Tom and I have owned my 1991 6-speed RT4WD since 2004 or so. It has that fairly common sky blue paint which I call 'Honda non-threatening blue.'
The picture is from 2005 right after a Maaco paint job, so it doesn't look quite that snazzy now. The finish has faded some, and a few rust bubbles are showing. Nevertheless, it is always garaged, and since I'm a long-haul truck driver, the car doesn't accumulate many miles. It currently has just under 120k on the odometer. Beyond the paint job, which included the removal of some chrome insignia and painting some black trim blue (side mirrors, tailgate spoiler), modifications include:
Acura RSX wheels with 185/65-15 tires;
Aftermarket cruise control (already on the car when I bought it from the original owner);
Autometer 'Cobalt' oil pressure, fuel pressure, and voltmeter gauges;
Tow hitch and wiring for my utility trailer;
Belden jumper cable quick connect;
Sirius satellite radio;
A/C and power steering removed to reduce weight and parasitic power losses.
The 15" tires are about 1" larger in diameter than the original 175/70-14 size. You might think that the larger tires would throw off the speedometer calibration, but you'd be wrong. Believe it or not, with the larger wheel/tire combination, my speedometer is now accurate to within 1 mph (at least according to my girlfriend's Garmin GPS). Older cars are notorious for having optimistic speedometers, and Japanese cars are no exceptions. I think speedometers in newer cars are more accurate (just a feeling I have, not based on any actual data) because of a move toward electronic speedometers and greater precision in manufacturing.
Anyway, I replaced the 14" white steel spoker wheels (still have them in the garage) with 15" RSX alloys hoping to reduce rotational weight and increase fuel mileage (a large wheel goes further with each revolution than a small wheel). Alas, although the alloy wheels are 5 pounds lighter than the OE steel spokers, the larger tires negated my weight savings and actually left me with a wheel/tire combination about 1 pound heavier than stock. Oh well. What can't be denied is the car looks a LOT better with the 15" alloys. They fill out the wheel wells while raising the ride height a bit (making it easier for old fogeys like me to get in and out of the car)
I removed all the A/C equipment (it was barely working anyway), and replaced the power steering rack with a manual rack from a 4th-gen Civic. Then I removed the power steering pump, cooler, lines, etc. Even though doing this noticeably increased my fuel mileage, I think I'm going to re-install the power steering. Once the car is rolling you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between manual and power steering, but at extremely low speeds (parking, pulling away from a red light) turning the wheel can be a chore. What this means is I can't loan my car to anyone or sell it, since high-effort steering might surprise an unwary driver during a dicey traffic maneuver.
So that's the only modification I regret, but I plan to put it right soon. Two modifications I've thought about but doubt I'll ever do include adding a turbo, and changing the 6th gear ratio to bring down highway RPMs. Currently, the engine turns approximately 1,000 RPM for every 20 mph in top gear. I'd love to reduce that by about 20% (then 60 MPH would be about 2,500 RPM instead of 3,000), but I doubt it would be easy. I'm pretty sure the CRX HF had taller gearing than other Civics of this era, but the gear set probably isn't a straight swap. If I had the time I might experiment, but lacking that, I'll have to content myself with dreaming...
My name's Tom and I have owned my 1991 6-speed RT4WD since 2004 or so. It has that fairly common sky blue paint which I call 'Honda non-threatening blue.'
The picture is from 2005 right after a Maaco paint job, so it doesn't look quite that snazzy now. The finish has faded some, and a few rust bubbles are showing. Nevertheless, it is always garaged, and since I'm a long-haul truck driver, the car doesn't accumulate many miles. It currently has just under 120k on the odometer. Beyond the paint job, which included the removal of some chrome insignia and painting some black trim blue (side mirrors, tailgate spoiler), modifications include:
Acura RSX wheels with 185/65-15 tires;
Aftermarket cruise control (already on the car when I bought it from the original owner);
Autometer 'Cobalt' oil pressure, fuel pressure, and voltmeter gauges;
Tow hitch and wiring for my utility trailer;
Belden jumper cable quick connect;
Sirius satellite radio;
A/C and power steering removed to reduce weight and parasitic power losses.
The 15" tires are about 1" larger in diameter than the original 175/70-14 size. You might think that the larger tires would throw off the speedometer calibration, but you'd be wrong. Believe it or not, with the larger wheel/tire combination, my speedometer is now accurate to within 1 mph (at least according to my girlfriend's Garmin GPS). Older cars are notorious for having optimistic speedometers, and Japanese cars are no exceptions. I think speedometers in newer cars are more accurate (just a feeling I have, not based on any actual data) because of a move toward electronic speedometers and greater precision in manufacturing.
Anyway, I replaced the 14" white steel spoker wheels (still have them in the garage) with 15" RSX alloys hoping to reduce rotational weight and increase fuel mileage (a large wheel goes further with each revolution than a small wheel). Alas, although the alloy wheels are 5 pounds lighter than the OE steel spokers, the larger tires negated my weight savings and actually left me with a wheel/tire combination about 1 pound heavier than stock. Oh well. What can't be denied is the car looks a LOT better with the 15" alloys. They fill out the wheel wells while raising the ride height a bit (making it easier for old fogeys like me to get in and out of the car)
I removed all the A/C equipment (it was barely working anyway), and replaced the power steering rack with a manual rack from a 4th-gen Civic. Then I removed the power steering pump, cooler, lines, etc. Even though doing this noticeably increased my fuel mileage, I think I'm going to re-install the power steering. Once the car is rolling you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between manual and power steering, but at extremely low speeds (parking, pulling away from a red light) turning the wheel can be a chore. What this means is I can't loan my car to anyone or sell it, since high-effort steering might surprise an unwary driver during a dicey traffic maneuver.
So that's the only modification I regret, but I plan to put it right soon. Two modifications I've thought about but doubt I'll ever do include adding a turbo, and changing the 6th gear ratio to bring down highway RPMs. Currently, the engine turns approximately 1,000 RPM for every 20 mph in top gear. I'd love to reduce that by about 20% (then 60 MPH would be about 2,500 RPM instead of 3,000), but I doubt it would be easy. I'm pretty sure the CRX HF had taller gearing than other Civics of this era, but the gear set probably isn't a straight swap. If I had the time I might experiment, but lacking that, I'll have to content myself with dreaming...
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