BrakesPros

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Special Thanks To Our Sponsors, Suppliers & Supporters!

BrakesPros.com - Brakes Pros Blog
With the support of BrakesPros.com, we are able to enjoy the racing experience we love so much..We are excited about what the future holds for our project!

Induction Performance - https://www.facebook.com/IPTUNING
Alpha at Induction Performance is the mastermind of tuning big HP forced induction cars. However, Alpha can tune on any vehicle, even a small naturally aspirated motor such as ours! We can trust that Alpha will keep our engine running healthy and can take on any project we may throw at him in the future!

Redline Designs - Welcome to www.redlinedesign.tv - Sample Slogan
Justin has been great through the entire process of branding our CRX. He helped us come up with a clean design and went beyond our expectations of quality and creativity!

Advance Performance Wheels and Tires - Custom Wheels and Tires - Advance Performance Tire and Wheel Tampa Florida
This is not your ordinary "tire shop", these guys know what they are talking about and will not let you out the door if they see something as "unsafe" with your setup. Whether you have a "flush stance" car, track car or just a daily driver, Mike and his crew know how to take care you!

LHT Performance - http://lhtperformance.net/
I am sure most of you know John from LHT, as his work has been featured on several tuner magazines, including Honda-Tech. We were very excited to have John building our intake and exhaust and we cannot put into words the quality of craftsmanship he puts into his fabrication work.

Hawk Performance Brakes - Hawk Performance | Hawk Performance Brake Pads | Hawk Rotors
We are happy to team up with Hawk Performance Brakes on our CRX. We have used their products in the past and never had an issue. Our Quiet Slot Rotors and HT-10 pads performed very well on our Sebring track day as well!

K-Tuned - K-Tuned. Race Proven.
These guys are the innovators of the K-Series Conversion market. K-Tuned stood out to us as a great company and their amazing customer service put them over the top. We are happy to be partnering up with them on our project!

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The Car: 1989 Honda CRX

Use: High Performance Driving Events / Track Days / Possibility of Sanctioned Racing or Time Attack

Engine: K20Z1 / Factory 6 spd / Factory 4.7 FD

Goal: Fast and Reliable Track Car

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Videos:

This was our first real track day with the car, so we ran into some unexpected issues throughout the weekend(fuel starvation in sweepers and something in our tranny let loose at the end of the day). We still managed to get the car out on track for some seat time, we just weren't able to give it 100%. We still had an awesome time and we have some big plans for the CRX coming, we cant wait to get it back out on track!

01/14/12 2012 PBOC Winterfest - Sebring International Raceway
http://vimeo.com/36309817 http://vimeo.com/36084667 Our first time ever driving the car, we placed 8th of 50 at a Porsche vs. BMW Auto-X Event. We were continually running faster times, but ran out of track time. After watching the videos, I can see tons of mistakes and areas I could have easily shaved off much more time, however I felt the car performed well for its first shake-down event.

12/18/11 Zephyrhills, FL Porsche vs. BMW Auto-X
BrakesPros.com K20 CRX Side Cam
BrakesPros.com K20 CRX Roof Cam
BrakesPros.com K20 CRX Bumper Cam
BrakesPros.com K20 CRX In-Car Cam

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Why use the CRX as our platform?

This CRX actually belongs to a good friend of mine, Chris Falso, who has been slowly building the car up over the last couple years. Chris has had his eyes on this particular CRX for quite a long time, dating back to when it was a full prepped drag car raced by Mike Yonke, with huge slicks, roll cage, traction bars and the whole nine yards! Chris watched the car go through several owners, including one our best friends, Steven. Steven started prepping the car for a K series swap, but had to let the car go to pay for his college. Chris saw this as his last oppurtunity to make this car his own, and purchased the car from Steven. Once the car was in Chris's posession, he kept the car on the path for a K Series conversion. He already had a k swap and most of the parts from his Integra project. He sold the Integra shell after swapping over most of the suspension components and the engine over to the CRX.

The build was slowly completed over the course of about 1-1/2 years as Chris was in and out of the hospital most of that time, but that didnt stop him from working on the CRX when he could. Chris had some good friends helping him along the way, including Steven, who he bought the car from, Dustan, Matt and several others along the way. Chris always says he could not have done it without the help from his friends. Once the build was pretty much complete, he took it over to Matts shop in Tampa, FL "Strictly MT". Matt has a lot of experience with K Series, specifically into the EF chassis which most people shy away from, and has been a Honda tuner for quite some time now. Not long after the car was dropped off, Matt had it running on a base map and Chris was able to drive the car home!

Shortly thereafter, myself and Chris were talking about his build and what his plans were for the CRX. Chris had always joked that he brought this car home for me to race on the road course..I never believed him and took it as a joke. A few weeks later, I was in the Tampa area on a detailing trip, and decided to meet Chris and check out the car, and hopefully get to drive it! It would be the first K-Series car I had driven and in a CRX no less! When I arrived, Chris pulled the car out for me and let me take it for a spin. I made a few passes down US-19 and was grinning ear to ear, who wouldnt be?!? The car ran well, but I could tell there was something amiss with the tune and that it would need to be fully dyno tuned before we could ever get it on a real track. A week or so passes and I was talking about the car with my boss, the owner of TruckXL, Inc, which also owns BrakesPros.com. We had been talking about building a race car for quite a while to represent our brand, but never made the push. After our conversation, he told me to put together a proposal and we decided to offer the idea to Chris to campaign his car and have it sponsored by our company with myself as the driver. I asked Chris several times if he really wanted to do it, as it was almost too good to be true, but he kept saying yes and that he only trusted me to drive his car in this fashion. Chris has been very generous and although he isnt able to drive it as much as he would like, he still enjoys getting to work on the car with us and watching it rip around the road course!

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Engine:



K20Z1 / Factory Transmission (6Spd 4.7FD)
* Hasport EFK1 Motor Mounts
* Skunk2 Pro Series Intake Manifold
* Skunk2 Pro Series 74mm Throttle Body
* Hondata Intake Manifold Gasket
* Battleground 4-1 Header
* LHT Custom 3" Cold Air Intake
* LHT Custom "shorty" Exhaust
* K-Tuned AC/PS Delete
* K-Tuned Fuel Rail & Center Mount Gauge Kit
* K-Tuned Billet TPS
* K-Tuned Fuel Pressure Regulator
* Hybrid-Racing Wiring Harness
* Hondata K-Pro (Runs primarily on E85)

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Chassis:



* Integra Front and Rear Disc Brakes
* Earls Stainless Steel Brake Lines
* D2 Racing 32-Way Adjustable Coil-Overs
* 10 Gallon Race Fuel Cell
* Aeromotive A750 Fuel Pump
* K-Tuned Traction Bars
* EG/DC 1/2 Size Radiator
* Fal Thin Electric Fan
* Revo Technica Front and Rear Camber Kit
* Complete Energy Suspension Bushing Set
* Hawk Quiet Slot Brake Rotors
* Hawk HT-10 Racing Brake Pads
* Motul RBF-600 Brake Fluid
* 15x7 Drag DR-21
* 205/50/15 Falken Azenis RT-615K
* Siebon Carbon Fiber Hood W/ Hood Pins

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Interior:

* Welded Roll Bar
* Corbeau Forza 2 Racing Bucket(x2)
* Corbeau Factory Seat Rails(x2)
* RCI 5-Point Racing Harness(x2)
* Autometer Phantom II Tachometer W/ Shift Light
* Autometer Phantom II Oil Pressure Guage
* Autometer Phantom II Water Temp Gauge
* Autometer Phantom II Volt Meter Gauge
* ProSport Wideband Gauge
* RSX-S Shifter
* K-Tuned Shifter Base Plate

BrakesPros

Chris slowly built this car over the course of the last 2 years. During this time, he was in and out of the hospital most of that time due to an illness, however that still didnt stop him from pursuing his dream track build. He spent countless hours working on the car from getting the chassis ready to accept the K-swap to all the other miscellaneous details that come along with a project like this. Chris put all of his time and effort into this build, and it shows! We are extremely grateful to Chris for letting us take his most prized possession and turn the car into a full time track car representing our company BrakesPros.com!


K20Z1 Long Block before it went in the car.



Getting the CRX ready for the K Swap.



K swap almost complete, K-tuned traction bars installed and test fitting radiator(the fan was reversed from this picture since taken).






Hood shuts!






Chris then went on to build a custom gauge cluster using the factory center console using Autometer guages.






Corbeau Forza2 Seat waiting to be installed.



Steven installing the Integra rear brake assemblies and D2 Racing Coil-Overs.



Complete. All new brakes will be installed later, obviously!



Rear Lower Control Arms Installed.



Fuel Cell to be installed.



Installed with return line and roll-over vent.






How the car sat when we picked the car up from Chris!

BrakesPros

The first thing we needed for our CRX was a fresh set of rubber. We needed to get the proper wheels and tires on the car before we could move any further with our build. We opted for the new Falken Azenis RT-615K's after having good experiences with the original RT-615 tire in the past. Eventually we may end up running full race slicks, but we wanted to make sure we get all of the bugs out the car before going with a full slick. I have never raced on a slick tire or driven a CRX prior to this one, so I decided to take things slow and get comfortable with the car before learning everything all at once.


Read more about our experience at Advance Performance on our blog. Brakes Pros Blog


After picking up the car from his house, Chris helped me unload the CRX from our trailer at Advance Performance.






Falken Azenis RT-615K in 205/50/15 should keep our CRX on the track.





All four wheels removed, ready for some fresh rubber to be installed.








Back on the ground, car looks great sitting on the fresh Azenis! Note: Fuel setup has since been changed from this configuration. :scared:






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Read more about our experience at Advance Performance on our blog. Brakes Pros Blog


After having our Falken Azenis mounted and balanced, our next stop for our CRX was at Cars & Concepts for a race alignment. Chris had already done some work in the suspension area of this car. He already had Energy Suspension PolyUrethane Bushings installed throughout most of the car, D2 Racing 36 Way damper and rebound adjustable monotube coilover system, D2 Racing Lower Control Arms and Acura Integra brakes front and rear(we will get more into that shortly).


Once we arrived at Cars And Concepts, they put the car up on the lift to give the car a good inspection. Their attention to detail was also quite phenomenal, they quickly pointed out several possible issues with our car that needed to be looked at. A couple things to name were one of the rear trailing arm bushings showing some signs of wear, which we intend to replace with either a Energy component or a spherical type. They also pointed out that we had a sticking front brake caliper which we hadnt noticed just driving the car around the block, more on that to come later as well. Last but not least, we had very slight play in on of our tie-rods, but nothing too serious. It was a great experience bringing our car to these high level shops, we learned something new at each one to make our car safer help get our CRX ready to race.


Inspecting the CRX.



Checking Tie-Rod Ends.






And our D2 racing LCA’s and coilovers.



After they finished their initial inspection, we decided to lower the car approximately an inch on 3 of the 4 corners. Initially, we wanted to have the car corner balanced, but we were strapped on time trying to make our tuning session later that day, so we decided that we would do it next time around. Although we decided not to have the car corner balanced, we still need to lower the car and level it out. After some discussion of the direction we wanted to go with the car, we agreed to lower it to 23″ from floor to fender arch on all four corners.






Locking in the coilover adjustments with the coilover wrenches.



After we set the ride height, we moved the car over to the alignment rack.












Once the car was back on the ground for the final time, we immediately noticed that the fenders were going to need to be rolled in order for our tires to clear without interference from the fenders. We decided to call up Bobby at S&R Performance in Tampa, FL and luckily he had a fender rolling tool on hand and generously let us borrow it even though it was already after 7pm. After a quick spin in the car through the industrial park to make sure everything checked out from the alignment, we loaded the car back into the trailer and hauled it over to SR Performance where we rolled the fenders to make clearance for our new tires and stance.



Fender Rolling Tool Attached to Hub.



As your can see here, we have about 1/4″- 1/2″ of sheet metal that needed to be rolled to clear our tires.



After slowly working the metal with the roller and heat gun making sure not to crack the paint, we have a nicely rolled fender! We may end up pulling them in the future if we decide to run 225′s on the car, but we have more than enough clearance for the 205′s as it sits.

Alswizzo

Awesome build! keep us posted..

The Fast Acura

nice build man, met you at matts shop when the car was there!

BrakesPros

Thanks, you probably met Chris, the owner of the car. I am Chris's friend who is racing the car with the sponsor company brakespros.com.

Mr do work

WOW!! this is a sick Honda Crx I like the color and wheels on it too

Paulino

Saw this build on h-t...really wondering why you guys went with the dr-21's instead of the authentic enkei RPF1's? RPF1's are known for their lightness at just under 10 lbs each for the 15 x 7 series. Anywho, simple but ample build for what it is..

BrakesPros

The wheels were already on the car, we had other things to work on that took higher priority, however new wheels and R compounds are definitely in order. Most likely going to go with some 949 Racing 15x8 with 225s on all four corners.

BrakesPros

Performance Brakes are one of the best and least expensive modifications you can do to increase the overall performance of your vehicle. Having good success with Hawk Performance Brakes in the past, we opted for the new Hawk Quiet Slot Rotors paired up with Hawk HT-10 Racing Brake Pads for the front and Hawk HP Plus Brake Pads for the rear. We chose this combination because we didnt want the initial bite to be too harsh under braking since our car is so light, yet it is still capable of handling the heat we will be putting them under. Our CRX was already equipped with DC2 Integra brakes front and rear, which will provide more than enough braking force to help bring our CRX down to safe speeds, especially once equipped with the Hawk Brakes.

It seems as if we always end up working into the late hours of the night on this car, and this night was no exception. Since we only work on the car after work hours, we normally dont get started until 6 or 7pm. We were scheduled to have the car dyno tuned the next morning by Alpha at Induction Performance, so we wanted to make sure our brakes were in good working order and that our motor had fresh oil and spark plugs for the tuning session. A simple brake job and engine tune-up is easy and shouldnt take us any time at all right? Wrong. Once we had all of the brakes installed, we found that the we had a "stuck" front passenger caliper and it was now showing its face with the new thicker brake pads. Even without the brakes being applied, the car would stop itself, almost like the e-brake was still on. Luckily, we had some spare parts, and just happened to have a set of Integra front brakes sitting at the house not being used. After we picked up the spare brake caliper, it was a fairly quick change out and the brakes felt good again, so we proceeded to flush the brake lines with Motul RBF600 Brake Fluid to keep up with the temps our brakes will see on the track. Even though we were in a private-owned industrial area, still I am sure the surrounding neighbors thought kindly of us for bedding in the brakes at 1am!

Read more about our experience on our blog! Brakes Pros Blog

Tyler began with the rear brakes while I degreased and washed the wheels to make the car more presentable.



Our new Hawk Quiet Slot Rotors with Hawk HP Plus Performance Pads Installed in the rear.



Once the rears were done, Tyler removed the front wheels and cleaned them while I worked on installing the new front brakes.






Fitting the new Hawk HT-10 Racing Pads into the front caliper.






Front brake installation complete.






After we installed the brakes, we changed out the spark plugs for a fresh set of NGK Laser Iridiums and we changed the oil and oil filter with Mobil 1.















Rotors Used For 94-01 Acura Integra Brake Upgrade:
Front PN#: Hawk Quiet Slot Rotors HUS522
Rear PN#: Hawk Quiet Slot Rotors HUS308


Brake Pads Used For 94-01 Acura Integra Brake Upgrade:
Front PN#: Hawk HT-10 Racing Brake Pads HB245S.631
Rear PN#: Hawk HP Plus Brake Pads HB350N.496


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Our CRX already had a basemap on it using Hondata KPro, which when I drove the car for the first time with Chris, ran really well. By the time we were able to get the car to the dyno at Induction Performance, we had a pretty bad misfire and we were barely able to pull the car in and out of our trailer under its own power. We didnt know exactly what was wrong, we already changed the spark plugs, which would help but only for a few minutes. We knew we needed a complete tune to get the car running right. Having known Alpha for a few years, we decided to bring our CRX to his shop, Induction Performance, to have the car dyno tuned. After Alpha got the base tune down on the car, he started making some full throttle pulls and we could tell he wasnt getting the results he was looking for. Alpha explained to us that he was throwing as much fuel at the car as he possibly could through Kpro and that our injectors were almost static(100% duty) and our AF ratio was still only reading high 12's. We were all kind of scratching our heads, knowing the engine was stock, there was no way it could be running out of fuel on the stock injectors already. We tried calling some local shops to see if we could find some injectors for our K-Series, but we had no luck. We had an Auto-X coming up in just a couple days, so Alpha was able to tune the car to get by for the time being, our final Air/Fuel ratio at WOT was 12.8:1 with our injectors nearly 100% maxed out, not optimal, but still in the safe zone. After the tune, we could immediately notice the car ran much smoother, but it didnt like low rpms as it would stutter and cause you to clutch in to avoid having the car buck. To get past this, you just had to throttle it up again and it was fine under WOT. Alpha suggested we get new injectors, so we ordered a set of Injector Dynamics ID-725's for our K20. Slightly overkill for our project, however we will be running E85(which uses more fuel) once we get re-tuned and if we ever decide to go higher compression or add cams, we will still have plenty of fuel left without having to buy new injectors again.

At the end of the day we only made 193whp, which is WAY low on power for the mods we had. Besides the injectors, we had a couple other things that may have contributed to our car not making power though. For one, we had no intake on the car since we needed to have one custom built and we ran out of time before the dyno day. We were also running open header, which is not too big a deal, but from talking to some friends of ours(shout out to Matt Mansfield at StrictlyMT!), a short pipe with a dump would gain us a couple WHP along with the intake. We have some exciting updates on both of these issues that I will come back to later. We will be going back to Alpha with the new ID725cc injectors, custom cold air intake and a custom exhaust on our CRX in the near future, we are excited to see what we can get out of it with these additional modifications on top of the E85!

Once we got the car back home, we were getting the car ready for the Auto-x weekend, we decided to throw in some stock k-series injectors from our friend Tylers car. We had a strong suspicion the injectors were bad in our car, so we decided we had nothing to loose. Once we fired up the car again, I could immediately notice the difference, the car ran amazingly smooth and all the stuttering was no longer present. I decided to take the car around the block to see how it ran, to my surprise, the car now ran at a solid 10:1 Air/Fuel ratio at WOT! This was good news and we no longer had to worry about the car running lean for our auto-x event, we would just run these injectors for the weekend until we take the car back to be re-tuned.

K20 Honda CRX Dyno Tuning at Induction Performance - YouTube

Read more about our experience on our blog! Brakes Pros Blog