Canyon monkeys and handling junkies beware. Your obsession with car control has a price. In the case of Mark Mozaffarian, owner of this '90 CRX Si, the price is more than 10 times what he got into this with. Not that he's complaining. His purpose-built track toy exceeds expectations.
"It's awesome for a front-wheel drive," Mozaffarian says. "I have an S2000 that I also take out on the track. The CRX will just kick that thing's butt."
Mozaffarian's got the classic story. Bought the car for $2,500 three years ago from an old lady who'd kept the car garaged. "Super clean, good condition," he says. A few dings gathered here and there in its 15 years, erased by Myke Toldeo at Dent Time in San Diego, and 180,000 miles on the D16Y6 native engine, but otherwise a cherry.
Mozaffarian knows what he's looking for in a Honda. This is the 14th he's owned and was originally used for daily commuting duties. After a close call on a motorcycle, he decided to fix up the CRX a little bit and-like another classic scenario-one thing led to another. Soon Mozaffarian found himself deep into a full-on track car buildup.
He first took the car to Auto Sports Concepts (ASC) in Lakeside (near San Diego) for a roll cage, which led to custom lower control arms, the elimination of actory suspension bushings and heim joints all around.
"Everything's all handmade, all custom, one-off chromoly," Mark says. "[ASC] does dune buggies. It's amazing what kind of stuff you can take from sand rails and put on a street car."
The suspension build didn't go without its snags, however. Up front, the JIC shocks were bottoming out. ASC had to build drop forks up front to allow an additional 1.5 inches lowering without losing shock travel.
With the suspension sorted out, Mozaffarian turned his attention to building an engine reliable enough to withstand 30 minutes of sustained effort at 8000-9000 rpm. And for that, he turned largely to the Honda parts shelf.
"Basically I wanted to make a real reliable motor. This is the second motor I've been through and I started seeing that it isn't all about making horsepower. It's all about reliability. I went with Honda parts because they're pretty much reliable and went with the aftermarket where necessary. [This motor] is basically built for longevity-all the AN fittings, the double race braid ... "
The GS-R block was first sent to Hop Sing Machine, who performed a 40 overbore, balanced the block to 10,000 rpm, balanced the rods and micropolished the crank. The head went to Port Flow where it was ported and polished, and the Skunk2 intake manifold port-matched to the head. Finally, Mozaffarian's friend Jeffro Oleksow assembled the motor, dropping in B16A pistons for a small bump in compression.
Putting down that power is a Civic Type-R transmission cocooning a Quaife auto-torque biasing limited-slip, with '89 Integra axles at both ends.
"The '91 [axles] tend to bind for some reason," Mark explains. "You hit the gas and the car would violently shake. I went with the 89s and haven't had any problems yet."
The same can't be said for a set of aftermarket oil pans Mozaffarian first used which ultimately led to the demise of his first motor and a switch back to the Honda factory counterparts. Mark explains that the way the trap doors on the aftermarket pans trapped oil in a way that starved the rod bearings during hard cornering and led to the engine's seizure. He notes that he tried two oil pans from the same company, both of which arrived warped.
"I went back to O.E. and haven't had a problem since."
Factory parts that aspiring road racers might want to ditch, however, are the hoses in the cooling system. During extended open track sessions, Mozaffarian found the CRX was prone to overheating, hence the Earl's double-braided hoses and fittings. He says the stock water pump also started cavitating, the main reason he switched over to a Meziere electric pump, distributed by AEBS (yep, the same guys who sleeve blocks).
The water pump isn't legal for the Honda Challenge H1 Class, where Mozaffarian thought about competing next year. "But the pump works so good, I'm not really willing to take it off. They'll put me in Unlimited."