Hi,

Someone has offered me a Honda CRX with a busted engine really cheap. I'm wondering if it would be possible to swap a 13b in there.

Anyone ever tried this before?

 

i don't think there is enough space under the hood man.

If it is even possible it would have to be an NA 13b from a 2nd gen or somethin

 

You'd have to replace basically the floor and the suspension and steering. The car is all wrong to be RWD.

Easiest way (as detailed into the Integra thread) is to make a tube frame chassis and attach the CRX outer body panels to that.

 

The Honda engines spin backwards compared to pretty much everyone else. So no using the FWD tranny either.

 

i dont like any crx of any kind dont insult a rotary by putting it in such a poor excuse of a car

 

Well I would have only swapped the engine, keep it FWD. But then it should be possible to somehow match the 13B up to the tranny. I know from my Delorean that they just changed the final drive to get it run the other way (Delorean PRV engine is mounted backwards:-).

I'm not sure about the space, 13b isn't that big is it?

Airn, indeed, but if I have a broken one sitting in my backyard anyways and I have access to a rotary engine that isn't being used, then it would be fun to try.

Then again it will probably be stripped for parts and end up at the junk yard. :-)

 

This has already been done. A guy from (PR) AP Engineering about 2-3years ago had a CRX w/ 2 rotor turbo and was the first "Honda to ever run 9's"....Turbo mag had an writeup about it, of course all the Honda lovers decided that it wasn't a Honda with a rotary engine and RWD. I say, so what, it was a good idea and it worked. CRX's are light little cars and if it gets the job done more power to ya. The Puerto Rican's have some of the best ideas I've ever seen and they have some crazy fast little J-cars with rotaries.....

 

You CANNOT ATTACH ANYTHING BUT HONDA ENGINES TO HONDA TRANNIES BECAUSE THEY SPIN BACKWARDS.

 

Peejay,

Yeah I get the point, You can't have the rotary run backwards.. Fire, add gas, exhaust gas, fire... nah won't run:-(((

Wish there was some way to have the tranny accept running reverse. The tranny on my Delorean does it, but Peugeot isn't Honda.. And thats only cause the engine is front to back, so internally it all runs the same way its ment to.... In this case everything runs reverse... Not sure what that does to a tranny's gears.. And there is still that reversing the final drive, else I end up with 5 speed reverse and 1 speed forward.. very nice indeed...

Doing a complete FWD to RWD conversion is way behond my capabilities both financial and skillwise. Guess I can scrap that idea.

Anyone got any more ideas to get this issue resolved? Else this idea goes onto the large 'bad ideas' container aka dustbin.

Greetz,

Bas Olij

 

You can't run trannies backwards, well you can but they do not last very long.

 

Maybe he ought to look for a Wankel engine. They spin backwards compared to Mazda rotary engines. I couldn't even begin to tell you where to get one though.

 

He Jeff,

You mean the old ones used in NSUs and Citroen?


Well they should be 'easier' to find this side of the ocean , but it will be very hard to find parts for them and they are alot worse then the Mazda ones anyways. Not sure I wanne go that route....

Greetz,

Bastiaan Olij

 

Not exactly. I'm talking about a very recent engine made by the company Wankel. I saw it at Atkins' shop back in summer of '00. The carb was at the bottom and some sort of header was at the top. I think it only had one plug per rotor. Anyway, this engine looked like it spun backwards compared to the Mazda rotary. I have no idea if Dave Still has it since I haven't been to his shop in a long time.

 

Just take a Mazda rotary, run the carb to the exhaust ports, make a header from the intake ports (hey, side port exhaust and peripheral port intake! ) rig up a method of running the oil pump backwards, and rewire a starter to turn backwards. Simple, right?

 

or...just don't bother

 

Well, sounds like that unless I find an alternative to the tranny (maybe swap it with something that fits and somehow does run the right direction), this indeed will go into the bin of bad ideas:-)

Thanks for the suggestions anyways guys!

 

Try going to Hondaswap.com and asking questions. They have answers for hondas, if you still care about a non-rotary crx....

 

Here we go:

Take the free CRX. Put some Yellow JDM Stickers on it (performance cubed) and sell it to some would be ricer. Take the money from the rice and buy a Toyota Starlet (small RWD hatchback that's 1700 pounds stock). Put some beefy rear end on there and drop the rotary in. The starlet is lighter and RWD while it maintains the same wheelbase as the CRX. It won't be as bling bling but will be a whole lot faster than a rotary CRX if that will even work without a gold mine backing.

Old Skool Toyota Saves The Day!

Will

 

Starlet? I've heard of them, but I've never actually seen one in person. Kinda like unicorns or Yeti.

 

hahahhaha that makes me laugh, rotary in a crx

 

peejay, you have got to be kidding me!! you are from the east coast and have never seen a Starlet?
OMG that is about all we have at my local track. i would say one out of every 3 cars is a starlet with a 13b of some sort...with a ford rear in it...
i did nto make it to atco today, but i am sure there were at LEAST 35 of them.

 

I dont think many made it to the Midwest. I've never seen one either.

 

I'm not from the east coast, I'm from Cleveland. Most people in the Midwest make their money directly or indirectly from the Big Three. Imports never really sold well here, and the ones that did tend to rust to nothingness after a few years because of the salt, usually before the car is paid off. I'm sure plenty of people bought imports when they came out, watched it dissolve after the first winter, then say "never again" heck the other say i saw a prelude SH with holes in the rear quarters so apparently Honda at least still hasn't figured out that we dump tons of salt on the roads in the winter. That or they don't care.

 

Hmm my sister had a starlet ones. Had a coolent leak and kept on running it, without any coolent! It just ran a little red. The little bugger even survived it. Miraculas cars My sis parked it against a pole a year later, well so be it.

Anyways, scrap the CRX idea. Its not worth the pain.

Greetz,

Bas

 

i guess that is the midwest.... i was just shocked and wasnt thinking when i typed that. i know you are a very intelgent guy, and assumed you have "seen" more...