Honda Reliability Tips? (Page 1 of 2)

Throw some metal shavings in the oil filler tube. Lube your front suspension, but put plenty of sand in the new grease. Splice every electrical wire in the car with a crimp connector.
Now you'll be on par with the British cars.

extra head gaskets...& get really fast at changing them

Rod stress is directly related to RPM.....so you need to find the best compromise between HP-RPM-engine life....

For example..our 928 has well known oil starvation issues....especially at higher RPM's....our solution....LUG THE ENGINE....redline is 6200rpm...we NEVER go over 5500 & never about 3500 in the turns....granted that is easier to do with a V8 than a CRX..but you get the idea....

making the car super light is always a good idea too

Get this stuff - steelseal. I used it to fix a 2.4 Chrysler Sebring with a bad head gasket.

Our 1989 Prelude with 240,000+ on the clock finished 5th at the last CMP race.  Yep, Hondas suck.

How many cars blow head gaskets w/o first overheating?  Overheating = warped head = blown head gasket.  Sure there are other factors involved, but generally speaking overheating is the biggest one.

FWIW, in 95F+ degree heat at CMP last fall our Honda never ran over 195F.  On the caution laps it was actually running like 175F...w/o the fans.

Moral of the story: Make sure your cooling system is up to the task and your Honda will last a lot longer.

You don't need an oil cooler so long as you don't run horse piss for oil.

Keep the car cool by letting her breathe

Keep the revs down to a reasonable point (don't beat on the limiter) and take your radiator to a shop and have them clean it for $5

We have 1,400+ TRACK miles on our Prelude (which has a HORRIBLE reputation of being a POS, especially the motor) and cooling has never been a problem.

$7 at Lowe's Racing Supply

running good oil is ALWAYS a good idea.....an NO mobil one is NOT good oil

Kielbasa Kids have a win with a Civic sedan.....a CRX can be a contender

I've got 2 hondas we race 89 crx and 88 4dr civic .
the 4dr has 7 races on it witha 6th place finish .motor died first race so I put a D16z6 and raced 6 races w/o engine issues revving at 6000 all the time .I run AMSOIL in motor and trans .
Th crx had 300k on it and finally after 4 races the d15 with dpfi added a new hole in block for oil drainage . We found anothe D16z6 and its first race will be SEARS POINTLESS it was super fast track times before with 90 hp so the 125 should help out a bit .

Here is the way I have kept mine together  go to parts store or wrecking yard and get a 89-91 acura integra radiator from an automatic with a/c its a 2 row take cap off and look inside you can see the 2 rows. bolts right in car . Also throw extra fan on front opposite side of stock one and no more heat issues with my cars .

Another weak link is the clutch try not to down shift to slow down use the brakes . 92-98 rear discs off integras and civics bolt on the whole trrailing arm.before installing those change the center bushing to Energy suspension Poly and never have to worry . Also go to wrecking yard and get a few of the little upper control ar that is like 8 inch long  any little hit will bend them .

For suspension CRX don't need rear sway bars as long as its low buy a cheap set of Ebay Coilovers and throw those in car and your dialed .

As for tires get 14" steelies with the Falken Azenis 615  195/60r 14  don't go with real low pro tires like 17 with 40 they are heavy and compared to 14  and sidewall don't like off course excursions.

Give me a call I'm in Ca. 8am-8pm 925-382-1058 we can BS some more.

Racing a Honda product is sort of an all-or-nothing gamble. If it breaks, it will most likely be something that takes a long time to fix. If it doesn't break, it will be pretty fun to drive.

Wow, thanks to everyone for the awesome response!  Now I just have to talk my teammates into some of this stuff.

"Unraceable" was a bit of hyperbole on my part.  Plus I'm pretty sure it's not a word.  But there is a mention on the links page of CRX's being unable to finish the race and Judge Phil/Murilee put them on the list of over-rated Lemons cars.

For my part I wanted to get a fox-body LTD II and get as cheaty as possible with a junkyard 302 but no one ever listens to my dark machinations.