Here ya go Kev!------
Project 'Blues Clues'
K-RX With a Twist!
Project Objective: To completely reconstruct and partially restore a Honda CRX, including the installation of a fully built K24 engine with ITB's. When finished, the car will be restored with all new dash and interior parts, new clips, trim, plastic, window trim, even some new body panels. The seats will be aftermarket Corbeau seats, with a few small aftermarket touches in the interior. The suspension will be completely worked over with all new components, including a poly bushing kit installation. Nothing on this car will go untouched in one way or another. Even the hood will be custom-made for this particular project. The car is not being built for the track, or for the street particularly. It is being built as a weekend driver/fun car, and will be built more with autocross in mind rather than drag racing.
-----------------------------------------------------
This project should eventually wind up being one of the most extensively restored and modified CRX's in the world. Thankfully, the owner of the car (Kevin Hockersmith aka Iceycrx over on HT) is a very passionate fan of the 2nd Gen CRXs. He first introduced the idea to us at ICON of doing this work during the last FL CRX Meet at Old Town.
The original idea was to do a repaint of the car, and some motor work... namely, the new and ever-so-powerful K-Series swap. We had discussed several different options for the motor, and in the end, it was decided that it would wind up being a fully built K24 with ITB's... Well, with the extensive motor work being done, we started looking at the rest of the car. Kevin really wanted the car to stand out, and look absolutely stunning! The original color of the car is a Teal green color. It was painted over by its original owner in a basic white color. Also, the interior had been painted using a roller rather than being nicely sprayed on. This led us to the decision to strip the entire car down, and repaint it in a brand new color!
Kevin brought the car into the shop, and the games began!
In no time flat, our tech Jason had the entire car stripped down, and almost ready for the fabrication work to begin. During this time however, we started noticing some small issues with the car. Nothing major, but things that would affect portions of the build. For instance, the car had been side-swiped in a past life. The drivers fender was an aftermarket piece, the door had been reskinned (poorly), and there was some bondo work on the rear 1/4. Nothing major, but just little things. Also, the white paint job that had previously been done to the outside of the car wasn't the greatest base to begin building a nice car from.
It was becoming painfully evident that the car needed much more work to come off as clean as the owner wanted. Everywhere we turned, we started seeing more and more things that were 'scary' to us....
The mounting location of the strut tower bar was beginning to rust nicely, and also it is a poor mounting point for a strut bar anyway since it is so flimsy... so this hole will have to be filled in, and made to look like it was never there
When the original owner decided to paint the car, they pulled the trim off the windows, but instead of buying new trim and doing it right, they just used silicone goo, and reattached it.
Another point of interest, was the spare tire well, where there was a fuel cell... also, under where the battery was, there was the beginnings of a cancerous area.
Another area of interest was in the rear hatch sill area. It looks like it may have rusted out in the past or something, but it was clear that there was a lot of bondo in that area. We'll find out shortly exactly what is going on in there
This was another fun area... it was being used as the vent for the gas tank, so it apparently had never really been opened much. But apparently when they painted it, they didn't bother to go in here and do anything.
The point of showing everything here, is that each of these items sort of came up and provided us with lots and lots of 'clues' as to its past owners... therefore, it is now affectionately referred to as 'Project Blues Clues'
After sitting down with Kevin, and going over these spots, and many other little things about the car, it was decided that only the most extreme of extremes had to be done to this car.... it was decided to media blast the entire thing!
This meant that the car had to be stripped down even farther than before. Every last thing, every last nut and bolt, all clips, EVERYTHING will have to come off the car in preparation for what was about to happen.
So, we went about the task of stripping it further:
Sometime around this point, we were looking at what needed to happen before it went in for paint. Part of the items we looked at were the roll cage. Initially, the car came in with a small bolt-in roll bar. Nothing wrong with that, except that it limited the use of the doors, and the panels had to be trimmed excessively to make it fit. Also, it was built for a right-hand-drive car, not a left-hand-drive car, so the harness attachment points were wrong (safe for the passenger though! haha!). Also, the attachement points to hte rear wheel wells were looking rather weak and non-structural:
So, we contacted the guys at MazWorX, who hooked us up with their latest Roll Bar setup with removable door bars. The car had to be transported over there, which was a LOT of fun. The car had no suspension, and no way to roll around. So, we loaded it up on my car dolly to get it ready for its trip across town.
WIP 
