Ok, I have enough money to spend a little on my CRX. I want to go with a set of chassis bushings and a front strut bar. Does this sound like a good autocross upgrade? I'm trying to get the worst of them out of the way first, hence the bushings.

A few other CRXers that autocross say that they felt a noticable improvement with the front strut bar, and a huge improvement with aftermarket bushings compared to the stock (and very old) rubber ones.

Now, I need some advice on brand names. There are three main brands of strut bars that I'm looking at, cuz of their reputation. Benen, Cusco, and Neuspeed. Does anyone have recommendations for any of those? They're all pretty close in price, so if anyoen has experience with em, let me know.

As for bushings, I've heard that the Energy Suspension Hyperflex kit actually has some fitting problems on the 88-91 CRX kits, so I'm a little leary. Anyone know of this? I've also looked at Performance Suspension Techniques (P-S-T), they have a more expensive set of chassis bushings that come with a pretty decent warranty. Anyone have advice? thanks!!!

 

I like the Nuespeed bars because they're all welded, no joints to allow flexing, but cusco also makes a nice bar.

As for the bushings, on the 88 CRX in particular [with the passive rear steering], several companies have had issues coming up with a bushing of the right hardness to avoid breaking them under hard use. I haven't heard of anyone having problems with this recently though, so the issue *may* be resolved.

 

If your car is stock I wouldn't do any mods except for the mod behind the wheel. Too many people think mods will make their car faster and better, but personally I think mods cover up bad driving habits and makes things more complicated for a newbie to autocross.

You have a newbie with a full decked out car, he/she will not know if time could have been made up here and there due to shock compression, shock rebound, sway bar stiffness, boost too high, boost too low, tie bar wasn't taught, not enough camber, too much camber, too much toe, not enough toe. Whereas a newbie with a stock car can just focus on driving and know that it wasn't the car slowing him down but the nut behind the wheel.

Save your money and use it for an Evolution School http://www.autocross.com/evolution I know I thought I was a good driver until I took the school and knocked another 2 seconds off my time on a 30 second course! $225 for 2 seconds, whereas a complete coilover system is around $1000 and that can usually only knock off .5-1 second the most on the same course.

 

I'll give a big:thumbup: on the neuspeed bar.

 

Also, I've talked to this guy quite a bit, he's done a fair share of autocrosses and knows what he wants the car to do, which is why I don't mind making suggestions on his planned mods.

 

the rear suspension setup on the 1988 only crxs were close to how it was setup on the ITRs (but on the crx it was called passive rear steering...allowing the rear end to swing out to turn the car better)

-if you swap out the rear lca to an 89 or newer crx (you can do this by just adding crx si rear discs) then you can use the whole hyperflex master kit designed for the 89-91s

-there are also PU rear trailing arm bushings ($120) from prothane as those units weaken over time

-another suspension mod are radius arm bearings up front to take out slop from those units too