December 31st, 2020 - Hindsight is "2020" - A Year In Review For Project Mugen PRO.2 CR-X EF8 SiR
I'm so thankful that this year is almost over... I know that there haven't been many posts this year; I apologize for that -- there hasn't been much happening with regards to my build specifically, and to be honest, I haven't felt very motivated to work on the car this year. I've mostly been concentrating on the periphery and pushing the pause button on the project for yet another season.
All this being said, it was a rather productive year in these other areas, despite all the challenges of the pandemic and the restrictions put in place.
I picked up a barcode reader for $30 from Kijiji (think: Canadian Craigslist). This way I could complete my inventory of new Honda parts more quickly and easily. You may be thinking "How many parts do you have that you think you need a barcode reader to scan them all?"
As I've stated on here before, I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so I also picked up a "Baby Yoda" for the passenger's seat and bought a chrome shift knob for him to play with. With the helmet for the Mandalorian being released next summer, I think they will go well together and maybe bring some excitement to kids' faces.
Being that we are in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic with no end in sight for at least another 6-8 months, my wife and I gave out masks to one another and to family as Christmas stocking stuffers this year. She asked if I knew of any Honda or CR-X ones I'd want. I decided to check into custom mask designs and found the Vistaprint site would allow you to submit your own logo designs for masks. Other than the color of the one mask turning out more brown than red, I think they look great and quite unique.
Seeing a need, I started the Facebook group CRX Canada. I'd never started a Facebook group before, and was surprised at how quickly it picked up members, and how many people agreed that this was overdue and needed. Now I just need to figure out how to keep it "alive" with posts. I'm not much of a "social media influencer" haha.
Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.
Garage Setup, Inventory and Misc
The security camera I installed at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 has been working fantastic, and it's brought a lot of peace of mind when it comes to checking whether I remembered to close the garage door or checking out those things that go bump in the night. For the price, I've been really quite pleased with it.
I'm planning on some other improvements to the security in the garage in the coming year and also some improvements in the way I store the CR-X. Stay tuned.
In March, when the COVID-19 crisis began really taking hold in North America, and cities all over Canada started shutting down businesses and imposing restrictions, I decided that if this were to drag on into the summer, I should take the initiative and prepare some ways to pass the time.
One of the first things I thought I should complete would be another inventory on my parts. I had been planning to do an inventory on my spare CR-X parts in the summer of 2017, and then I got sick. The summer after, I was catching up on all the things I wasn't able to do in the previous two years when I wasn't feeling well.
The answer: "A lot".
I tried doing an inventory years ago with an app on my phone and it was... unpleasant. While it wasn't very fast, the barcode reader app did make quick work of even the most difficult boxes of parts, or at least quicker than writing all the numbers by hand. And it was more accurate and more efficient too. By purchasing a real scanner, the hope is to cut that time by half, at least. Now, having a computer in the garage with Excel installed on it was a big, big plus. When I was using the app years ago I had no computer in my garage. I had to scan all of the parts into Google Docs and then copy/paste them into a spreadsheet, and the formatting wasn't good. For some reason each part wasn't in its own cell in the spreadsheet -- suffice it to say, it was a real pain in the ass.
So, anyways, I picked up the barcode reader from Kijiji this Spring during the beginning of the Covid shutdowns, and I "quarantined" it in my garage for a couple weeks while I cleaned up a bit of clutter from the winter, and set up the computer again after I'd brought it inside for a Windows 10 upgrade over the 2019 fall/winter months.
During the last inventory, I took the opportunity to organize my parts bins, and luckily they're still fairly organized for the most part. The smaller pieces are in some plastic totes I got from Home Depot that I labelled according to first number of the Honda part number. Some of the larger trim like the roof and belt moldings are in larger totes, and body pieces like the hood, quarter panels and fenders are on their own in the Honda boxes.
I continued to work on my garage set up and re-organization this year. I took some more parts to storage with the help of a rented van. The quarter panels, glass top panel and the hood were just too large for the CR-V or the Highlander to handle.
With the summer months came the bees... I noticed that there were a couple bees in my garage in the early spring. No big deal, they must be just exploring the neighborhood - as bees do - and gotten trapped in the garage. As time went on I kept finding them. Then I found baby bees and I started to get concerned about a hive nearby, but they weren't bothering me, and I have a motto of live and let live.
Around July, they started to get aggressive, head butting me and flying at me whenever I went out to do inventory or work on my car. That's when I decided that something had to be done. I had a beekeeper out to see if there was something we could do to move them but she had a theory they may have a diseased hive since this type of bee isn't normally aggressive but she was stung twice within the first minute or two of arriving. I ended up calling a pest control company to euthanize them.
While not being allowed into my garage for a week and a half, first by bees, then by the spray used to get rid of them, I wanted to keep all of the momentum I'd built up while doing inventory, so I figured it would be a good idea to finally get around to organizing my receipts to calculate approximately how much I've spent on the CR-X to date in preparation for my next appraisal. I began scanning all of my receipts and organizing them going back to about 2002. I've been adding the invoice number, vendor and price paid to all of the parts in the spreadsheet. It's a lot of work but I think it will eventually make my appraisals a lot easier to maintain as well.
For Christmas this year, my wife bought me a replacement for the 17" monitor I've been using in the garage. She bought me a second-hand 32" LED TV to hang above my workbench. This larger screen will help me when I'm doing inventory of my parts, or watching hockey games in the spring while working on my car. Gratuitous, yes, but after buying the TV, cable, and mount we will be all-in for $100. We could spend close to that on a take-out meal with delivery and tip.
Parts Purchased
In this post from last August, I mentioned that in order to finalize the fitment of the Mugen Pro.2 rear bumper, I would need to sort out the rear license plate issues with the wider Japanese license plate holes versus the Canadian/North American plates.
On the OEM Honda rear bumper, I was able to attach the longer North American license plate brackets, and by rotating the JDM plate holder bracket upwards, I could use the Canadian license plate without issues. On the Mugen bumper, this is no longer an option as the width of the mounting holes for the JDM plate brackets is too wide.
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| Longer North American License Plate Brackets (Note the bolt/nut for the HM License plate seal on the right side) |
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| The Lower JDM Brackets on the Mugen PRO.2 Bumper |
While surfing Facebook one evening, I found a For Sale post for a JDM Honda dealer showroom plate and the seller was offering a Blox JDM license plate adapter. I didn't know companies were making these, but it made sense that some would/should. I found a lot of companies 3D printing them but I opted for the Blox brackets because they are made out of metal and the design, I thought, offered me the best option to still be able to attach my replica license plate seal, which required that I drill out the threads on one of the North American license plate brackets.
One of the other challenges I had with the Mugen Pro.2 bumper was that it is longer, so using the stock rear exhaust hanger causes the Tanabe exhaust to be too close to the bumper and the bolt for the bumper beam. I managed to find an exhaust hanger on Amazon that should allow me to adjust the "hang" of the exhaust and give some additional clearance for the bumper.
I've also been collecting some CRX memorabilia, car show props and toys. I've been working on some custom builds of the Hot Wheels '88 CR-X release. I've made some Christmas tree ornaments with them, and have painted on some details and swapped wheels mostly. I found some 3D printed 1/64 scale MR5s to customize them with. I was pleasantly surprised with the level of detail in the wheels, considering how small they are. Painted with even a basic rattle can job, they look like the real thing. I imagine someone with an airbrush and some real talent could make them look even better.
I found some CR-X brochures and some magazine ads in Japan that I bought, as well as some Tomica Honda dealership playset showcase turntables to work on and display some of my custom 1/64 scale builds. I'd like to eventually add some LED lights to them to really make them pop.
Some day, when Covid is more under control, I hope to attend some shows around Southern Alberta with my car, and have been stocking up on different prop combinations to display. I already have a stuffed Asimo, Domokun and Dampachi mascot for the interior. I also have several different CR-X die cast cars to display, as well as some model kits and brochures. This year, I added the Hobby Japan 1/64 scale EF8 die cast, a stuffed NOS bottle pillow, and some Japanese coins for the coin box/personal box.
What's Next For 2021...
The forums have all disappeared in favor of Facebook Groups and Instagram, and after some searching, I discovered that there were no specific groups on Facebook for Canadian CRX owners.
I had questions about insurance for my car, so those questions would be very specific to Canada and would obviously best posed to other Canadians for their input instead of posting in a US or UK-based CRX group. Now, sure, I could post in the regional groups but I'd have to post in the BC CRX Community, Alberta CRX, CRX Ontario, CRX Quebec and Maritime CRX Owners groups.
Hell, I don't even think people read this, sometimes I think all of my "Views" are probably bots crawling this page.
I'm going to work on that in 2021.
So, the question I wanted to ask my fellow Canadian CRX owners, was whether anyone was able to successfully insure their car with Hagerty insurance. I saw a Facebook post about someone in the USA who was using them for their insurance, and after my experience with them in 2014 I was skeptical, so one of the first posts I made in the new CRX Canada Facebook group was about Hagerty insurance. Sure enough, some people were able to insure with them.
I called my broker and discovered that by switching to Hagerty, I wouldn't need another appraisal this year (saving $200-$300 and a lot of work assembling the documentation), and I could insure for about $350/yr. All they needed were some current photos of it. Since I never miss an opportunity to take more pictures of my car I went ahead and cleaned her up a little and took some glamour shots.
After giving it some thought and sleeping on it, I decided to wait until Spring 2021 before I proceeded with it. It was already late in the season (August), kids were soon heading back to school and I figured that more Covid restrictions were coming shortly after. Plus I really didn't want my insurance to renew at the end of a driving season. I've waited this long, another few months won't hurt.
I'm planning for March 1st to have my CR-X back on the road (if all goes well)!
I'd like to take some rolling video with the GoPro in 2021 so I can work on some YouTube videos. I've had the software purchased for about 4 years now, and I created enough audio for four videos; it's all just sitting on my hard drive waiting for the video content to go with them. It will be exciting to finally film and edit it all together.
I'm also hoping to get the ViS Mugen Pro.2 replica drilled and mounted to the CR-X. It won't go in for paint until Fall 2021 or Spring 2022, but I'd really like to get that installed. I've had that unpainted OEM front bumper for 15 years, and have had the ViS bumper for 11 years. It's time.
After the front/rear bumpers, I go back and forth between some audio upgrades or finishing the exhaust upgrades with a Fujitsubo Super EX header.
We will have to wait and see I suppose. I'm really hoping that 2021 is a better year all the way around.
Some Additional Glamour Shots for Hagerty
Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.
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