“Fuel injected fun.”
For 1985, Honda put one of its hottest four-cylinder engines into its tiny CRX, creating the Si. Si stood for Sports, injected and the new EW3/4 engine was a multiport fuel injected version of the carburetted 1.5 liter/91 ci engine that had been the top of the line in 1984.
Horsepower was 91 bhp at 5,500 rpm, up 20% from the carburetted engine. This increase doesn’t sound like much, but the CRX only weighed about 1,800 pounds—to get the same power to weight ratio in a 2014 Honda Civic coupe you would need 143 bhp (interestingly, the 2014 Civic coupe has a … 143 bhp engine). Car and Driver recorded a 0-60 time of 9.1 seconds (Motor Trend reported 8.5 seconds) and a top speed of 112 mph. The EPA fuel economy rating with the required five-speed manual transmission was 32 city/36 highway by the standards of the day (27/33 by today’s standards).
The $7,999 base price (about $17,700 in 2014 dollars) included a power sunroof, a rear wiper/washer, 175/70R13 tires (a size last seen on the 2005 Hyundai Accent) on 5.0-inch-wide alloy wheels, and a rear spoiler molded of soft urethane instead of the hard plastic in other CRXs.
Since the CRX Si came pretty loaded by Honda standards, there were few options. The Si received an exclusive black paint option in place of the white available in other CRXs—red or blue were also available. Air conditioning was available only as a dealer accessory, as were a rear speaker and a choice of various car stereos: Honda would continue to sell AC as a dealer accessory well into the 1990s.
I don’t see a lot of first-generation CRX Si’s come up for sale in either the Hemmings Motor News classifieds or on eBay Motors. However, there is good club support for the CRX at Red Pepper Racing.
Make mine Black, please. It looks sharp with the red band on new for 1985 charcoal gray body cladding.
Eighties Cars 