My son has a CRX that he had been working on restoring. The body is in great shape and has a body kit on it. He has put new tires on it, rewired the entire car and put new door poppers on it. The car smokes bad, so he was considering selling it instead of doing any more repairs, but the guys he knows told him he is crazy to sell it. They think he should go the extra mile and replace the engine and then sell it for more. I am leary about whether it will actually bring more money. I don’t get the deal with everyone wanting these cars. He bought the car for two thousand and has put about 1300 into it. He has been offered 2800 for it. Do we sell and take the loss?
Even with a repaired or replaced engine the car is not going to be worth a lot of money. These cars are popular with young people, it’s true, but part of the reason is that they are not expensive to buy.
He’d probably have to put another $1,000 or more into the car to get the smoking problem fixed. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it.
This should be a lesson to your son not to start pouring money into a car. You never get it back.
The only way I would put money into replacing the engine would be if I intended to keep the car, not to sell it. If he doesn’t want the car anymore then selling it as is would be the way to go.
I’d love to have a nicely restored CRX for a “fun” car to drive. They are a hoot. But, I’d never want one with a body kit or any of the supposed improvements made by the “tuner” crowd.
If the body is in great shape, I would recommend you try some of the CRX forums out there if you want to sell it. See what they’ll give you for it. CRX’s with good bodies are hard to find, especially in the rust belt- I had an offer of $6k and $5k for one of mine.
Engine swaps on a CRX are freakin’ CHEAP. You can pick up an Si motor for almost nothing (in fact, sometimes you can get it for free from someone just wanting to be rid of it), so assuming he does the work himself, it wouldn’t take much for him to turn it into a great example of a CRX, and that’s getting increasingly rare. If you can’t tell, I’m a huge CRX fan, which is why I have two 
If he swaps the motor, go drive it once - - flog it around a bit and you’ll see why people want these cars.
Here are some sites that can help him out with DIY swaps, or with selling it if he goes that way:
http://midwestcrx.org
http://crx.honda-perf.org/
crxcommunity.com
hondas are going to have a similar resell value wether they are crap (new) or really crap (old)
My sons “crap” car Honda Accord with the 4 cyl engine has already raced and won against alot of the noncrap American made cars. For instance he raced his cousin’s 1975 Nova with a stroked out 383 cubic inch. His cousin blew up his noncrap engine trying to beat him! Also to let you know my cousin also runs at drag races and dirt track racing so he is not a novice racer.
Forgot to add that my son’s “crap” car is a 1992 with over 200,000 miles on it.