This car is legendary the world over for being one of the greats from the 90's. I personally consider the Integra Type-R to be the finest FWD car ever made, certainly on paper and even more so after driving this car (which isn't even close to the level of detail that is the Type-R).

This is a car that is obviously made for driving. The pedals are perfect for heel toe downshifting. The view out of the front windshield is almost mid-engined. Once tuned, the handling is the best that FWD has to offer.

The aftermarket is truly immense and as such choosing an upgrade path before you buy parts is essential.

The interior in all of its 90's glory! Those seats are the best that I've sat in to date, aside from a newer civic SI. Getting into the A4 after this is a blessing (interior), and a curse (seats/shifter).

I began work on the GS-R by fixing the usual used car neglect. Aside the usual tune up stuff I replaced several of the grounds and cleaned their mounting points. The main chassis ground going to the transmission was green with corrosion from one side to the other. I replaced it with 4g OFC (oxygen free copper) wire and some copper ring connectors from Advance Auto. The ground going to the valve cover wasn't even connected in the right place, someone had put it at one of the locations with a rubber washer under it! I replaced that with 8g OFC and put it back to its stock location.

Mounts

There are 5 mounts in the DC2 integra. Two front torque mounts at either side, one transaxle mount, one engine mount, and one rear torque mount.

My first step was fixing the totally destroyed front torque mounts. They were no longer connected and simply bumped around in their casing like a straw in a glass of lemonade. Window weld was employed to reconstruct the mounts saving about 35$ each from Acura. The two upper side mounts looked good and were thus left alone to avoid the horrible vibrations that filling those usually causes.

The passenger side torque mount came out quite easily but the drivers side involved taking the AC compressor off to get the now solid mount in. The stud going through the center of the mount screws into the bracket for the AC compressor (the stud can be removed but that still didn't get me enough space to get the mount on). I wouldn't bother buying new mounts for this location, new stock mounts look near useless. Buy the urethane inserts, solid mounts, or fill them. Go ahead an change your A/C belt while you have this mount off, you have to take the bracket off to do it so better once than twice.

The rear engine mount on the GS-R had long since ceased to do any mounting of any kind. That center thing and the two original rubber attachment ribs decided to part ways with the casing leaving the engine to flop around wildly under load. Any time I got off of the throttle above 4000 rpms there would be a loud "thud!" that would shake the whole car. Driving fast was not terribly pleasant knowing that this was going on.

The fun part about fixing this mount is that it is absolutely buried in the engine bay. Getting at the 7 bolts that need to be removed takes patience and arm yoga.

The rear mount is the most important in relation to engine and transaxle movement under load. Under acceleration the twisting force of the transaxle and tires against the ground is pushing it into that mount.

To get it out you need to put the front of the car on jack stands, remove the drivers side wheel and support the engine. Then remove all of the bolts for the mount bracket and the mount. At that point you can twist the bracket towards the passenger side and wrestle the mount out.

There are the two 19 mm bolts on the drivers side of the mount bracket (I used extensions and a uv joint from the drivers wheel well). Then there's a bolt on the passenger side of the bracket with a captive nut on the other side. You can reach this from the top, I used a stubby 17mm and hammered it from above with the same long set of extensions. Once those are out the bolt that goes through the mount comes out. Lastly there are 3 14mm bolts holding the mount to the subframe. Be careful not to drop the front 14mm bolt into the mount bracket (like I did), after searching around the room (and through the garbage- yeah, don't ask) for about 30 minutes I got it out of there with a magnet. I used an end wrench for the passenger side, and the extensions and a uv joint for the front and drivers side bolts. You have to carefully snake the extension through some hoses but with patience it will work. Be sure to thread all of the bolts in before tightening any of them.

I opted to window weld the mount solid because its cheap. I would have liked to have had a new mount and filled it with shore 80 casting urethane but that might actually cost money. You can buy polyurethane inserts, a solid urethane mount, or casting urethane to fill your existing mount along with the 11$ window weld trick. They all work well. If you have a welder you can also weld a plate over the side of the mount with a hole for the center making it solid. That may crack your subframe or rattle bolts loose so you may want to keep an eye on it.

Good luck and if your engine comes out for any reason by all means fix that rear mount at that time.

Transaxle

I changed the transaxle fluid from the ancient paste that was in there to Redline MTL and it made a night and day difference. I recommend doing a flush with some 10-30 synthetic engine oil before putting the redline in. Put the oil in and drive around through all of the gears then drain that out and put the redline in.

 

Valve adjustment

A valve adjustment was badly needed so I did that as well. It was the first one that I'd done since mechanic school so that was fun. I got a feel for it by the time I got back to the last cylinder so I went back and did the first one again. All four are set to the small side of the factory spec and it runs much quieter now.

I opted to make my own valve adjustment tool as I didn't really have the petty cash to buy one. Recipe: 5/8 socket (spark plug socket) with an external spot for a wrench (or a 10mm with an external spot for a wrench), thin long flat head screw driver, 3/8 drive 10mm socket that fits snugly in the 5/8. I filed the inside of the 5/8 a bit then hammered the 10mm into it. The 5/8 cracked but it still held the 10mm tight enough to tighten the valve adjustment nut while keeping the setting right with the screwdriver through the middle. If you have a welder that would be easy enough to make/or fix.

VCG and cam plug leaks

While the valve cover was off I replaced the cam plug on the passenger side of the head that was leaking profusely. You have to take that long bar off of the cam keepers to get that last cap off and thus get at the plug. It was a little disconcerting but all went well. Just don't mess with anything you don't have to and make sure zero dirt gets in there. The valve cover gasket was also replaced. I recommend getting the little rings that seal the spark plug wells too, those tend to leak and fill the wells up with oil.

I also changed out the vtec pressure solenoid seal/filter which came out in chunks. Old car = worn out seals/rubber.

I cleaned the solenoid itself off also.

The thermostat was also bad and it looked like it had been installed with the seal in the wrong place. That fixed my high idle and coolant temperature issues.

Radiator

Like the blueberry before it the GS-R's radiator leaked. Replacing it was incredibly simple compared to the radiators I'm used to taking out. 3 bolts, two hose clamps, and two harness conectors and it was out. I suggest new upper and lower radiator hoses while you're at it as they are also very simple to replace. Don't forget to open the coolant bleeder bolt on the block to the left of the header after you fill the system back up until coolant comes out (no bubbles).

Fuel Pump

• Fuel pump
• fuel pump feed, sock, and small interferance washer to hold it on
• crush washers for banjo fitting
• rubber seal under fuel tank cover
• the hardware holding my fuel tank cover on was rusty, you may want new

I went to pull the Integra out of M___'s garage after an oil change and I got the classic honda "cranks but wont start". I had already replaced the distributor and other ignition stuff so I assumed it was the main relay. I took that apart and cleaned it then got the right amount of clicks out of it on key-on, so that wasn't it. M and I noticed there was no fuel pump hum on key-on though. So we checked the voltage at the pump at key-on and it was there as it should be for 2 seconds (as the pump primes the fuel system before startup). The fuel pump had pumped its last pump. Of course it was 11pm on a sunday, but the absolutely astounding luck of loosing a fuel pump IN our garage was blessing enough not to worry about it. As luck would have it there was an auto parts store open until midnight not too far away that had the exact pump I needed, ha!

The pump is under the back seat. There is one bolt at the back of the lower seat cusion then it just flips up and out on some angled prongs at the front. The top of the pump comes off with 10 mm bolts i belive, and a 12 at the banjo fitting. Be sure to loosen your gas cap to relieve pressure in the tank. I didn't and it was spewing gas around the banjo fitting until I did 0_0'.

You pull the cover of the fuel tank up and out at an angle very gently, the fuel pump feed is made from that brittle white plastic that snaps if you imagine touching it. I didn't have a new one obviously so that was important.

Once you have that out you have to pry this tiny spring washer off of a tiny post on the bottom of the tiny fuel pump so you can get the feed/sock off to transfer to the new pump. If you have a new feed this is obviously not necessary. The rest is pretty obvious. I don't recomend smoking or dropping metal objects or thinning out your fireworks collection.

It made the tell tale brrrrrrrr with the key on and fired up immediately.

Paint:

Photo of my painted mirror. It was a light pink with chips and scratches before hand, It isn't perfect but it's far better than it was when I got it.

The wing got the same treatment. I hung it from the celing and gave it my best effort given the resources.

1. 320 grit Sand + clean
2. primer, several coats
3. 400+ grit sand + clean
4. basecoat, several coats
5. 400+ grit sand +clean
6. mid coat, several coats
7. 1 dusting clear coat
8. several wet clear coats drying between
9. 1500-2000 grit sand
10. buff

I suggest really hosing the clear on there to ensure you don't go through it when you go to buff out the orange peel. You don't want runs or drips though, it takes experience to get it right. You may want to practice on a junk yard piece if you can afford the extra supplys. If you sand or buff through the clear you have to start over. Factory colors can be ordered from various sites online in 12 oz spray cans, all you need is your paint code. Not nearly as good as buying paint equipment but a heck of a lot cheaper.

A/C lines:

The A/C suction hose from the compresor to the fitting behind the radiator catastrophicly failed after driving it with the A/C on on a hot evening. There was a loud POW(!) and no small amount of smoke (A/C oil hitting the header). From what I can tell the cheap ebay header on the car, without a heat shield, cooked the living hell out of the hose causing it to fail. It could have been overfilled by the PO also, but I don't know. I grabbed another hose from a junk yard and plan on making a heat shield for the header to prevent more things from exploding. The factory shield is there for a reason!

My recipe:

Part 1: Repairs

Repair any CEL's and do a tune up. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor, grounds, fuel filter, air filter, oil change, transmission fluid flush and change, thermostat(if needed), clean the throttle body and or IAC if you think its been a while, change the timing belt, tensioner, and water pump if they need to be done and replace any leaking seals on the front of the engine. Replace the drive belts. If you do that stuff the car should be in great running condition and ready to tune. Also under repairs check your wheel bearings, ball joints, and axles. Yes, all of this stuff is well over 300-400$ in (quality) parts. If you're going to do major tuning of the engine you should think about having your injectors flow balanced or replace them with properly sized units for your projected output.

Part 2: Suspension

The first part of the suspension after the wheels and tires is the bushings. Prothane makes a full kit with outer sleeves included, Energy Suspension makes a cheaper kit that uses the existing bushing sleeves. Either one will be a vast improvement on the older cars. Aftermarket control arms are available with a variety of bushings and spherical bearings.

Camber adjustment should be addressed if you plan to lower the car. In the rear you can likely use longer bolts at the top link attachment point and some spacers/washers to bring the camber back where you want it. In the front an adjustable upper control arm seems to be the way to go.

For springs and shocks I recommend a ground control coil over kit and koni shocks. They are both quality pieces and allow you to keep an ideal, close to stock, ride height. Low may look good but it doesn't drive well unless you spend a hell of a lot more money.

Other affordable coilover suspension systems that are quality would be Tein, H&R, JIC, ground control and advance design. Spring and shock combinations will generally disappoint despite being far better than worn out factory pieces.

Part 3: Wheels and tires

For a car like this I recommend a 15x7” or 15x8” wheel and appropriate, quality, summer tires.

The Brakes are pretty decent for the weight and power of the car. Stainless lines, quality pads, rotors, and fluid are likely all that would be needed for stock power levels unless you're tracking the car. The Type-R brake setup would be ideal but you have to change over to a 5 lug hub and that means wheels and tires on top of all of the rest of it. You're almost better off just buying a Type-R cost wise depending on how much yours is worth.

Part 4: Chassis

The hatchback design leaves a lot to be desired in chassis rigidity and it should be addressed. The GS-R comes stock with a front shock tower bar. It feels like it could use at least a rear shock tower bar and maybe some of the other Type-R chassis stiffeners. One good option would be a rear roll cage gusseted and tied into the roof/ c pillars.

Part 5: Engine

The engine doesn't need much to be brilliant. I suggest a Type-R header, a high flow catalytic converter, and either a Type-R exhaust or another 2.5" stainless catback (not from ebay). A set of well chosen street cams, a proven intake manifold (ITR or Clone), a Hondata ECU and some dyno tuning would yield excellent results for the money without having to really tear the engine apart.

An intake is optional in my opinion, the stock filter is already a cone type. If you really feel like you need one, get something that has a good dyno proven HP gain. Be sure to duct it away from hot engine compartment air, no open elements.

This is all after the aforementioned tune up, you did do that right? If you really need to go crazy get some higher compression pistons and some solid valvetrain pieces along with this other stuff. That will make for some serious NA HP. As I always say with NA engines though, if you put the same money into an turbo car it's going to have another solid 100hp over this setup. Think what you ultimately want before you start throwing money at your engine.