This is the story about my Integra Type R. 

Unfortunately due to restrictions on blog post length I had to carve this up into 2 parts. This is the story of the acquisition, up until the point of the first Nürburgring trip.

THE BUILD UP

I changed cars quite often when I was younger. On the quest for the answer I’d find any excuse to get into something new. In 2010 at the age of 18, approaching my 3rd year of driving, I could almost afford to insure something I'd had my eyes on for a while... a Civic Type R!

I was driving a Renault Sport Clio 172 at the time, but the frenchness was becoming tiresome for a car I was relying on to get me to work every day. In my head the Civic was a very similar car, just with added Honda reliability, but they were a lot more to insure for me so I had to wait until renewal with some more experience on my record.

As that time was approaching a car popped up locally that looked ideal. It was a pre-facelift Milano Red EP3, arguably one of the best looking combinations, for sale just down the road at a garage in Wakefield. I remember the owner being a fan of the Clio, owning one himself at the time and he let me test drive the Civic without much commitment, I think it was for sale for around £4000. This would have been my first experience with the famous Honda variable valve magic and I definitely wasn’t blown away. Driving a VTEC car for the first time and being disappointed is quite a natural reaction. It's why these cars are often thought of as being marmite, you either love them or you hate them. 

On paper the Clio and Civic share very similar performance stats, but the Civic felt slower. It wasn't just the pace, my first impression of the driving position and the lack of steering feel was also disappointing. Those were things I’d grown to hate about the Clio, and the Civic wasn't improving on those. I left the garage disappointed, perhaps if I wasn’t already driving the Clio at the time then the Civic would have ticked the boxes. The Clio owed me half of what the Civic would cost, and I didn’t think the juice was going to be worth the squeeze to change up.

SOMETHING IN THE WAKEFIELD

A year or so later another Honda popped up for sale, coincidentally no more than a mile away from where the Civic was. My car at the time was a Seat Ibiza Cupra, 1.8 litre petrol turbo. A pretty hot hatch which had enough torque to keep you well placed in your seat. The car I’d spotted for sale was something I was well aware of but never thought I’d be in a position to own - an Integra Type R. It was a fair few years older than the Seat, and quite a bit less powerful, but I still hadn’t scratched that Honda itch and maybe this could be the one.

Like many of you, my knowledge of the Integra and similar Japanese cars was built from Playstation games like Gran Turismo. My real life experience was pretty slim though. I knew the DC2 had an older engine design than the EP3, but also featured an LSD in the gearbox. I’d not owned a car with an LSD before so that was exciting. None of my friends had Hondas, they were a bit of an unknown other than my brief encounter with the EP3 the year before.

I’d been through a few cars by this point, trying to find something that ticked all the boxes was proving tough. The Integra might not be the one true car, but it was the current favourite. Finding one for sale locally was another plus, so off I went to have a look.

The DC2 was parked among a few random cars, if I remember rightly there was an R33 Skyline in there, but mostly regular stuff. The dealer was enthusiastic, but the car spoke for itself. A late model car that had been used but was in great condition. I think the mileage was something around 90k, but low mileage cars were never something I had the budget for. It was completely original, other than the wheels had been changed for some black rota slipstreams.

On the test drive it felt immediately special, especially compared to the EP3. Both had bucket seats, but the Integra has the special Recaro SR3 which are just a bit nicer. The seating position was lower and the gear stick was in the proper place, again just a bit nicer. The area I drove it around was pretty urban with no real opportunity to get a feel for the chassis, but the steering feel was there. It was hydraulic on the DC2 and electrically assisted on the EP3. There is no contest here as to what feels better. The electric setup may be more efficient but that’s where the positives end. 

The only thing I was concerned about was the straight line performance. I gave it a little tickle into VTEC noting how aggressive the VTEC crossover was. It had a lot more character, but it was a lot slower than the Seat, especially down low. 

One of the factors that helped me bite the bullet on the Integra was an insurance quote. I was still paying 4 figure premiums back then, something that we are getting scarily close to again in 2025. I had a few cars on my short list, but the Integra would for some reason be the cheapest car to insure out of the lot, but only when I turned 20. 

At the same time as owning my Seat I also had another car at home on the drive - a Peugeot 106 GTi. This was a car I’d bought with a friend as a project. It had a broken gearbox and we planned to fix it up and sell it. Slightly off topic, but another person I knew back then had just badly crashed their Saxo, and someone may have swapped the gearbox from that before the insurance sent it to the crusher. It was great timing. 

A year or so earlier after selling the Clio I found myself in an E46 BMW 320d. I was commuting to Leeds and back every day, around 50 miles, and needed something sensible after a flurry of French cars had let me down. The BMW was great but I got bored of it, and eventually sold it to buy the Seat. The Cupra was stripped, had fixed bucket seats, and around 250hp. It was by far the fastest thing I’d owned but was just getting tiresome on the daily commute driving this loud car with no interior. I figured the Honda would be a halfway house.

IANTEGRA

I bought the Integra in June 2012. As part of the deal I got the dealer to drop it off as I wasn’t able to insure it for another month or so. In that time I sold the 106 and got the Ibiza ready for sale. I remember coming home every day and seeing the Integra on the drive knowing that one day I would eventually be driving it. Similar to being 16 if you were lucky enough to have a car waiting for you then. The anticipation was too much, I’d find myself going outside, starting the engine, sitting in it. Those feelings seem so foreign to me now. I really couldn’t wait to drive it.

In the meantime I signed up to the Integra forum, ITR-DC2.com, where I would read about common faults, stalk build threads, and all the usual stuff that forums were good for. It wouldn’t take me long to find the previous owner of the car who was also a member. I was the 3rd owner, and Ian was the 2nd, owning it from 2003 when it was 3 years old, all the way until 2012 when he traded it in for…. A Skoda Yeti. 9 years with the one car seemed like an incredible feat back then. I’d still not yet cracked more than 12 months with the one car. I remember his name because his username was very clever. Even now as I’m about to type it I’m feeling giddy. Iantegra. First class username. Good luck getting a pun like that on the Yeti forum.

They traded the car in as they thought it was getting tired, with rust starting to come through on the arches and soon to be needing a clutch and timing belt. This was all news to me. I was aware of what a timing belt was, but I’d never owned a car long enough for it to be a concern. Rust wasn’t something I’d had any experience with either, but changing a clutch? That didn’t seem too bad.

My first drive with the DC2 was a rather uneventful commute. I got to do the VTECs a few times. I still wasn’t sure if these cars were actually fast or if they just made the right sounds. One thing I was immediately impressed with was the LSD. I remember doing laps of a roundabout one evening, stabbing the throttle repeatedly trying to show my mate how it works. The first few months with the car followed that theme. I liked it, but I wasn’t sure it was the car for me. I spent a lot of time trying to convince others, who usually didn’t need convincing, that it was a cool car. 

THE 'R' STANDS FOR RUST

I’d learned from the forums how these cars were vulnerable to the rear arches rusting from the inside out. The car had no rust on the outside, but I knew I needed to pull the interior out to have a proper look at it. What I found lingering in the inner rear arches after removing the door cards and trim was quite scary, but I had bought an ‘old’ Honda afterall. There was a lot of brown and orange, the rust had indeed started and wasn’t far off making it outside. I’d not dealt with rust before, not to this extent anyway, but I’d read online what to do so spent a few hours in there with a wire wheel and then applied some rust converter. In hindsight dealing with the rust properly back then would have saved the car from problems later in life. I hadn’t fixed the rust, I’d just slowed it down a bit. Anyway I wasn’t any the wiser, I also found some rust on the underside but because that was harder to get to, I did a very minimal clean up before applying some waxoil and calling it a day.

Of course a lot of the pictures I took around this time have been lost to photobucket by now, but you get the idea:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/D_SILVESTA/087.jpg

After the Seat was sold and my debts were paid off, it was time to start modifying. Being on the forums meant having eyes on the The first thing I bought for the car was a DC sports exhaust. I was very disappointed with this, it barely changed the sound of the engine at all. I wanted some volume! A few months later I’d change this for a BuddyClub Spec 2. An exhaust that is quite famous in the Honda world for being obnoxious. It takes quite a lot for Honda people to call an exhaust obnoxious, but this managed. I had it on my car for a week or so before taking it off again. Comically loud, but got boring on the commute.

FORUM MODS & CAR SHOWS

Other things I’d changed were wheels and the rear bumper. My car now resembled a 96 spec JDM car from the rear. Oh yeah, my car isn’t a Japanese model. It’s the model they sold over here in Europe. The asking price was around £22k in 1997, they didn’t sell many. For comparison I remember the EP3 being around £16k when new a few years later. The European cars had the 4 eyed headlights similar to that of a Celica, something that wasn’t as popular in Japan. I guess the market research at the time suggested that we’d prefer the different front end over here, but the cars were essentially the same. I won’t go into details regarding intricate differences, but they were all the same cars underneath, so anything could be swapped over anyway. 

Other than the front end of course. That would require some welding to be done as the radiator support was different, also supporting the headlights, which were different. But the rear bumper fitment was the same, and as the UK model had a ‘disgusting’ rear fog light, I swapped it for a JDM model. I also got some 96 spec style alloys, made by a company called Sprint. SW96 they called them. I imagine they were probably not the best quality wheels but they did look good, mimicking the 96 spec wheel design, but in 5 stud fitment. 

I even got the cambelt done. This was when I met old time friend Matt for the first time who you might have seen on some race videos. He was a forum legend, somewhat, after owning several Hondas including some CRXs. Back then he owned a yellow DC2 which was a rare thing, even rarer by the fact that it had a K20 engine. Matt was also a very well renowned mechanic in the forum world. It wasn’t his profession but people would travel far and wide for his expertise, so I went down to Derby and got my cambelt done. I think he worked at Tegiwa at the time, so sorted the parts out and labour wasn’t that much. When you don’t have all the money, maintenance seems like such a chore. You just want to have fun, and maintenance isn’t that. But thanks to Matt I was able to have my cake and eat it, sort of. 

The car also needed a clutch which I was able to do myself over a few evenings in my grandad's garage. This is of course well before any barns were on the radar. Most of my time with the car was spent commuting, mucking about, or going to car shows/meets.

A CHANGE OF FACE

One of the more regretful things I did to the car during this period was to convert the front end to be “JDM” style. It wasn’t something I was planning on doing, but a JDM front end conversion popped up on eBay and I ended up winning it for something crazy like £100. It was a ridiculously low amount even then. Front wings, bonnet, bumper, slam panel, lights. Everything I’d need to convert. I can’t remember if the guy had the parts to convert his car and lost interest, or if they were from a crashed car. It seems a bit suspicious now, never really thought about it before. He seemed honourable enough anyway as he didn’t ghost me and I picked up the parts shortly after.

One of my mates at the time was learning to be a welder, ideal. I managed to get him down one Saturday and we cut the old front end off and welded the new one on. This is the piece of metal that you see first under the bonnet, what the radiator and lights mount to. A common part to have to change if the car’s been in a collision. I then had to wire up the lights as my plugs didn’t fit. The wires weren’t even the same colour but I managed to find a guide online. After no more than a few hours my car was officially ‘JDM’! Of course it wasn’t really, and this would piss people off who owned the real McCoy no end. But in my eyes it looked 100x better. There is a part of me that regrets doing this, but in the end it wouldn’t be the only time a different front end is welded on. Maybe I'll switch it back at some point... but probably not.

By the 12 month ownership marker the car looked very different than it did when I bought it. I’d changed wheels again and for a brief period it looked just like a factory 98 spec Japanese model, and a good one at that. I was enjoying driving the car and approaching my 21st birthday meant that insurance premiums were becoming less of a problem. So much so that I could now afford to own 2 cars. It was time for my first daily driver, the BMW E36 328i.

Almost immediately after buying the BMW a recent friend I’d made who also owned a DC2 decided he would be breaking it for parts. This was a lot more ‘racecar’ than mine. He wanted some standard parts, so I ended up swapping my exhaust, bonnet, bumper, and tailgate. His car had a carbon spoiler tiger sealed to the boot, and I wanted it, so we swapped the full thing. This was all done in preparation for my first big road trip in the car, my first time driving in Europe, all the way to Germany.

I fitted a big carbon spoiler, bumper canards, and a carbon bonnet in preparation for the Nürburgring. I did not fit good tyres, change the brake pads, or consider doing anything to ensure the reliability of my engine other than maybe changing the oil. I remember I had Lassa tyres, a budget brand known for sponsoring the Drift Championship at the time. Brake pads would have been whatever was in the car when I bought it. I wouldn’t have been able to name you any performance tyres or brake pads back then anyway. But at least I had a carbon spoiler. 

to be continued