Honda Integra DC2 - Get to know...
Our Integra DC2 the day we collected her
Welcome to our first blog post for quite some while, and the beginning of a new era for The Real Gran Turismo and our customers as we regularly post about life in the fast lane.
Subjects will mainly orientate around our cars, new modifactions, as well as issues we face keeping them goin well on circuit. Most importantly however, we intend to blog about our brilliant days out on track driving them.
This first post is about our new for 2017 Honda Integra Type R track car hire car. Initially purchased as a standard road car, we then wanted to create a fast and well prepared track car that, importantly, is easy to use and will appeal to as many of our customers as possible for almost any track day car hire requirement (novice, inter and advanced).
We purchased our Honda Integra DC2 (which should be available around August '17 for your track day car hire requirements) on 23/03/2017 with the intent on creating a superb track day weapon with a resistance to the normal front-wheel-drive tendencies of under-steer. We knew what we wanted to do, but here is a rundown of the car upon acquisition, and what we did in the initial instance to prep for track/race work.
Initially upon purchase, there were some faults with the car that had not been addressed by the previous owner:
Mechanically:
Most notable were both front wheel bearings were extremely noisy and needed changing.
Oil was low
Gearbox was crunching occasionally going into 4th gear.
Going back over the paperwork I see this problem came up at around 78,000 miles, and was cured with a gearbox oil change which also made my list of immediate things to do.
Brake discs looked old but passed an MOT
Clutch had dead travel top inch (suspected Clutch Master or slave cylinder)
Cosmetically
The car was a little rough shall we say. It had been reversed during a park manouvre into a small tree which damaged the rear near side bumper, tail light and rear spoiler. It also had a little rust coming up through the arches (nothing too bad, honestly) dried out seals, but the interior was almost perfect.
Following our acquisition we changed the following:
Engine Oil – Castrol Magnatec 10w40
Oil Filter
Gearbox Oil Honda OEM 75w90
2 x front wheel bearings
Honda OEM Clutch Slave Cylinder
Honda OEM Clutch Master Cylinder
Used rear bumper championship white fitted
used rear spoiler championship white fitted
used rear bootlid championship white fitted
Custom stainless exhaust, with resonators and powerflex polyurethane exhaust bushes
Custom Air intake whilst retaining OEM air ducting
Full Coolant flush
At this point the car drove faultlessly. The immediate effect a gearbox oil change (Honda gearboxes should be a joy to use and always use Honda recommended oil) is always surprising. The air intake also has a massive effect on noise and coupled with the sports exhaust you get a noticeable increase in torque before you reach the VTEC point of 6,000rpm.
With the bumpers, bootlid/spoiler etc all changed the car is beginning to look as good as it drives, too. It is fast and enjoyable one the road but still too soft to be track ready. Good news is all the bushes are firm and look like new so no problems there.
TRACK UPGRADES:
Following the essential stage one servicing, the car drove and felt almost perfect. Time to upgrade the stock components:
Full STOPTECH BRAKES front discs and pad
Fully Adjustable BC Racing BR Series fully adjustable coilover suspension
Front and rear multi-point roll cage painted red
Front adjustable BUDDY Club camber arms
Extended gear shift with new bushes
Tegiwa lightweight Stainless radiator
Tegiwa engine stabiliser brace
Iridium high performance spark plugs x 4
High performance Silicon HT leads x 4 (blue)
At point of writing we have not completed installation of all the above, and the car is currently awaiting fitment of the roll cage and setup of the new BC Racing BR-series custom coilover suspension as provided by BC Racing.
We hope you enjoy following development of this car, and we hope you continue to read up on blogs about the other wonderful cars in our roster as well as how well this car performs on its shakedown runs once completed.
