Integra Type S - My Story

[wongy]

sexy!

[felixR]

sexy!

+ clean!

[itr5093]

2sexy

[plAythiNG]

Left my car at Top One for the week to get a minor service, new suspension install, and gearbox overhaul.

Got new suspension as my rear bushings are worn (again) on the buddy clubs. 16kg spring rates FTL against Parramatta Road. Ended up getting the BC Coilovers everyone raves about. **

Installed new bearings and seal, accord euro 6th, JDM OEM flywheel, DC5R OEM LSD, Exedy Stage 1 Clutch, 5.1 Final Drive from FD2R/Spoon. Also isntaled brand new clutch salve cylinder and a very new but used oem CMC

Car feels great in terms of accelration. Gears 1-2 I need to baby a bit more, but other gears are quick as haha. Julie hasnt stalled it yet also!

Travelling 110 km/h @ 2800rpm thanks to the TSX 6th/5.1 FD combo



Was going to go Garage88 for an alignment with my usual guy Kieran (Jax Tyres Liverpool) but he was sick so ended up goign to Heasmans Steering instead.. Kinda glad I did as I had issues getting the toe out settings correct up front.



Rear getting aligned, this was all sweet



Car on the workshop floor having a closer look at the tie rods. Looks like the BC Coilovers have a different angle design especially the part where it connects tot he tie rod end. Looks like the angle is much sharper towards the center of the car as even though I have modified tie rods, it was too long and I was getting crazy toe-in. Ended up removing the tie rods and gridning off around 15mm of the thread each side to yield the correct slight toe-out required.



Back on to aligning the front. car feels great. Didnt want to give it too much of a hit as the gearbox was just overhauled and in a couple thousand klms I want to take it back and flush the new/old MTF.

[PG_DC5]

what camber and toe settings did you go with mate?

I asked for -1.5 at the front, -1 at the back. and zero toe all round...
but mine is not as signficant as of a drop as yours.

[plAythiNG]

-3 Front, -2 Rear. 2mm toe out on the rear, zero front

[PG_DC5]

-3 Front, -2 Rear. 2mm toe out on the rear, zero front

wow that seems pretty agressive.
Why the toe out at the rear?
everywhere i read people seem to suggest zero toe

[plAythiNG]

sorry my mistake. thsi tiem around i am running 2mm toe out up front.

[felixR]

Can always rely on Heasmans with jobs like that!

[stienerv2]

How's camber wear in that set up? I don't wanna run that much camber on stickier tyres lol.

[plAythiNG]

Camber is the same as i was since i fitted these re30 about a year ago. I hadnt had an opportunity to see the tyre wear but in a month or two i am looking to get a pic to see! Car is a daoly.too so keen to see the tyre wear!

[plAythiNG]

Hi All,


I thought I share my experience with my newly rebuilt gearbox.

About 3 years ago I started research on what I could do to improve the drivetrain to extract better acceleration.

I came to the conclusion that I wanted to use a shorter final drive to improve the gearing of all gears. As my car back then was even though a weekender, I would travel on the highway a fair few times, and thus I was concerned with the RPM on 6th gear for lengthy periods of driving. I also seen that people were swapping the DC5/RSX 6th gear in replacement of the Accord Euro/TSX 6th gear, mainly for higher top/max speed, but my intention was to keep the RPM down.

As opening the gearbox is incredibly expensive to open due to dropping the subframe, I had planned to do the final drive, 6th gear swap same time as replacing the clutch. So with that I had purchased an Exedy Stage 2 clutch kit, Wavetrac LSD for the swap too. As this was 3 years ago I knew I wasnt going to do the swap right away so I hadnt purchased a flywheel yet as I was not sure if I was going to do JDM flywheel (4.8kg) or run the Exedy flywheel (3.6kg) To again maximise cost effectiveness, I decided to buy all new bearings and seal for the box which was purchased at this time too. Fast forward one year, there was a sale at JDMyard (Australia) for an ORC clutch kit and flywheel for $950aud.

Simultaneously at this time my friend was in search of a Stage 2 clutch so I sold that to him and purchased the ORC unit. I was very happy with this as the ORC clutch is considered on the upper end of clutch kits for the K series engine and it came with a flywheel also! It was at this time where two of my friends with DC5's needed to change their clutches and they also followed suit in changing to a 5.1 final drive/TSX 6th gear combo. They both gave me the opportunity to test drive their cars, and I knew then and there the 5.1 final drive upgrade improved acceleration positively!

A few months later I got into property and parted out my car parts as I required some quick cash to lay down a deposit. Shortly after this I tried selling my car for around 4-6 months. Towards the 6th month time frame I wrote off my parents run around car due to the dickhead in front of me without any brake lights decided to stop suddenly. One day my mum asked if she wanted to buy my girlfriends DC5, since my car was never being driven. I took this opportunity to sell my girlfriend's DC5 and she daily my car. I thought this was a better option as we would be able to still keep both cars in the family, and my car would not be lost to some other lucky guy. The downside is the mileage has increased quite some. Having said that I am pretty religious in terms of meeting servicing intervals etc.

So that deal was done and dusted, I know my DC5 will be a keeper for the next 20 odd years, if not rest of my life. It will be a good feeling to say that I bought my first car at 20 years of age and still have it when I am 70! because this car is going to be driven non stop now since both the girlfriend drives during the week and I drive during the weekend, I wanted an absolute reliable and as much OEM build as possible. As the bearings/seal/final drive were already Honda, that was easy. I wanted a tad more aggresive clutch so I opted for the Exedy Stage 1 item. JDM flywheels usually carry premiums because of three silly letters J-D-M. Funnily enough the FN2R Civic Type R shares the same weighted flywheel as the Type R's sold locally in Japan. Managed to pick one up for a steal locally and had it machined ready to be mated with the Exedy clutch kit. As I knew I had time on my hands and was in no rush to buy parts, I waited silently till parts were listed for sale as I still had to get a Honda LSD. Ended up finding one locally again so for around a year I had the Exedy clutch, flywheel, LSD sitting around. I then approached a trader on k20a.irg - Ascension Motorsports to obtained all new OEM bearings, seal, 5.1 FD, TSX 6th, 05-06 Clutch Salve Cylinder. I consider myself very lucky I got these items before the traders disappeared with everyone else's money. Fast forward to February 2014, I went on a weeks holiday with some friends and took this opportunity to install all the parts lying around. Since now my car has 145k klm on it, I also took the opportunity to find a 20k klm old CMC (OEM) to be used also. My clutch had no signs of slippage but since the car is a daily and I cannot forsee any more leave this year, I didnt want my girlfriend to be stranded for work since she relys on the car for transportation.

Did the swap with my trusted Mechanic Top One Automotive and everything went on without any issues.

Driving the car now is amazing. Yes gears 1-2 are a bit jerky with the upgraded clutch, lighter flywheel, shorter ratio gears. I think time will allow us to get used to the sensitivity! All other gears are amazing. When I first had the car, I was keen to see what the real life rpm were like sitting in 6th gear @ 110km/h (speed limit of highways in Australia) From the picture below you can see the rpm is exactly as per the gear ratio calculators I used few years ago:



110km/h, 6th gear (5.1FD & TSX6th)

Being the weekend, I finally got the opportunity to drive it again. Taking a massive detour to my girlfriends place I went through the Royal National Park, south of Sydney. I wanted to come gear to see how the car felt in terms of its drivetrain upgrade. My god, the car felt good. the car really accelrates (quick!) to redline and is incredibly responsive. As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, I got to drive my friends car with the 5.1fd swap, his only engine mods were intake/header/exhaust. I remember saying to him that his car felt faster than my car at the time; intake/header/exhaust/kpro. I still think the 5.1fd swap makes the car faster, but it also has to do with the upgraded clutch as my car still had the stock clutch. Once I got used to the lighter flywheel, heel toe required less effort, oh and the LSD. The (OEM) LSD's benefit cant be felt taking corners on the street hard at all. But on the twisties and no doubt on the track, the LSD is noticable. Whilst at the twisties last night I was able to accelerate earlier and harder leaving the apex which was a feeling I had never felt before thanks to the Type S open diff.

I am also changing my driving habits, or shifting habits now on the street. 6th gear now makes me feel I am labouring the car too much and I feel the 6th gear is only truly appropriate whilst doing 75km/h or higher (sitting above 2,000 rpm)


6th gear (5.1FD & TSX6th)


6th gear (5.1FD & TSX6th)


6th gear (5.1FD & TSX6th)

I still got to take another photo of the RPM's when in 5th at 70km/h.

Hope you enjoyed my little journey with the drivetrain upgrade. My recommendation is to 100% do the 5.1 final drive and TSX6th swap. Feels incredible!

[eLtrix]

Great stuff Alex! Love the review, can't wait to do this myself for my dc5 as I drive my car fairly often in 80s - 100 zone.

Also glad you get to keep your car forever also!! Best thing yet.

[iVTEC_R]

A great read!
Once my clutch goes I'd love to do this too =D

[knobosaurus]

Hi All,
I am pretty religious in terms of meeting servicing intervals.

hahah the logbook is your bible I'm gussing? Tucked in under your pillow.

You've sold me Alex on gearbox work. I'm sure dc5s really start to require clutch changes around this mileage. I'm starting to get a bit of slip but not enough to be undriveable.