EDIT: CAR HAS BEEN SOLD!!!
Well, the time has finally come: I am selling my 1996 Acura Integra GS-R 5MT Coupe. This is a very clean car. The original owner purchased the car in 1996 and owned it until it was sold in April 2021 to a gentleman that kept it garaged and put less than 100 miles on it. That gentleman sold it to a close friend of his in July 2022, who also kept it in a garage, putting less than 300 miles on it.
I bought the car in August 2022, with 125,000 miles on the clock- it now has 131,000 miles on it. At the time, the car was essentially bone stock and very well maintained. Like most of you, I am meticulous when it comes to maintenance. In the past 1.5+ years I've done a ridiculous amount of maintenance and reliability upgrades:
-Gates Racing timing belt, OEM water pump & tensioner
-Koyo full sized aluminum radiator & Koyo cap
-Moroso road race baffled oil pan (5.5 quarts) with Moroso stud conversion kit
-NGK OEM spark plugs and NGK wires
-New fuel filter
-New Radiator hoses
-I adjusted the valves and put in a new OEM valve cover gasket
-New axles (both sides)
-New inner and outer tie rods
-Goodridge stainless steel braided brake lines bled with ATE fluid and Hawk pads
-New front and rear hubs and wheel bearings (Timken)
-New front lower ball joints
-ARP 100-7711 extended wheel studs with 2 sets of lugs (both acorn and tapered)
-Multiple sets of wheels/tires (we can negotiate which set(s) go with the car)
-New OEM motor mounts (these were tough to find!)
-New Gates A/C, alternator and power steering belts
-Oil changes every 3000 miles or 6 months (whichever came first) w/OEM Honda filters
-Honda MTF transmission fluid
-New OEM PCV valve
-New front left ABS sensor
To be clear, the car drove extremely well and was well maintained when I bought it. Prior to a recent injury (injuries, technically), I was prepping the car for a local autocross league and NASA time attack (TT6) and wanted to make sure it was as reliable as an anvil on track, so I essentially replaced/upgraded everything to avoid failures under stress.
Suspension work:
-Hardrace rubber suspension bushings at every position, including the rear trailing arm
-Hardrace front and rear adjustable upper control arms
-OEM Integra Type R springs (tough to find!)
-Koni Sport/yellow adjustable shocks
-Progress adjustable rear sway bar
-Whiteline front caster kit.
-Professionally aligned at 3R Racing/Performance
Because the car is running OEM ITR springs on Koni shocks, it actually rides very well on the street. You can turn the Koni's up, but with them set about 1/2 up, I would say it rides better than my stock AP2 S2000. I have set this car up to have beautifully neutral handling that makes it a joy to drive!
In order to help the car breathe, I installed some very tasteful, difficult to find (read: expensive) bolt-ons:
-Comptech CARB legal header (nearly impossible to find)
-CTE (formerly Comptech) CARB legal Icebox
-Apexi WS3 cat-back exhaust (absolutely no drone to speak of)
-Hondata S300 on a P72 ECU w/jumper harness
-S300 was professionally dyno tuned and NASA certified at 163whp and 123wtq.
Probably the expensive modification on the car:
-Fully rebuilt JDM B16b S80 Type R transmission w/OEM LSD. The transmission only has ~3000 miles on it since the rebuild and shifts perfectly.
I will include the OEM VIN-matching transmission with the purchase of the car.
I also have a brand new, still in the box Greddy oil cooler. No one makes an oil cooler kit for these cars anymore. This was very expensive and difficult to locate. It was never installed in the car and I would be willing to sell it with the car.
The car still has its OEM catalytic converter and recently passed Colorado emissions with ease (yes, even with the P72 and Hondata S300!).
As it sits, the car is extremely street friendly. I would refer to it as an OEM+ build. There are no leaks, no rust and everything works (heat blows hot, A/C blows cold, etc). The car has a clean Colorado title, in my name, in hand.
I will include all of the stock parts with the sale of the car (pictured).
The car's OEM VIN tags (on both fenders, both doors, inside both doors/sills, trunk, hood, under the windshield, etched into the firewall and on the OEM transmission) are all present and matching. It's my understanding that the 1994-1997 DC2's didn't have VIN tags on the bumpers (only the 1998+ cars did). The car has normal minor scratches and dings that you would expect from a car with 131,000 miles of normal usage, but overall, the body is in very good condition and well taken care of. The VIN (listed on the emissions photo) is JH4DC2398TS005484 .
To anyone that knows these cars, you'll know, this was not a cheap build. It was built by an adult that has been wrenching on Honda's/Miata's/various other makes for decades.
I bought this car both as a nostalgia piece to wrench on, making it into an OEM+ build and also as something I could track/compete with and have fun! Unfortunately, a recent injury has forced me to take some time off of any major wrenching and after many years, I've decided to give up racing cars (long story, listed in another thread). I have considered just keeping it as a street car, but my wife and I have 7 cars- these days, the DC2 just sits parked most of the time. I would rather the car go to someone who is going to use it and have fun with it.
More specifically, I dislocated my right shoulder about 3 months ago. I've been going to physical therapy to try and rehab it and thought things were going well... I was just informed that I'll likely need surgery (due to still limited range of motion), which will essentially mean no major wrenching for likely about ~6 months. I like won't be driving a manual for a while either and don't want to just park this poor DC2 outside the whole time. No point in having a "project car" that just sits there.
For those that haven't followed along, I actually have a build thread for the car:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/the-teg-a-dc2-road-to-all-the-hondas-story/258401/page1/
I am asking $12,500 (my apologies for it being far above Challenge money!) and am located in the Denver, CO metro area (technically in Parker).
Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have.
Photos: