Honda Integra Type R DC5
Discussion
I was asked recently in a mates thread for some pics of my car, so here you go.
Firstly a brief history, you'll see my camera skills increase as I go through:
At 17 I bought a Ford Focus, loved it, as most do with their first cars. It got chaved up, wheels, exhaust, induction kit.
Next, I moved onto an EP2 Honda Civic, it served me for nearly two years, offering cheap, problem free motoring.
Then I moved up the power scales, and bought an R53 Mini Cooper S. This was the first car that I spent a serious deal of time and money on. I had a thread on here somewhere for it. By the time I got rid of it, it was running a prototype set of MeisterR coilovers that I was helping to develop, fully adjustable damping, and camber all round. It had a Milltek exhaust, and induction kit, Brembo brakes and a set of BBS RX wheels to name a few mods. It spent most of it's time filthy as I loved driving it so much.
My family pushed me into selling it though. Their theory being it was getting older, and it was surely just a matter of time until something big went bang. I really wish I hadn't bowed to the pressure, as it's the car I miss the most and I would genuinely buy it back if I saw it for sale.
In alignment with my parents wanting me to have a newer, reliable, rust free car I tested a lot, but ended up with a mk5 Golf GTI. I hated it with a passion, and still do. It was awful. Maybe coming from setup Mini made it seem worse, but the steering feel was awful, The engine sounded like a diesel, the exhaust sounded like a wet fart, it had lots of hidden rust, and was incredibly unreliable. I spent £1k+ in the 6 months I had it sorting faults before I gave up. Diverter valve, coil packs (which left me stranded at the side of the road twice), air con, radiator fans, leaking coolant, rusty arches and door sills. Horrible car. It looked good after a few choice mods though
One of the cars I tested before the Golf was a DC5. It was a local car and wasn't in great condition, but I really wanted one. After the Golf, that was the only option. I spoke with the guys at Torque GT about my options, they had one of their staff selling a clean example with a lot of good mods already on it. I had a good look over some photos and did the deal over the phone. I took a Friday off work and made the long trek down to virtually Cornwall from Aberdeen, picked up the car, and drove back on the Saturday. It was a lot of driving, but my god it was worth it. It's a 2001 car, and is very clean. Modification wise, it's got a Toad Cat 1 alarm, XYZ coilovers (which are much better than I thought they'd be) and an Apexi Induction kit. I spent a long time cleaning it and sorting out any minor flaws. Like the Mini I drive it a lot, it's great fun especially the LSD. I'd never really thought having one made a big difference to road driving, how wrong I was.
I've since removed the rear wiper, it was useless anyway. I've added a Spoon Sports cat back exhaust, which is fairly loud but fine for me, and most recently a set of Rota Slipstream wheels. They were super cheap, so I used the tyres on them for a while, before having them sprayed championship white to match the car, and just the other day fitted a set of Yokohama AD08 tyres for the summer months.
Here's a random selection of pics from the past year including a trip to Spa and the Nurburgring:
Firstly a brief history, you'll see my camera skills increase as I go through:
At 17 I bought a Ford Focus, loved it, as most do with their first cars. It got chaved up, wheels, exhaust, induction kit.
Next, I moved onto an EP2 Honda Civic, it served me for nearly two years, offering cheap, problem free motoring.
Then I moved up the power scales, and bought an R53 Mini Cooper S. This was the first car that I spent a serious deal of time and money on. I had a thread on here somewhere for it. By the time I got rid of it, it was running a prototype set of MeisterR coilovers that I was helping to develop, fully adjustable damping, and camber all round. It had a Milltek exhaust, and induction kit, Brembo brakes and a set of BBS RX wheels to name a few mods. It spent most of it's time filthy as I loved driving it so much.
My family pushed me into selling it though. Their theory being it was getting older, and it was surely just a matter of time until something big went bang. I really wish I hadn't bowed to the pressure, as it's the car I miss the most and I would genuinely buy it back if I saw it for sale.
In alignment with my parents wanting me to have a newer, reliable, rust free car I tested a lot, but ended up with a mk5 Golf GTI. I hated it with a passion, and still do. It was awful. Maybe coming from setup Mini made it seem worse, but the steering feel was awful, The engine sounded like a diesel, the exhaust sounded like a wet fart, it had lots of hidden rust, and was incredibly unreliable. I spent £1k+ in the 6 months I had it sorting faults before I gave up. Diverter valve, coil packs (which left me stranded at the side of the road twice), air con, radiator fans, leaking coolant, rusty arches and door sills. Horrible car. It looked good after a few choice mods though
One of the cars I tested before the Golf was a DC5. It was a local car and wasn't in great condition, but I really wanted one. After the Golf, that was the only option. I spoke with the guys at Torque GT about my options, they had one of their staff selling a clean example with a lot of good mods already on it. I had a good look over some photos and did the deal over the phone. I took a Friday off work and made the long trek down to virtually Cornwall from Aberdeen, picked up the car, and drove back on the Saturday. It was a lot of driving, but my god it was worth it. It's a 2001 car, and is very clean. Modification wise, it's got a Toad Cat 1 alarm, XYZ coilovers (which are much better than I thought they'd be) and an Apexi Induction kit. I spent a long time cleaning it and sorting out any minor flaws. Like the Mini I drive it a lot, it's great fun especially the LSD. I'd never really thought having one made a big difference to road driving, how wrong I was.
I've since removed the rear wiper, it was useless anyway. I've added a Spoon Sports cat back exhaust, which is fairly loud but fine for me, and most recently a set of Rota Slipstream wheels. They were super cheap, so I used the tyres on them for a while, before having them sprayed championship white to match the car, and just the other day fitted a set of Yokohama AD08 tyres for the summer months.
Here's a random selection of pics from the past year including a trip to Spa and the Nurburgring:
Thanks for all the kind words, I know the wheels aren't going to be to everyone's taste as they are a bit 'ricer'
oj121 said:
Love them. Very expensive though so glad you had the bottle to go for it. Glad your enjoying it!
Being 22, insurance isn't cheap, neither is buying the car in the first place. However general running costs are very reasonable considering the performance. It doesn't use much oil, the wheels are 17 inch so tyres are fairly cheap, I easily average 32mpg on my backroad commute to and from work and it was doing 37mpg on the motorway to Spa/ring. HariboLecter said:
Love it. I really miss my old '5. Yours looks great on the slipstreams - I always wanted some Regamasters on mine but couldn't justify the outlay at the time.
Very nice.
Thanks. I really wanted a set of Regas, but they are so rare in 17's and command a huge premium as you say. I'm not really a fan of replica parts, but the Rotas were going very cheap, and I love a bargainVery nice.
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