hey guys, i just got a 1999 GSR couple days ago...
here are the specs.
1999 Acura Integra GSR
5 speed
88k miles
some springs
straight pipe with a cat welded on.
stock headers
all other stock.


so i bought the car and i liked it...pulls ok.
but then i noticed that the rear bumper is getting a lot of crap from the exhasut. sorta like the car is running rich.
also in about 3-4 days, the oil went down. i had it at half a dip stick, and now its at the lowest point.

i was wondering if the gsr engines had something that causes them to eat oil. (bad rings, needs valve adjustment)

also i passed smog, but the hydrocarbon (HC) were right on the limit

 

congrats

you likely bought a cluster swapped gsr


while it's possible i have yet to see one with 88k miles turn a bumper black. have seen a few at 188k miles that will. keep an eye on the oil level and add as needed. if it's burning a quart every 500 miles you're on borrowed time before an exhaust valve fractures or you light up a ring land

 

i checked carfax, its original 88k.
so ur saying that valves go bad? and rings?
im a noob, and after going through 8 diffrent cars, trying to find one that i like, i want to keep this one. i like it.

 

when was the last carfax? you really want to make sure there are no blank sports and the mileage continues to increase over the years. if the last report was 2003 with 60k something would be really fishy about 88k today unless it was just garaged.

anyway, if the mileage is correct you just have a neglected engine that was probably ran low on oil. how much oil is it burning anyway?
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the other other variable is a car that hasn't been tuned up in forever will run rich and create this. if you aren't loosing a lot of oil as you drive it could be this

 

welli had the car for 5 days, and it ate about 1/4 quart...i drove about 170 miles in that time....but i was revving the nuts of it quite often. will see how it continues to eat oil.
im going to change spark plugs, spark plug wires, dizzy cap, and oil....hopefully it runs a little better.

 

could have just been ran low on oil. hard to say how extensive the damage is. if your car really has 88k which is beyond unusual for a 99gsr it may have just been neglected. if the engine is ever ran hard while it's low on oil you can fry the rings, damage the bearings and potentially wear the top end. bearings and rings are the usually damage areas. a compression test is the next thing you should do, leak down would be better. make sure you unhook the distributor before you do it. if you don't there's a good chance your car won't start after since it cooks the coil

 

whys 88k unusual, i just turned 100k on my 99 gsr. Bought it 9 years ago with 42k. Some people have short commutes!

 

That sucks man, might last longer than expected and just keep a quart of oil in your trunk for emergencies.

My brothers saturn sc2 burned a quart every 1000 miles, maybe more. The car lasted for years. My gsr burns some oil as I found out. I am also leaking some which is partially the cause(pretty bad from the oil pan). Not to state the obvious, but are you leaking oil anywhere?

 

no im not leaking....driveway always looks clean.

im going to do a compression test. see whats up.

i have 2 options right now. my buddy has a scion XB 2006 that hes thinking of tradding for my car.
or i can rebuild this block this summer. nothing serious, just wescio pistons, same compression as stock, eagle rods, and brower valves, springs etc....should cost me like $4000.

 

i think what is so unusal, is that the car is eating oil at 88k. that is what he was trying to say

 

Probably has a leak somewhere

 

well there ya go. even new s2000s eat oil when raced.

My GSR with 189k eats about 0.5-1qt every 1000 miles. Mostly daily driven with occasional road raging (I live in Los Angeles after all )

 

a quart every 1000-1500 miles is somewhat normal. 500 miles isn't

also, if you're doing an NA build wiseco pistons are a bad choice unless the compression is high and it's a race gas motor. why is that you may be wondering? it's the clearance you have to set them up with. those pistons are designed to withstand a lot of abuse and cylinder pressure. however, that larger piston to wall clearance means they eat rings faster, rattle when cold and won't go near as many miles as a cast piston. in all honesty you may just need new bearings, a hone, rings and valve seals.

if you wanted to really haul *** you could buy a jdm gsr engine, stamp a 1 after the b18c so it looks legal, transfer your vin plate, buy an edelbrock carb legal turbo kit and have a cali approved *** hauling car that will push past 250whp+

prices? the engine is 1500 and the turbo 4000, probably could get the turbo a little lower if you shop but you're paying for the carb approval

 

Or for less than half the money of the turbo kit, you can put ITR pistons in your GSR motor and some stage 1 cams and have around 190-200whp and still be CA legal.

edit: you may, or may not, be able to pass a CA sniffer with a P72 and cams on an OBD2 car. It'll be close.

And that's why I held out for a 94.

 

you can't hit 200whp all motor without aggressive cams like jun3's or the like and those won't fly. you also have to run oem ecu's which means if you spend $300-500 you can find a p73-a03 and run itr cams and a skunk manifold.. even this with pistons might get you 170whp.

ITR cams use $350
ITR ecu $300
skunk manifold $200
ITR TB $150
edelbrock header $385

we're almost to the price of the jdm gsr and haven't even started the rebuild yet

of course to make that jdm gsr legal you have to punch a 1 in the block

 

well i need to be able to pass smog...

here is another thing. i changed the oil, and the old oil looked bad. so i filled in new oil...
also washed the car....after driving 8 mile to take some pictures the rear end started to look like this.

the car has a straight pipe pretty much. just has one cat and thats it....other then that. its a single pipe..no muffler, no resenator, nothing. that "dirt" is pissing me off.

 

well the floor always looks clean where the car was parked.

but s2000s dont leave their bumpers looking like mine..

yeah, ill try driving normal and well c what happens.

im still looking into all my options, but buying a used engine sounds better then rebuilding.

new bearings, a hone, rings and valve seals. might be the first thing i look into now.

that sounds fun. but i need to pass smog.

 

If its the original engine with only 88k on it. Its probably the valve seals. There not that hard to change but if your new to this I would have a pro do it. You should do a compression test on is and a leak down test. This will just check to see if its the rings or the valve seals. If you go on Youtube and look up leak down test and compression test. It will show you what you need to do the job and how. You can look up how to do valve seals too.

 

Does it only burn up in VTEC? If im in endless VTEC my oil consumption will suffer hard, but normal driving with only occassional VTEC (hardly any 8k) the oil consumption does not move Its most likely that at the high rpms your rings are vibrating so much the oil is passing through them,..

 

I would check the vin number to see if it matches the engine.

 

Do a compression test and see if its the rings or valve seals. The car may have sat for w while and the valve seals may leak a bit. Unless it ws ran low on oil or been raced alot it shouldnt be burning that much. Is there any oil leaks?

 

nope. the car doesnt leak oil at all.

i changed the oil, and it i drive it normal (shifting at 3k) and the car has stopped eating so much oil. it has been 4 days since i changed the oil and it seems good.
old oil was really really dirty.

but the rear bumper still gets dirty...i hate that.

 

dang man that is a crazy amount of crap on that bumper. My GS-R has almost 300K and it doesn't soil the bumper like that, not even close.

Maybe have someone drive behind to see if and when it smokes. Maybe it only smokes when you first start it up in the morning? Or maybe it only smokes when you're in VTEC?

 

i've seen similar before. change the pcv asap. also get one from honda. lot of parts store pcv's actually create oil burners

dirty oil is hell on motors

 

I bet the white paint makes it more visible. My brother borrowed my DB8 GSR for a few days, And he was hitting VTEC alot. So most of the oil burned up and CEL kicked on for knock censer. He filled it up with oil and the car drove, But started to burn ALOT of oil. So I just took apart the motor it looks pretty darn clean and good shape. Bearings looked new but the rings were in bad shape. and I just hit 90k... So I hope you get your problem resolved.