I wanted to start a little thread for this swap to sort of document and track my progress on my 92 DA, RS. So I bought this car in April of '03 with 120k miles after my '95 gsr was stolen from in front of my house in Memphis, TN.




So on to this DA. I had very little money to work with after insurance paid off the gsr so I picked up this pretty clean Integra for $3,500. Paid for!


This is after I lowered the car on some H&R race springs, found some SI wheels to replace the sweet 14" hubcaps and steelies, some jdm one pieces and a new Espelir cat-back.

I joined the Air Force in December '03 and started working on my car a little here and there with the little money I was making.






I traded the SI's for a new set of Rota Auto X's, put on some Azeni's and bought a jdm gsr swap w/lsd from hmotors.






The car had terrible paint that had been re-done after an accident it was in before I bought it. An example of what it was looking like.

Now 5 years later I'm scheduled to deploy to the desert for 4 months and I know I'll make some cash so I leave the car in the hands of some trusted friends who do paint work as a side job.
















They shaved all the emblems, fixed all the body work, and re-painted factory R-81





Now I return home and can't have a freshly painted car and old parts from '04!
















I picked up some new parts: Rays Gram Lights 57 Max in 16's, new Greddy SP2 cat-back, F&F coilovers, ASR subframe brace and 24mm sway-bar.

I wasn't happy with the look w/ the Gram Lights so I sold em after only 2 months and found something a bit more "era specific"
















15x7 +35 Volk GR-N. Found new Rays lug nuts and valvestems, I had the lips and barrels hand polished and got a set of Bridgestone Potenza RE-11's.

Now fast forward to now. I was stationed in Oklahoma City at Tinker AFB for just over 7 yrs (I never wanna go back to that state!). I finally get orders I put in for to McChord AFB in Tacoma, WA. So to prep the car for it's 2,000+ mile journey from OKC to Tacoma WA, I had to disguise it so no creepers would be eye balling me when we had to stop for the night.
















Got a POS U-Haul and loaded it up along with my bike, taped all the potential areas that could be damaged with rock chips from the meaty tires I have on the Tundra (completely necessary!), and put some sweet *** bullet hole stickers on for good measure!

So I get the car here to WA safe and sound, a little dirty from the rain but no defects noted! It looked so terrible, on steelies, no front end, I found a stripped wheel stud when I put the steelies on and just a combination of all the above I knew I didn't have the motivation to put it on the street right now. I was bored with it and it sat for a year in 2010 while I deployed twice just to return home to the crazy *** hot summer of Oklahoma City. I needed to man up and make some changes. I've had the car going on 9 years now and I think it and I both deserve to make some much needed mods. So..... here we go!














Yep, that's me jammed between the wall and the car in my HUGE 1 car garage! I can't believe I'm doing all of this in this garage but I'm strong willed I suppose.

In for a refresh, I pulled the complete front suspension for new OEM ball joints, wheel bearings, ARP wheel studs, SKunk2 UCA's, a power steering rack "loop mod", all new bushings, and just ordered is a Fastbrakes 11" ITR caliper and cross drilled/ slotted rotors.






Getting the gsr prepped in the meantime, ready to be pulled and sold.

I got anxious and started ordering K swap parts when I didn't even have the gsr sold or a K20 in possession but eh, who cares!
























Greddy SP2 removed and sold and in goes a 3" Thermal system. Pics showing the pipe comparison and clearances.

I did some random cleaning of "stuff" messing with my new parts








Skunk2 UCA's and "custom" hand polished "things" lol

On to pulling the gsr. A cool dude emailed me from Craigslist and offered to help me pull the swap if he bought it. So with his and his friend's help we got the engine out and loaded in his truck to be later installed into another DA. Keeping it in the family!






My HUGE workspace


Engine's gone! No more looking back. Time to put some K power in this dude

I'm all outta pictures of my progress as of today but I've been working diligently and gathering tons and tons of stuff for the swap, I just don't have pictures of it all, yet!




Full-Race traction bars are getting a makeover courtesy of a local powdercoater.

So as of yesterday, I called Hmotors and got a 66k mile K20A2. The engine will be here soon and until then I'm continuing to work on the suspension, waiting on a couple parts and it'll all go back in. My brakes are coming and wheel bearings on order so all the suspension will be assembled then and go back where it belongs.

I've got some pretty cool stuff on order now too so I'll keep updating as I go and pretty soon I'll update the engine bay progress. I hope this thread will help me with y'all's advice and maybe I can be of help to somebody else in one way or another. Looking forward to getting this show on the road and look forward to this build. If I for some reason loose motivation I know everyone here will get me right through it. Thanks for looking and keep checking back as I update this little project of mine

 

Something new showed up...









Fastbrakes kit, Type R calipers w/ 11" rotors. Slight machining of the caliper is required so it doesn't drag against the rotor but otherwise it bolts onto the DA knuckle. I guess we'll see how it all goes together soon!

 

Man I can't wait to see how this goes!

 

Thanks homie! I have more stuff still to come. I posted on another forum sooner than here so I'm behind on the pictures and updates but believe you me, there is a lot more excitment already taking place

 

nice man in for this build!

 

very excited to see the end of this build, keep the pic coming, its the cleanest 92 ive seen but that does say much sence im from conada :/

 

Thanks! I'll try to get some more pictures up tonight

 

This thing is stupid clean. Keep it up

 

Great project and great work its clean!

 

I'm OCD some say. I say it's attention to detail! Thanks, it's gonna stay that way. I'll prob never drive it lol

Preciate it

October 30th

Today I spent a considerable amount of time out in the garage getting more done. I pulled the rear trailing arms, separated the rear brakes so I can clean everything, repaint the calipers and I might even order some slotted rotors for the rear to give it a little something back there, I pulled the front fender liners to prep the wheel wells for some Duplicolor under-body coating, & just did some random stuff in the engine bay. I'm also ditching the stock rear LCA's for some new shiny ones w/ fresh bushings! More than likely Function 7

The plan here is to get the wheel wells painted, once all the suspension is done it'll go back together and then the car will be off to the body shop to have the engine bay painted (after I get that passenger side mount welded in).

On to the progress:





















New wheels preview


And I'm all done for a while



November 1st

The shipping co. called today & the engine is being delivered tomorrow

It was like Christmas up in here today. I had 4 boxes inside when I got home from work today...




New tie rod boots for the steering rack & two new exhaust hangars


New wheel bearings for the front... even came with my SN on the box No really, it did!

The fun stuff







A set of new Recaro Speed's. Nobody else's *** sweat here, no sir.


Some more Recaro's







Got the K20 yesterday as well. I haven't taken any pictures since my garage is tiny and I kinda need to keep it on the pallet so it can be easily moved, but it's here and it's spotless

 

wow nice work

 

Baller *** build! In for moar

 

YES!! i love DA builds and this one is milano red just lik emine was!! i love it mine im in for more, i used to have the same car and never got to do all i wanted to it. Keep it up!

 

Looks great man keep up the good work

 

Thank you all for the kind words. I don't do much sitting around so keep checkin' in for updates.

 

Subscribed, Keep up the good work man. Looks great so far.

 

^Sweet, thanks

 

Very nice ride indeed, looking forward to updates!

 

So clean I love da's and ef's so old school
what was the exhaust on it before you changed it again I must have missed it ?

 

Thanks, it was a GReddy SP2. Perfect condition, just is not big enough for the K series. I think it was even chocking down the B18C I had in there, but it was by far my favorite exhaust.

 

Good luck with your build ! It's going to be very nice.

 

looks sweet!

 

WTG Chase the DA is looking fresh in all her nakedness cant wait to see the finale result buddie, and i'm pretty sure u'll be happy wit the service u get from James, Kevin, Matt,Ricky and the rest of the SF guys. frist hand experiance wit them A+ shop.

 

Love that you resprayed it R81.

Looks phenomenal.

 

this build looks amazing.
Keep it up man.