I'll start off with a little background. I've been posting at Honda-tech on and off since about 2004. I decided to create a new user account after going back and looking at some of the absolutely embarrassing posts my former 15 year old self made. My first car was a 1998 LS that I eventually turbocharged. Just thinking about that car brings back so many fond memories of spending countless hours with my buddies in my parents garage not having the slightest clue as to what we were doing. I'll never forget driving around town with my friend and his laptop trying to tune the car without datalogging and with Uberdata...yes Uberdata. When it was all said and done I was somehow able to run a 13.9 @104 on street tires that were slipperier than a witches tit. I soon went off to college and sold the car.

Fast forward about 6 years and I purchased a 1995 four door LS. I used it as a daily and had an absolutely mint 2003 cobra with 10k miles as my fun car. I ended up selling both cars about 2 years ago.

Here we are today and I have yet again found myself with another Integra. This time it is a 1997 four door GSR(my first VTAK ). I just can't seem to stay away from these cars. Every time I sit in the drivers seat it feels like home. It currently sits at 176k miles and I am the third owner. The previous owner had it since 2007 and took pretty good care of it. Not too bad for $3,300

So, the purpose of this thread is to get this 20ish year old car back into shape. The previous owners took good care of her, but I want it to get back to showroom condition (well maybe that's a bit to ambitious). I've already noticed several issues that are common pain points for us Integra owners. I'm going to do my best to try and provide writes up on how to eliminate these issues. At this point I don't have any plans of trying to make 800whp or redline at 10k RPM. OEM parts will be used where ever possible.
Without further ado...

 

Looks like a great platform to start with. I, like you have gotten back into the Honda scene after 8 years. Just something about these cars!

 

Nice find! Should be a great car to work with. There is just something about driving and working on these cars that brings everyone back

 

Here are a few quick things I did.

Us Integra owners are well aware of the issue of the Shifter boot sagging down away from the Shift ****. This is something that happened to all three of my Integras and has always bothered me to no end.


To remedy this, all it takes is a zip tie and a careful hand while pulling the boot over the tie. Took me 2 minutes



I also was a little bored so I decided to spruce up the stock chrome exhaust tip. I used a green scotch brite pad and some simple green to remove the caked on dirt and grime that had collected over the last 19 years. Polished it off by wet sanding with 3000 grit sandpaper. I could have spent a lot more time and really polished her up, but since its under the car and not very visible I didn't spend too much time on it.

 

Next up is dealing with that Pesky ABS light. I didn't even pull the code. I already had a pretty good idea what it was.


For those of you that have an ABS light coming on and off intermittently, there is a sensor behind the Rotor that gets gunked up and will throw a code. Just pull the front wheels off and you should look for this.

There are two bolts that hold the sensor and two more that hold the line in place. Remove these and pull out the sensor. Here is what I found

I used a rag and water to clean everything up. I purposely avoided using a degreaser or other harsh cleaner to try and not damage the senor itself. I have no idea if using a cleaner like that would damage it, but I figured why risk it.
And that's it, no more ABS light!

 

score for a good find! luckily where you are you dont have to worry about rust on a honda that old.

 

Clean integra. Would not mind a white 4dr gsr..All the one's ive seen are green...

 

Yeah the guy I bought it from was originally from up north so even though we really don't have to worry about it here in Texas, he took ever precaution to avoid it.

 

Thanks! Yeah as soon as I saw it on CL i knew I had to jump on it quick.

 

Great tip! I'm having the same issue. I'll have to check my sensor as well.

 

Now to tackle the cataract eyes of ole girl. I bought a $20 headlight restoration kit from walmart. I've used these kits on previous cars in the past and I think they are well worth the money. The key is to take your time and really make sure to use the heavier grit sandpaper to its full advantage.







I took the after pictures the morning after so the lighting is a little different, but as you can see it made a hell of a difference.

 

Great job on the headlight restoration. For future reference though, all you need is detailing compound and buff pad on the end of a drill. Or if you have a DA polisher you can use that as well. Rarely do you ever want to use sand paper if it is only discolored. The only time I use sand paper is when the headlights have divots in them.

 

So I had quite a few things I wanted to get done this weekend and ended up not doing a lot of them. Here is what I was able to knock out.

The car has had a nasty oil leak for what looks like sometime now. From what I could tell, it looked like a VTEC solenoid and valve cover gasket. I also took this time to re-paint the valve cover.

You can see there is quite a bit of oil build up around the solenoid.


You should notice a pretty significant bump when running your finger over the gasket. This one was flush with the metal lip and definitely needed to be replaced.


Since I was pulling off the Valve cover to replace that gasket, I took the opportunity to repaint the cover itself. It was in decent shape, but was starting to show its age. OEM is the name of the game here so Wrinkle Black paint it is. I'll save the hot pink flames for the next go around

I picked up some Aircraft paint remover and VHT Black Wrinkle paint from the local auto parts store.

Pulled off

Had to spray it down with the paint remover and rinse 3 times before I got everything off. Used nearly an entire can. This makes life easy. Use it till everything is gone.

Taping this was a pain. It felt like it took forever and I was getting frustrated because it's tough to get the holes perfectly round

Homemade paint booth. Mostly so I could feel cool while doing this.

First coat applied. The directions called for 3 coats total.

The finished product. I let it cure for the better part of 24 hours. i think it turned out pretty good. There are a few imperfections around the holes, but overall I'm satisfied with the way it came out.

I lost one of the Spark plug cover bolts!

 

good job, I'm missing one spark plug cover bolt too.
did you change both solenoid gaskets? the top one looks like its leaking oil too.

 

Yep I did change both. By time I got to the second one my hands were covered in oil so I didn't take a picture. I just went out for a test cruise and it seems to still be leaking. I didn't apply any RTV or Honda Bond so it looks like I'm going to be picking some up.

 

I just did mine. also check your distributor o ring and cam seal. I picked up Honda bond but was told by the tech NOT to use it on the solenoid gaskets. just try to tighten each bolt evenly. use a torque wrench if possible. mine is now leak free without Honda bond.

 

Nice thanks! Did the tech give any reason as to why you shouldn't use honda bond on the solenoid?

 

yeah, he said the solenoid gaskets were made to fit in the grove and seal properly on their own. just have to make sure the surface area where the solenoid meets the block is wiped down clean. best bet is to wait until the car has sat for a while so you don't have too much oil lose and its easier to wipe clean.

 

Wow that thing is in great shape.. that interior looks mint.

 

Really cool that you painted the valve cover, looks very nice. And headlights are great too. I restored my headlights on my car and it was so much better looking.

 

Thanks! Despite it's old age I think the previous owners took pretty good care of it.

 

It's amazing how just freshening up the headlights can really change a car.

 

Great looking car and awesome work so far. However your ground is in the wrong location. I needs to be moved to the nut to the right corner of the valve cover.

 

Ah thanks for the heads up!

 

Not much to report here. I've just been enjoying it as a daily driver. I bought some trim and bumper paint and decided to freshen up some trim and the windshield wipers.

Sorry, but I forgot to take a before on the wipers. They were pretty trashed.


Before

After