I’ve been putting this off in anticipation of the diagnosis… it’s currently with Stevie at grinspeed.
I’ll start by saying this was a very poorly planned trip whilst extremely drunk with my mate. We did the trip effectively backwards and did not account in any way for the road conditions whilst looking at mileage. One day we did 179 miles at an average speed of 26mph, for instance.
I had planned on raising my car up for the trip, knowing it struggles to get over anything but the mildest of speed bumps without a scrape. Spanner didn’t arrive in time (spanner STILL hasn’t arrived). Sort your shit out Meister R. That turned out to be a huge mistake. There’s a lot of integra on the roads in Scotland. Mostly exhaust manifold/b pipe and oil cap.
So yes. I am a retard as you all well know. No other member has driven their car into their garage with the door closed to my knowledge. Well, I’m not proud to admit I did something almost worse. Somewhere near to fort William (I’ll update this with pics soon) I decided it was a good time to check my oil. I chose well, it was right at the min level, maybe a smidge under. Topped it up. All good. Carried on for around 30 miles, picked up a hitch hiker around mile 2. Dropped him off around mile 28 and then stopped for a nice view. This is the point I noticed the oil pouring from the front grille. I knew instantly what I’d done. We were in the middle of fucking nowhere and I’d left my oil cap off. We we’re staying in Irvine that night for the last night of the trip, a good long drive away. It was Friday, 5:20pm. I called Glasgow Honda and ordered an oil cap, in the next morning.
we left the integra there atop a mountain in a lay-by. Drove to Glasgow the next morning for 8:30am, then to Halfords for some more oil (I only brought 1ltr) and back to Glencoe… palms sweaty the whole way not knowing if this oil cap would fit or not (it was from a 1.8 k-series). Got there for around 11.30am, then had to drive back to Southport from there. I’ll show the Google from that day, it’s mental.
A huge thanks to my mate for saving the day with all the extra driving. Lucky for him the IS250 was comfy as fook. Honda too, can’t fault that. They opened at 9am officially, but they had my cap in hand (heh) and the doors open at 8:30 for me… plus the cap fit, 20+ years apart in design… hats off. It’s just hat puns all night.
The saving grace of the trip, strangely enough… was the roads that absofuckinglutely destroyed my car prior to me forgetting an oil cap. My exhaust was barely hanging on, so I was taking it really really easy the whole time after that. That northwest coastal road is harsh!! Even after the oil cap was left off for 30-40 miles, the oil level was still above the minimum. What I had assumed was valve damage at that point, was infact just the baffles in the central silencer which have been crushed to fuck.
Huge relief today tbh. Stevie is re-doing the set up today, apparently it had flat 0 for camber and toe all around. Getting it raised up 15-20mm too.
So all in all a great first half of the trip, really enjoyed it. Car destroyed at 2/3rds point and the the end of the trip was just a stressful mess of my own doing. Happy the car isn’t too bad and the centre section of the exhaust plus the manifold were both fairly toasted anyway. Spoon B-pipe on the way. Can’t believe they still make them.