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JamesT's 2003 CW DC5 Fresh Import (Enkei RPF1, Personal wheel, Ktuned shifter & more)

Messages
3,217
Hello chaps,

Thought it was about time to document my build on here, for the third DC5 I've owned.

Had a few cars from Mike at Torque GT and can honestly say it has always been a pleasure. However, this time I dealt with BHP Imports (specifically Baz as I used to work with him years ago in the Vtec Direct/Touge distribution days with visits to Japan together etc).

I was given access to the upcoming auctions in Japan and spent a few weeks scouring to find something I really wanted to bid on. It had to be Chapionship White, and at least a grade 4 body (unlikely to get a 4.5 or higher, but didn't want below a 4). Grade C interior or above was fine. Preferred red Recaros/carpet, but would happily have black - they would at least hide the dirt more!

Then I stumbled across this one at USS Tokyo :

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2003 Integra Type R DC5 C Pack
Championship White
Black Interior
~128k KMs (~78k Miles)
Grade 4C

They translated the auction notes for me :

-Some exterior scratches and dents
-Chips on the windscreen
-Scuffs, dirty on seats
-Soiled ceiling cover
-Rusty underbody
-Scratched wheels

I fancied bidding on this one. But I got an inspection done beforehand due to some of those auction notes. The following photos were sent to me from the auction house storage yard.



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Overall the car was in great condition for its age & I was happy to give the go-ahead to bid, and gave my maximum bid amount.

The bidding happened at around 3AM UK time, of course I didn't sleep a wink. Then I got the news from Baz that I had won the bid, some 300k Yen below my maximum bid. Fantastic!

Next job was the deregistration and get the car prepared for export. I was then sent these photos by the agent in Japan:


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After that, was the long long wait for the boat to sail round to Newcastle. After 8 weeks or so after I had paid the import duty etc, Baz & andy picked the DC5 up from the port :

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And it was straight down to the trusted garage to get MOT'd and prepared for UK roads.

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After this was sorted, I arranged transport for bringing the car from Newcastle down to the South West. I recommend a website called www.shiply.com for this.

The car was loaded in the morning :

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And by the evening it was with me!

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Then put it to bed looking absolutely filthy:

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Desperately needed a clean and that came shortly after....

Got a backlog of progress pics to post on here from the last couple of months. :lol:
 
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Whilst the car was on the water en route to the UK, I had the itch...and made a couple of purchases.

2nd hand Mugen Twinloop catback. I'm tired of loud exhausts now, so this will do nicely - plus build quality is decent.

New Tein Advance Z coilovers (height and damping adjustable), front camber bolts and rear camber arms.


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So I got to fitting it all, which was an absolute dream seeing the car had only been in the country less than a month. No rust, no stuck bolts etc.

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Tracking was now way out so went to local place to get it sorted. Not getting full alignment yet as I have plans to change a lot of bushes round the car, then get the alignment done once and for all.

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Sits nicely - using TEINs recommended height and damping settings - can't complain at all!

Wheels had been refurbished before this pic was taken :

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Something most of us have had to do with fresh imports, remove the JDM tat that they fit. Big w4nky mini disk double dins, ETC stuff, Defi gauge on its last legs, weird cables etc.

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Replaced the head unit with a Pioneer double din Apple Car Play jobby from a chap on the DC5 forum.

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Also fitted a discreet reversing camera to stop me reversing into my bike:

Can you spot it?

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So the headlights were bugging me. They were a bit yellowed, but I could see someone else had had a go at polishing them with no improvement. To be honest, it looked like it was just a real fine dust inside them. I couldnt be arsed with the whole splitting them open to clean them, as you never get them sealed again and they will be foggy forever.

So new headlights it was! And I'm glad I did, but the old ones here dont look too terrible really...

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New ones fitted :

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The comparison really shows the difference though!

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All back together :

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New headlights make such a difference. Well chuffed with that - got to get them them aligned now as they're like a chameleons eyes.
 
Next thing to tackle was cleaning/detailing.

Quick Wash:

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The obligatory side decals blown off by pressure washer - they were old and crispy anyway:

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State of the paint, the blur from the light shining on the paintwork says it all! :

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A few passes on the top right square shows how the paint should be, look at the left > right comparison!

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Paintwork sorted, and sealed.

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Then it was time for interior. The steering wheel was really shiny and sticky. A few wipes with a wet magic sponge and it has come up almost new looking!

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Seats out to give the carpet a good going over.

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Would be mad to not give the seats a clean whilst they were out of the car :

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Seats are generally in a good condition. Drivers bolster could do with being changed - will sort that in due course!
 
After having a few K20'd cars in my time, I know them very well - especially DC5/EP3.

I knew the clutch in this DC5 needed changing as it was difficult to shift when in high revs, plus getting the odd bit of crunching too.

I did contemplate whether I could be bothered doing the clutch change myself. If it was my daily and had to rely on it on Monday mornings then I probably would have just got TGM to do it, but as it sits in the garage all week I thought I'd give the clutch change a go myself. I had never changed one on a DC5 before - but it couldnt be that difficult could it? Famous last words, but it was actually not too bad a job.

Start by taking out the airbox, removing battery and disconnecting all the selector gubbins on top of the box:

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Unbolted the lower arms :

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Will come back to these later :

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Couldnt get this balljoint apart so the whole lot came out :

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Drop the subframe :

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Inspect front and rear engine mounts - obviously they had split as a common issue. Instead of replacing them completely, I'll just fit some Energy Suspension inserts into them.

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Unbolt the box and gently lower it down - it's off!

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Was definitely the original clutch - loads of material in here :

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It was due a change :

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The flywheel was alright, so that can stay :

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I fit the new clutch, cleaned up the gearbox and gave the splines a bit of Honda Urea grease so the box would slide on nicely. Did it slide on nicely? Did it hell.
Getting this far by myself was easy enough, but lifting the box back onto the engine myself was an absolute pain. I would get it lined up but the shaft just would not enter the clutch fully. There was a 1cm gap stopping me from bolting the box back onto the engine.
I slept on it as was getting pretty annoyed. The next morning, I got both feet onto each side of the box and rocked/kicked like mad. Clonk! It was on. Fantastic. Everything gets bolted up and torqued to spec.

Before I refit the lower arms, I noticed they were split/perished (another common issue with EP3/DC5). So I pressed them out and pressed in some new Hardrace rubber ones. I had these before on my first DC5 and they were great, nice and tight, no squeaks etc.

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Whilst these bits were off the car, I thought it would be rude to not fit some roll centre adjusters also.

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Out comes the balljoint press and they're fitted into the hubs :

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Hubs and lower arms refitted to the car :

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Whilst the subframe was still off, I may as well drop the sump and fit in a Clockwise motion baffle setup :

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All cleaned inside
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Time to tackle the Hondabond removal so it seals properly:

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Baffle fitted :

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I then slapped some Hondabond around the sump and refit it, note you need to chop off the bottom of the dipstick otherwise it'll foul on the baffle.

Subframe back on :

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Everything put back together and time for a little test drive. Clutch felt a lot better now as the release bearing was nicely greased on the shaft. No leaks from the sump either which was a bonus. Need to give it a few miles to bed in before doing any mad burnoutz innit.

I had a bit of a rest after all of this as my hands and back were absolutely battered!
 
So, I wanted a bit of noise from the intake. I haven't really decided which route I'm going to go down yet (ITBs / GruppeM / Long Ram Cold Air intake / ARC intake etc).

So till then I bought something really cheap and heatsoaky - but gives me the noise I want for now.

The filter in the OE airbox was aftermarket, not sure on the brand though - Blitz maybe? Who knows.

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Then this badboy arrived :

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And fitted :

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To be honest, the fit is good - quality feels alright, and it gives me the sound fix I crave right now.

For ~£80 - noise vs £ it's a bargain, probably lost some horses though :lol:
 
After all the faffing around fitting the coilovers and changing bushes in the arms etc, my OE tie rod ends had given up the ghost seen here :

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Now, as the car is pretty low on these Tein coilovers, I was aware of the extreme angles of my steering arms. I knew there were many products on the market trying to correct these extreme angles & try to reduce the bump steer (rack raisers, different lengths of steering arms, inverted tie rod ends etc).

So I went for the inverted tie rods. This is what they look like :

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OE tie rod (which was split on the other side) :

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Inverted one fitted :

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Side by side comparison :

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Comparison of steering arm angle after fitting :

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Now, there is a lot of controversy over these inverted tie rods. Some people say they have helped them, and others say they actually make bumpsteer worse. After getting my tracking done, again, I took it for a drive and the steering response felt better. Probably due to 17 year old split tie rods vs new ones, rather than the inverted nature of them giving any benefit.

I do plan to buy a bumpsteer gauge and measure my bumpsteer curve with these tie rods, and get some OE fitment ones as well to compare. This will show me how much toe I'm getting during incremental compression & rebound measurements. You can never get rid of bumpsteer but you can certainly reduce it with the right parts/ride height combo.

Will report back with a 'sciency' report with graphs and shiz when I get round to getting the gauge.
 
excellent stuff, car looks awesome.

you clearly know what you are doing.

With regards to the clutch, is that the signs of it being worn, hard to get into gear at high revs etc? As my JDM EP3 is hard to change 3rd to 4th at the top end of the rev range, and when you come out of 3rd, it has quite a 'pop'. In your experience, is this clutch related, or gearbox related? And did you replace with an OEM clutch?

cheers!
 
excellent stuff, car looks awesome.

you clearly know what you are doing.

With regards to the clutch, is that the signs of it being worn, hard to get into gear at high revs etc? As my JDM EP3 is hard to change 3rd to 4th at the top end of the rev range, and when you come out of 3rd, it has quite a 'pop'. In your experience, is this clutch related, or gearbox related? And did you replace with an OEM clutch?

cheers!

How many miles has your EP3 done? K20'd cars usually require a clutch change around the 70K miles mark.

That snatchy pop coming out of gear is usually a sign of the engine moving/slack engine mounts - engine mount inserts can fix this.

But if you're having difficulty having smooth shifts at the top of the rev range, it's nearly always the clutch which is worn, apart from the 1st to 2nd gear crunch at high revs which is usually the actual gear which is worn and would need replaced - people usually think it's worn synchros but it's often not the case. Worth changing them at the same time whilst the box is open though!

:edit: Yes I fitted OEM Exedy clutch kit.
 
Oddly enough, my EP3 has just ticked over 70k miles, so sounds like it could do with replacing.

Thanks for the info on the engine mounts, I suspect these are the original ones, so well past their best. Hopefully that will be a fairly easy fix.

I appreciated the feedback.
 
Oddly enough, my EP3 has just ticked over 70k miles, so sounds like it could do with replacing.

Thanks for the info on the engine mounts, I suspect these are the original ones, so well past their best. Hopefully that will be a fairly easy fix.

I appreciated the feedback.

Yeah my DC5 is at 78k on its original clutch and as you can see from the photos it needed a change.

Same for engine mounts, mine were split - my money would be on the fact your front one is detatched at the same place as mine. (If original)
 
Lovely motor, be like new when you have finished with it :)

Out of interest, what did it set you back with all the fees and delivery?
 
Lovely motor, be like new when you have finished with it :)

Out of interest, what did it set you back with all the fees and delivery?

Thanks mate, yeah should be an awesome example. Dont think I'll ever be "finished" though!

For this grade of car and mileage, you're probably looking at around £11k OTR here.
 
So I think it's time for another update. I guess the benefits of lockdown have given me more time & opportunity to work on the DC5.

As the front of the car was sorted in terms of bushings, it was now time to change all of the bushes on the rear of the car.

So I had this little lot arrive :

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Rear knuckle bushings x 3, rear trailing arm bushes and the bush for the lower control arm.

I got started stripping the rear of the car apart, jacked up and wheel off :

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Wheel Spacer off, caliper and carrier removed, and some bolts going into the disc to pull it away from the hub :

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Disk Off :

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Droplink removed :

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ABS sensor removed :

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Knuckle completely removed :

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Lower arm removed :

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You can see the bush was worn here on the lower control arm. They are 17 years old after all!

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I then dropped all these bits down to my local trusted garage for them to do some pressing for me.

I then collected when they were all done :

Lower control arm looking fresher than before!

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Rear knuckle all fresh :

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Trailing arm bushes and mounts also refreshed :

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And here's the box of all the old bushes :

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Whilst the car was up on axle stands, I thought I'd make the most of it by ordering and fitting more stuff.

Brake Fluid and HEL Lines :

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Look at the size of this mofo too :

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I also thought I may as well change the front and rear anti roll bar bushes also, that would mean every single bush on the car had been refreshed :

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My rear end was squeaky over bumps (ooh err) and it was obvious when I took the rear anti roll bar off, there was no lube and the bushes had seen better days.

You can see where the bushes were rubbing on the bar :

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Definitely due a replacement :

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Bushes fitted :

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ARB back on with new bushes (didn't take any photos of the front one)

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Then it was time to tackle the brake lines, nice simple job :

Before :

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After - looks much more fresh!

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I then rebuilt the rear of the car, torqued everything up, gave the brakes a bleed, and now we resemble a car again!

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As the wheels were off, I thought I'd get the ditchfinder tyres off and get some Eagle F1 Assy 5's fitted for daily & wet track. I have my eye on some wheels for track but I'll update you on this later!

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Another little update, I had a strange protruding dent on my passenger door. Was like it when it came over from Japan, so no idea how it happened.



I got my local trusted paintless dent repair man out (Steve from Dentpusher) and let him get to work.



Before :



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Steve at work :



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And after :



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The quality of his work never seizes to amaze me - you would never know anything was there. Steve said it was the sealant on the crashbar which had caused the dent - how weird?
 
Since I had all bushes/suspension related items changed & refreshed on the car, I needed to get the alignment done as it was driving like a bag of shit.

I took it to a local race team who race very successfully in their K20'd EG Civic. I advised them my DC5 is a weekend fast road toy with some track thrown in.

Here's what they did for me :


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-2.15° Front negative camber
-0.13° Front negative toe (Total)

-1.4° Rear negative camber
0.08° Rear positive toe (Total)

The guy doing the work was impressed he could get that much negative camber from just front bolts, as was I.

I was concerned that much negative camber would cause the car to tramline all over the road, but he assured me it would be fine. He was right, the drive home was a right hoot - feels very sharp and darty now. (Maybe feels so good as it was so shocking before!).

I've also gone back to the OEM intake setup for the time being (I'm after a Mugen airbox)
 
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