Type R Club of America

I thought the USDM ITR also had the same track width increase like the jdm 36mm 5 lug setup due to the wheel offsets on the wheels being +5 to the 4x100 cars.

CDMTypeR wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 1:22 pm Where did you find that ITR lip? I need one asap lol.

They seem to show up every now and then online and on local classifieds, I've collected two, one that seems to be getting beat up from autocross and another off team-integra and it was factory painted red from what I guess was off a standard integra that had the optional kit installed that I plan to use if I can budget up money for body work.

aw614 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 1:46 pm I thought the USDM ITR also had the same track width increase like the jdm 36mm 5 lug setup due to the wheel offsets on the wheels being +5 to the 4x100 cars.

[quote=CDMTypeR post_id=11496 time=<a href="tel:1576610557">1576610557</a> user_id=1042]
Where did you find that ITR lip? I need one asap lol.

They seem to show up every now and then online and on local classifieds, I've collected two, one that seems to be getting beat up from autocross and another off team-integra and it was factory painted red from what I guess was off a standard integra that had the optional kit installed that I plan to use if I can budget up money for body work.
[/quote]

The lip I got from icbmotorsports, last I checked they still have championship white.

So the track width I learn when I did a five lug on my em1. I had my itr still and figure I’d put the 36mm on the front of the itr and the rest on the rear of the em1. When I was finished the rear of the itr looked real narrow and the em1 was wide and was rubbing in back I thought I had an alignment issue. After messing with it for a while I found the rear spindles had thicker bases on the 36mm swap. Like I said usdm probably has more in common with ek9 than anything.

I also have this theory that you could probably take the 96 spec 4x114.3 and swap out the bearings and hubs for a usdm 5lug. They hub bores in the rear are the same so the bearings must be the same size and if that’s the case you could use the usdm hub and bearing assembly. The fronts are easy, you can take any eg/dc/ek knuckle with the exception of hx maybe and put a usdm five lug bearing and hub in it. I had an opportunity to buy a rear 4x114.3 set of arms but didn’t want to spend the money on an experiment.

Not sure if it fits in the conversation but thought I'd add:
I can verify RSX-S front hubs fit (offsets and all are correct) the 98+ (36mm) JDM ITR knuckles\(ITR\CRV)bearings.
This allows for expanded 300mm rotor options with Mugen, Spoon, and other 300mm ITR BBKs

The main difference between the hubs is the rotor seat on the RSX-S hub doesn't step out the way the ITR hub does, it remains the same as the wheel seat all the way back to wheel stud surface, if that makes sense.

So the donor came in a while back and I spend the last few weeks ripping it to pieces. I was in a mad rush to get it apart before it snowed because the garage is full to the max at this point. I must say it is HARD to find any type of quarters any more for these cars. going this route I should have anything and everything. I’ll elaborate more in up coming posts but I found some interesting differences (or likenesses) between this 98 spec DC2r and the GSR chassis. This is also what spurred my questions into what makes an R an R. (That moment you realize your gsr has thicker b pillars then the type r you bought). Granted that’s not one of the things that the type r chassis has reinforced but as I break it down I am going to investigate the points described in the release from Acura.

First thing I did was cut off the damaged drivers quarter I figured starting with that will give me an idea where everything is at and I would be afraid of damaging anything. You can see the amount of bondo used, it’s probably a quarter inch thick. At first I was going to cut the quarters at the c pillar just to get the damaged pieces off but my goal was to always splice on the roof and rocker channel as this would leave the smallest profile and be easy to hide. On our cars this requires removing the roof skin as the it overlaps the quarter panel in the drip edge on the roof. First “reinforcement” I found the the Type R and GSR share was the roof beam. It even has mountings for the rear of the sunroof. Like many integra parts it’s stamped with st7. Comparing the sheet metal thickness I found them to be the same as well, 22 gauge.
Going through and getting all the spot welds was tedious plus there was always one hindden weld or a spot weld on the edge of the metal the my bit would skip out of. Here’s an example were you don’t have to drill out as much as you’d think. This rear pocket in the quarter glass actually stays with the inner structure. It only requires 4 to be a to remove it from the skin. The stricken had four at it’s perimeter but also is bonded to the b pillar and required some gentle persuasion. I honestly thought I’d missed a weld on both sides trying to get this. That’s how well panel bond works when done right. Another spot with hidden weld is the door switch and the base of the b pillar in the rocker channel. The b pillar is actually welded at the base 6 spots on the driver side and 7 on the passenger on both cars. For whatever reason the added one weld extra on the opposite side to mess with you I suppose. The welds are all relatively in the same spot which made it easy to find from one car the the next. The rest of the spot welds were all pretty obvious. Just go around the edge with a wire wheel and remove the seem sealer and paint to make it easy to see. Invest it lots of spot weld drill bits as well.

Got a little work done this week. A lot of life has happened in the past weeks so as much as I wanted to take the winter months to get the major work done before I paint it over the summer(hopefully) I'm a little behind schedule. Plus I took a few detours in the process. The donor I purchased pretty much had everything still in it except the rear seat. Reinforcement bars spare tire and tools, it was all there. I must have walked around the cars for hours deciding what I wanted to do. Now that I got my welder situated I wanted to put it to good use. I also didn't want to waste a ounce of steel on the donor car( I didn't want an R to die in vain.)

SO...I flipped the thing over and removed the subframe. Honestly there was no reason for me to do this. The ASR brace would have been more than enough to support the 22mm ITR sway bar but I honestly love using this welder LOL. Plus anyone restoring an R can learn from my mistakes. At first glance the ITR rear subframe is very similar to the standard Integra. Its actually identical in all dimensions. The control arms meet in the same place, the center section that's welded to the frames is the same. The main and only difference are the lower arm mounts themselves as the are thicker steel and wider. There is a noticeable difference in weight between the two pieces. I had more side by side pics but I lost them. I took a few after the welding had starter. The GSR and standard Integras subframe is very light, like pinking lifting light. Also very flimsy the ITR on the other hand felt solid, You can see the two pictures above where the ITR makes up the difference in thickness with the large spacer, this fact is what allows us to use the ITR LCA's on other DC's and also EG cars. Prior to removing the GSR subframe I welded square steel to the frame rails, and rear strut gussets to keep integrity in the Integra. I used the filler neck mounting bolt hole to support the subframe in place while I aligned it to the frame rails with a floor jack on the other side. I took multiple measurements from fixed points on the car, plus the lines left from the original to locate it. I still have some welding to do yet and to clean up some mistakes but it was actually pretty straight forward.

Another task I took on was swapping these strut top reinforcements over to the gsr. This pic shows the original on the gsr. Its on the driver side and there isn't one on the passenger side.... …while the '98 spec has this larger thicker strut top plate, plus there was one on the passenger side as well. The strange thing about this reinforcement is looking at some of the other ITR builds here, I notice even the USDM ITR does not have these plates. Not sure of the reason, if anyone does have them on let me know I'm kind of curious. Comparison of the two driver side plates.

Awesome work and great information.

This thread is so satisfying. Love the detailed sheetmetal images. More facts instead of fiction.

Thank you for documenting everything!

Incredible work. Reading these updates gave me a smile.

I truly appreciate it when the community contributes back by documenting critical steps or information, which you've done both. The community has for years debated the sheet metal topic.

So I was able to get a bit more done due to social distancing. Both rear quarter panels welded on and ready to start with the roof. I had to fix a small rust spot on the right rear wheel well. I cut a section from the 98 spec donor car and welded it in, measuring the sheet metal before hand. Both the 98 spec JDM car and the 98 GsR had 22 gauge outer wheel wells.

98 spec ITR outer well


98 USDM GSR outer well