Integra Type R vs Integra GSR

greetings yours eric the car guy here I've got something special for you today that's not necessarily repair related but it is educational and that is a comparison between the acura integra type-r and the Acura Integra GSR I had to be fortunate enough to be the owner of both a 2000 Acura Integra Type R and also a 2001 Acura Integra GSR these are both original cars unmolested in fact I had an exhaust header on the GSR and I've since put that back to the original exhaust that was on the car just for this video so that you can get a chance to see exactly what's different between a Type R and a GSR which let's face it both of these cars are really just fancy expensive civics let's get started in addition to owning these awesome cars I was also an acura technician from 1997 to about 2008 ish and the majority of the information that I'm going to be sharing with you in this video comes directly from Acura from this which was a service manual supplement that they sent to us at the dealership in 1997 when the original Acura Integra Type R came out I'll be covering the obviously USDM versions of the Acura Integra the ones for Europe and Australia and Japan were all different but in this video I'm just gonna with strict focus strictly on the USDM versions that I have here the USD M type R was only available in the US in 1997 1998 2000 and 2001 there was no 1999 type R in the US the 1997-98 Cayman Championship white only so that was the only color you could get it in 1997 and 98 in 2000 and 2001 it was available in only two colors nighthawk black pearl and Phoenix yellow incidentally GSRs were available in the US from 1994 until 2001 let's start with the differences in body and appearance oh and before we get too far into this I haven't washed these cars inside or out so I'm sorry for that because I drive them tie bars have this chin spoiler which you actually could purchase from a dealer and put on to another and when these came off the delivery truck this spoiler was not installed it had to be installed during the pre delivery inspection GSRs do not have this front chin spoiler but as I said you could purchase the front chin spoiler from the dealer and install it onto a GSR or other Integra Type R is also distinguishable by this large spoiler in the back and this isn't just a raceme spoiler this actually provides 30% more downforce to this car you could also purchase this rear spoiler from the dealer and install it on another Integra GSRs also came standard with a spoiler this one not as radical and it had the taillight or the third brake light assembly within the spoiler itself the third brake light for the Type R is located in the rear window the type R is 15 millimeters lower than the GSR here's the front ride height on the GSR please note that both of these cars are older and had the original suspensions which likely settled over time here's the ride height in the rear of the Type R here's the ride height and the rear of the GSR so with the front chin spoiler the rear spoiler and it being 15 millimeters lower the type r actually has 1% less drag than a GSR both the Type R and the GS are comstock with 15 inch wheels the type R has a five lug hub the GSR and other Integris use a four lug hub in addition to the Ty part using five lug wheels they also have a 5 millimeter greater offset than the GSR stock wheels type RS came from the factory with bridgestone potenza re zero one zero performance tires customers I believe had to sign a waiver when they purchased one of these vehicles stating that they understood that these tires would only last 7500 miles the 1997 in 1998 type R did not have a rear wiper the 2000 and 2001 did the GSR always came with a rear wiper the GSR trim package came with a sunroof no tie bars ever came with Sun roofs this is one way you can easily identify them in addition to reducing weight the absence of a sunroof on the tie bar also gives the body more rigidity bars also have these unique red badges in the front and the rear the GSR as well as regular Integris just came with these silver badges however you could purchase a dealer-installed gold package which this could be swapped out for gold badges the GSR has the iconic VTech badge below the right side tail light the type r had this type r sticker underneath the rear taillight at least that's where it's supposed to be placed however a body shop put mine in the incorrect location in the rear type ours also have type r badges on the rear quarters of both sides of the car some of the most major differences between these two vehicles and sets apart the type r from other acura integra is how the rear of the vehicle was constructed i can't necessarily show you every one of these but i'll go over them now one of the differences that is visible is this reinforcement that's bolted on in the rear of the type r the GSR does not have this reinforcement for this part let's look at that manual supplement to look at the body enhancements that they did to the type r so they had a thicker rear roof rail upper a thicker rear pillar upper girder increased rear wheelhouse thickness thicker rear damper gusset rear performance rod which is what i just showed you in the back there a thicker rear lower arm bracket a performance rod added to the rear crossmember that's underneath I'll show you that in a minute they also use thicker reel rear wheel arch extensions and all of this actually moves some of the weight to the rear and apparently change the center of gravity to make it more advantageous both cars use a strut bar to connect the two upper strut towers the one on the GSR steel the one on the type r is aluminum with type r badging now despite those reinforcements in the rear the 1997 USDM type r was 93 pounds lighter or 42 kilograms lighter than the GS r that's in 1997 as they went on through the years they got heavier as I mentioned my mm has a rear wiper arm the original 97 and 98 did not have vanity mirrors but mine has vanity mirrors so it's interesting how that crept up in weight over time but the lightest versions are for the USDM market are gonna be the 1997 here's a chart showing the differences in weight of the integra type-r over the years continuing on with the discussion of weight reduction on the type are the 1997 and 1998 type r did not come with air conditioning although you could have it dealer-installed this was to save weight the 2000 and 2001 model i believe it could be installed at the factory this one I believe was factory installed and uses a light weight condenser also for weight savings the type r did not come with cruise control in any of the years that was available in the US the GSR did come with cruise control and the main switch is located here now let's talk about the interiors this GSR has a very nice leather interior type ours never came with leather in the US they came with these cloth seats with this red stitching it's somewhat Spartan compared to the GSR although it did come with a leather wrap steering wheel from the beginning the GSR didn't come with a leather wrap steering wheel until about 99 the type-r came with this carbon fiber like material on the center console it's not actual carbon fiber it's just plastic made to look like it it's also on the driver's side vent but strangely not on the passenger side vent the GSR you just uses plain black plastic for the center console also for the drivers vent passenger vents appear to be the same in both cars type RS came with this iconic number plate on the center console it's supposed to represent the production number of the vehicle released in the US however these numbers don't necessarily match up with the number of type ours sold in the US I don't really have an explanation for this the 1997 and 1998 Type R came with a leather-wrapped shift knob with red stitching the 2000 and 2001 s came with this metal shift knob the leather shift knob in my opinion is a little bit nicer these metal ones are cool because I like the way but really cold in the winter really hot in the summer the leather however that would deteriorate over time and sometimes peel away from the stitching this GSR also came with a leather-wrapped shift knob this is quite a common occurrence on the leather-wrapped shift knob sadly a driver's seat on the Type R only has minor adjustments available both the GSR and the Type R have lumbar adjustments the GSR has a more adjustable front seat however older GSRs had a seat similar to the type r type ours came with their special floor mats with the logo in the floor mat these have seen better days for sure here's the passenger side rear mats in the tie bar aren't anything special but they should be on the correct side and these are not well that's a little better these are not the original floor mats for the GSR these are actually out of a TSX these are the original floor mats for the GSR one thing that's noticeable when driving a type R is that it is louder than a GSR part of the reason for that is that they did not put any insulation between the carpet and the front firewall in order to save weight here's what you'll find under the carpet of the GSR and by the way I should have mentioned this is the passenger side floorboard when you pull the carpet back on the GSR you'll see this black insulating material that's here you won't see the bare metal like you did on the tie bar and this is for sound deadening and also insulation now both the type r and the GS r had the vanity mirrors as I mentioned but the GSR has these map lights the type R does not now I've turned the lights off in a shop to show you what I feel is one of the coolest features of the type R and that is the lighting the lighting on the type r is red not only here on the instrument cluster but also in the center console and on the radio this is unique to the type are no other Integra has this type of lighting another thing unique to the type r instrument cluster is the font is the same as an NSX also the redline is 8400 the clock is also this red orange color and sadly mine has this weird little pixel thing going on the GS are just has regular white illumination for the cluster and the HVAC also the radio when it's stuck I don't have a stock radio installed in mine the clock on the GSR as well as other Integra's is this white / bluish color the 1997 and 1998 type R came with a special P similar to what they had with the NSX in 2000 and 2001 they only painted a red accuracy inside the key over here on the left is the GSR with this white Acura symbol these keys also contain chips for the immobilizer system which is an anti-theft system and maybe the reason why they didn't make a special key for 2000 and 2001 let's look under the hood shall we this is under hood on the GSR this is a b18c one engine which is a dual overhead cam VTEC engine VTEC was first used by Honda and their racing program and then the first production vehicle to have VTEC was the NSX the Acura Integra the GSR in the u.s. got this in 1994 this engine originally produced 170 horsepower at 7600 RPM and 128 foot-pounds of torque at 6200 RPM its compression ratio is 10 to 1 this is the b18c 5 in the Type R it is very similar to the be a 1 8c 1 however it does produce more power this engine produces 195 horsepower at 8,000 rpm 130 pound-feet of torque @ 7500 rpm its compression ratio is 10 point 6 to 1 the b18c 5 was an engineering marvel of sorts for its time as you can see by this paragraph it is the most powerful normally aspirated mass-produced automobile engine per liter ever produced pretty cool right even though there's a 20 horsepower difference between the two engines I don't notice a big difference while driving them and here's why here are the power curves for the two engines the solid black line is the Type R and the dotted line is the GSR and as you can see they're almost identical however the GSR seems to have a little bit more torque now the difference in horsepower actually doesn't happen until you're up here above 7000 rpm that's the real difference between these two engines and the torque curve continues here so normal driving in this rpm range you really don't notice too much of a difference between the two vehicles at least in my mind it's only until you get into this upper rpm range now that's not to say that driving the Type R isn't a heck of a lot of fun because it is louder and you definitely hear when VTEC kicks in yo but as you can see by this chart released by the factory they are very similar and this illustrates my theory that I've had about these engines all along and that is horsepower is torque times RPM divided by 50 to 52 what they did with the type r engine was they lightened up the valve train and made it so that you could have a higher rpm as a result that's where the extra horsepower comes in the type r has a specifically tuned intake system and the inlet for this is actually inside this fender here the GSR has a similar intake system except for it draws air from right here behind the ABS unit instead of inside the fender well and here's a better view of those intake boxes like I said the GSR pulls it in from inside the engine compartment the tie bar pulls it in from behind that fender there are a couple of visual differences between the two engines you can spot right off the first of which is the intake manifold on the GSR you can see it's much larger and it's also a two-stage intake manifold the b18c v and the type r uses a single-stage manifold here's a better view of the differences in those intakes so there are a lot of incredible things that they did to the b18c v to make it as awesome as it is and one of those things was instead of the cross section of the valve springs being circular it's actually oval I found that to be an interesting fact it also employed lighter intake valves they made the this part of the stem smaller to accomplish that here's some of the specifics of what they did to the valve train looking for a torque spec on the connecting rods of a b18c v what you may not find one honda wants to use this special tool to measure axial tension when fastening down connecting rods on this engine here's some more details on the upgrades to the type r engine b-series engines commonly leak from the cam plug the distributor o ring and the VTEC solenoid one thing that's common to both the b18c one and b18c v is they both burn oil in fact all b-series engines burn oil they did it when they were brand new customers complained about it I'm not sure if Honda found a fix to it but if you have a be serious Honda engine be sure to check and top off your oil often both the GSR and the Type R employ 5-speed manual transmissions however they have different gear ratios here's a chart showing the differences between the two transmissions the type r also has a limited slip differential and that can be identified by that LSD on the outside of the transmission case so now let's talk about something I can't necessarily show you on the car which i think is one of its greatest features and that is the limited slip differential on the type R for those of you not familiar with what a limited slip is in a traditional open differential which is in most vehicles that are out there traction is actually sent to the wheel or power is sent to the wheel with the least amount of traction which you know seems counterintuitive but that's the way it is and it actually helps with cornering of the vehicle anyway so for example say you've got one wheel that's on ice or one wheel that's slipping or something like that the power will go to that one wheel and the opposite wheel won't move at all well that's not the case with a limited slip type differential what that does is it basically makes it so that both wheels get equal power from the engine and in the Type R they do this in a very interesting way they use helical gears inside the differential to do this so in other words as one wheel starts to slip this gear walks along the inside of this other gear and as it does it forces itself against the inside of the the case of the differential thus locking the whole thing into place and as a result it gives you that limited slip action it's it's really kind of a neat and interesting system except when it wears out when this wears out you've got to replace the differential there's no way around it it is an interesting system but that is the one drawback to this type of limited slip differential the type R does use a heavy-duty clutch and clutch feel is different between the two cars you might hear that squeaking that's actually common with civics and Integra's and it's an easy fix just take a little bit of lubricant and put it on the end of the slave cylinder where it attaches to the clutch fork another difference between the type r and GSR is the train mission mounting the type-r is well stiffer and more reinforced and this is particularly noticeable on hard acceleration when you're shifting gears it's much smoother on the tie bar than it is with the GSR and I believe it's due to this this beefed up transmission mount the tie bar also has an upgraded ABS unit and it looks very similar to the one on the GSR although I can tell you it does sound and act differently now let's get these on the lift one by one and compare the brakes suspension and exhaust here is the undercarriage on the GSR here's the undercarriage on the type bar one of the main differences in the two CH a C's is the rear suspension and everything the rear suspension bolts - as you'll see in this clip this is the GSR I think you'll note that there's a lot more reinforcement back here yes I'm aware of the corrosion and things that are back here but this is another stiffener that you won't find on a GSR also these lower control arms and the way they attach and everything you can see it's very different than what it is on the GS are also much thicker rear stabilizer bar which will marriage measure here in a minute type are also uses larger diameter axles as well as different cv joints the exhaust on the type bar also has a larger diameter than the GS our exhaust manifolds and both of these cars are also different this is the down pipe on the GSR you'll note that the exhaust on the Type R has a smoother transition than the GSR it's also of a larger diameter this is what the difference in exhaust looks like on paper front stabilizer bar on the GSR is roughly 24 millimeters front stabilizer bar on the Type R is 24 millimeter rear stabilizer bar on the GSR is roughly 13 millimeters the rear stabilizer bar on the tie bar is substantially larger it is 22 millimeters here's detail on the front suspension and brakes of the GSR see this one's four lug there's a control arm a spring here's a detail on the front suspension of brakes of the type r here's detail of the rear suspension and brakes on the GSR the coil springs on the rear of a GSR are not progressive rate here's a detail on the rear suspension and brakes on the type are the coil springs on the rear of the integra type-r are of a progressive rate here's some more detail on the suspension upgrades between the GSR and type-r as you can see they've done a lot of things increasing damping rates rear springs are progressive instead of just linear there were a lot of upgrades of the suspension on the typar here's something I want to share with you about the type our brakes that I've come to discover and something I suspected all along if you look at these numbers as far as the size of the rotors the the exact same size as an accord v6 of the late 90s so in other words I believe what they did was they took the brakes from an accord v6 something that they already had and put them on the integra and this is what makes the brakes so awesome there's the brakes are designed to stop a car that's much larger and much heavier on a smaller car and that's what really makes the braking performance stand out on this so if you're looking to upgrade the brakes on your Civic or Integra you might consider looking for some v6 accord brakes and putting them on and basically make yourself poor-man's type r now here are some differences between the USDM type R and type r's that were available in Europe Asia and also Australia those other vehicles or those other type ours got Recaro seats they also got a Momo steering wheel and instead of a ten point six to one compression ratio at the b18c five they had an eleven to one compression ratio in their engines I suspect this may be because higher octane fuels are more readily available in these markets I really don't know for sure a couple of final notes this type R is the seventh Integra that I've owned so I've had quite a bit of experience and I go all the way back to the original Integris as well and I had a 87 CRX as well so I've I've sort of been in the camp of Hondas small sports cars for quite some time I consider the type r to be one of the high-water marks that they created one of the things that I liked about driving the car so much over driving the GSR is the handling and the braking is exceptional that is where Hahn to put their money and if you're trying to upgrade your Civic I mean take a look at what these Honda engineers did they focused on the rear suspension a lot so take a look at that if you're trying to improve the handling on say a Honda Civic which is in essence what these cars are is what I said at the top of it at the top of this video as I also said I wasn't as impressed with the engine performance not that I wasn't impressed and not that I don't enjoy the sound but as you can clearly see by the power curves and everything that I showed you that horsepower gain is actually way up towards the top of the RPM range nothing wrong with that I'm just saying that the difference between driving the two cars I didn't really notice as much seat-of-the-pants power difference as I did the handling and the braking like I said those things are standout the one thing that really really stands out on the Type R though is that limited slip differential that thing changes everything about a front-wheel drive car like everything I really can't describe to you between the handling the braking and that limited slip differential it's an amazing car and I'm not saying the GSR isn't the GSR is fun to drive in fact it is more drivable than the Type R I mean you drive down the road and the type are you doing this you diggle around a lot it's it it's a sports suspension that's the way it is but I'll throw it in any corner any corner as long as I feel I got grip and you know as long as with the right tires you've got enough grip trust me and I think the power band on the on the Type R the power delivery or the Type R is ideal for what it is I don't think it needs to be a whole lot of horsepower I'd like to see maybe a little more bottom end torque but as as far as that engine as far as a complete package I really like what they did and that's just my personal opinion I'll put links in the description to additional information if you want to learn more about this stuff I will be doing videos on the Type R but I intend to drive it for a while before I tear it down and start doing stuff to it wait a long time for this car I'm gonna enjoy it for a bit once again links in description to additional information and stuff thank you so much for tuning in today if you have automotive questions I ask that you head over to Eric the car comm I'll link that in the description as well please like comment subscribe share this video with the world really appreciate it when you do that stuff thank you so much for watching today be safe have fun stay dirty and I'll see you next time you

Channel: EricTheCarGuy

Views: 290,738

Keywords: ITR vs GSR, Type R, Integra Type R, USDM Type R, Acura, GSR, Honda GSR, Acura GSR, Honda, Acura Type R, Honda Type R, Type R engine, B18C5, VTEC, Honda VTEC, B series engine, Honda B series, Type R rust, 2000 Type R, Acura Integra, Type R Brakes, Type R suspension, Type R exhaust, Type R transmission, Type R wheels, Type R seats, Type R dash, Type R radio, #ETCGVideo, #ETCGBlackBeard, automotive education, how to video, how to auto repair, EricTheCarGuy, Eric the car guy, ETCG

Id: 4tK85arURO0

Length: 27min 4sec (1624 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2020