This article is contributed by a satisfied customer who truly appreciates what tasteful mods should be.

Is it possible to have a comfortable daily ride that performs in the 3 areas demanded by the owner, i.e. 1) sporty performance, 2) competent yet comfortable handling, and 3) looks with In Car Entertainment (ICE) that would melt any enthusiast’s heart? To top it off, it’s an auto, which would complicate things quite a bit when it comes to performance compared to a manual.

The Beginning….
The journey started about 4 years back, when the owner took possession of his gleaming new black Integra GSR Auto. Immediately, the puny 15” OEM wheels were replaced with the all time fav’ - Volks Racing CE28N. Grex 6 pot with 330mm 2-piece rotors provided much better stopping power. With a replica Type R Wing, the car still looked relatively stock and mild.

  The beginning of the journey….

Dressing it up!
Deciding on a menacing look, GarageR brought in J’S Racing bodykit, which included a limited edition 5-vents bonnet, GT wing, sideskirts with CF undertray, and wide-body front fenders. Mugen underlip was used for the front with Modulo underlip bringing up the rear. To complete the CF look, the interior was spiced with custom CF panels by Robson Designs, and the GSR OEM steering wheel was replaced with a genuine DC5R Momo piece.

   J’s racing DC5

   Custom CF Interior with DC5R Steering Wheel

    Custom A-Pillar

ICEing on the cake
ICE was carefully designed with Audioedge, to ensure the heavy components like subwoofer could be easily removed for track days and rear coilovers were easily accessible. The design was kept light and simple, with Alpine 9887 HU connected to H701 processor. Powering the 2-way active Focal K2P Upgraded components and SB27V1 subwoofer were Italian phd 4075 and 2050 thoroughbreds. Custom sculptured A-pillars gave the components an OEM look. Er (tuner of champion IASCA cars) gave his maestro touch for a breathtaking soundstage.

Handling before performance
With consciousness on safety, the owner decided to build up on the already competent handling of the Integra before performance. J’S Racing lower tie rods, Cusco front and rear struts, Tanabe 4-point brace, Cusco rear ARB and Hotchkis front ARB were added to stiffen up and balance the chassis. GarageR then fitted the top of the line Tanabe Sustec Pro 7 coilovers with Tanabe Electronic Active Suspension (TEAS) kit. This allowed the F10/R12 coilovers to be comfortable or hard when needed, with a programmable auto mode that would adjust the damping on the fly! Kenny completed the handling package with his legendary alignment skills and his “Kenny” rear camber kit special. For street, camber were set as -2º front and -1.5º rear.

  Tanabe Electronic Active Suspension (TEAS) kit in action

Performance – by DrivenCrazy!
Having satisfied himself with looks/ICE and handling, the owner started on the most difficult part of the journey yet – squeezing more performance from an auto K20A3. At first, simple enhancements like ARC airbox, DC5R header, midpipe and an LTA compliant Mugen exhaust system were used to set the stage for the traditional Intake/Header/Exos mantra of NA tuning. A base dyno was run that produced 130whp at 6846rpm and 14.8kgm at 3998 rpm. This was already pretty good, considering that stock auto GSR’s have been dynoed at around 120whp. This was expected due to the auto transmission loss. The K20A3 engine was rated 160bhp with 19.2kgm at crank. At best, it translated to an auto loss of around 25%.

For this challenging task, the owner turned to the trusted name in local Hondata tuning – Joel of driven. Unlike a manual, the auto required the original ECU to control the auto D mode. The solution by Joel was to custom a harness that connected a JDM Hondata KPro ECU to the OEM ECU, taking over the functions such as fuel injection, VTC, VTEC switchover etc. There was absolutely no wire cutting, and reverting to stock was as simple as plugging out the harness! Ingenious!

After Joel has settled the difficult ECU management, Derrick of uberGarage started to rebuild the K20A3. Out went the K20A3 cylinder head, to be replaced by a new original DC5R K20A cylinder head from driven. The lower block’s compression was raised from the stock 9.8:1 to 11.5:1 by swapping in new K20A pistons. A PRC Intake manifold and DC5R throttlebody completed the engine conversion.

The engine was carefully run-in with mineral oil for 1,000km. It was then serviced with new engine oil and dynotuned. It achieved 169.8whp at 7025rpm and 18.1 kgm at 5899rpm. With the 25% loss, the engine was producing 213bhp with 22.7kgm torque at crank, more or less DC5R rated performance! Remember the owner was looking for a reliable, sporty and comfortable daily drive, and not outright drag performance. The souped-up auto now fitted the bill to a “T”.

Just as important, the car was idling buttery smooth at 680rpm and everything worked like clockwork. Engine started at first crank, producing a nice purr and hardened to a growl that was the trademark of a true VTEC engine.

At last, the K20A3 Auto has been transformed….

  Rebuilding the trusty K engine

  Dyno time!

  True VTEC!  Before and after head swap.

  The rebuilt engine

  Nice and Shiny!

  Driven Crazy - Performance Tuned!