Honda Integra DC5 Type R Press Articles

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Here's a great write-up on the Honda integra DC5 Type R found earlier and worth a read.

Honda's latest Integra Type-R is a front-wheel drive star with phenomenal handling - but fans will have to import one for now. John Simister drives it at Honda's Twin Ring car-amusement park in Japan. 

This is so much fun I should probably stop now before something embarrassing happens. I'm at Honda's Twin Ring car-amusement park and race circuit at Motegi, Japan, and I'm on the handling circuit with the latest Honda Integra Type-R. You might remember the original one sold in the UK during the 1990s: a white-only, high-revving dervish of a car with the most extraordinary front-drive chassis most of us had ever experienced. Well, the car has changed but the idea revs on intact.

I can't help it. I'm going faster and faster And faster; this car is made for this course as a Scalextric slot-racer suits Plexytrack. I've been driving an S2000 and an NSX Type-R here, too, but here and now the Integra blitzes them both. There's a long left-hander past the track's entry point, tightening a little now. To back off is to bring the tail round and help get to the sharp left turn that looms ahead, but the Integra Type-R has a better trick up its sleeve. 

I've discovered that you can accelerate instead. This does not result in the expected understeer: quite the opposite. This front-wheel drive car is actually hauling its nose harder into the bend, thanks to the bizarre actions of its Torsen limited-slip differential. Seems that whatever I do, the Honda is determined to hold on. Only a panic-brake or stupidity can faze it now.  

Can you believe how exhilarating this is? The harder you go, the harder the Honda hangs on - up to a point, which I might be wise not to discover. Except that I just have: the tail is sliding out (power oversteer in a front-wheel drive car!), the tyres are squealing, I need to steer into the slither quickly and not back off. Phew. Saved.  

This means that we're now arriving very quickly at the left turn. Brake hard, outside wheels still loaded up, feel the tail help point the nose into the corner. Accelerate out of the bend; feel the Torsen diff reining in the wheelspin; fling the Integra at the next corner. Now there's a long right-hander, and if I steer into it and apply just the right amount of power, the forces acting to self-centre the steering are exactly balanced by the diff's activities and the steering wheel stays locked on to the trajectory. Well, not locked exactly, because I can still move the wheel, but requiring no effort to hold the line. You can actually let go of the steering wheel and keep on course.  

And all the while the engine is revving to 8000rpm and beyond, the six-speed gearbox is flick-quick and short in the ratios, the semi-enveloping, bright red Recaro seat is clamping me against cornering forces, and the brakes are proving tireless. Conventional assessment would deem the steering flawed and unruly, but that is to miss the point. Instead you just accept that it's incredibly talkative. Learn its unique language and it all makes sense, the Integra Type-R proving that you can have an understeer-free front-wheel drive car and not fly into a spin at the first indiscretion. Never before have I driven a front-driver so close to its limit for so long and with such confidence. It and I gelled together perfectly.

It sounds fantastic, too. The 2.0-litre engine is broadly that of a Civic Type-R, but a bigger, freer-breathing exhaust system raises power from 210 to 220bhp at 8000rpm. That the torque peak of 153lb ft doesn't arrive until 7000rpm gives an idea of the engine's peaky nature, so you really do have to use all the gears all the time for optimum amusement even though VTEC variable valve timing and lift on both inlet and exhaust cams ensures a semblance of low-end torque. The flywheel is a lightweight forged chrome-molybdenum steel item. 

Other niceties include big Brembo brakes, 17-inch wheels shod with 215/45 ZR-rated Bridgestone RE040s, metal studs in the pedals, a Momo steering wheel, an aluminium gear knob and a huge rear spoiler. There's no rear shelf (not focused enough), but braces between the suspension towers add stiffness to the shell and help the Type-R's razor responses. Oh yes, and the steering has conventional hydraulic assistance instead of the Civic's electric system, a tacit admission that hydraulics allow a purer, less viscous steering feel - very important in this particular car.  

There's no hint of luxury, with hard plastics inside and minimalist, black-trimmed rear seats, but that was never the point of the Integra Type R. You do get air conditioning, though. This generation was launched in 2001, initially also in a 'Race Base' version stripped of almost everything except, oddly, electric front windows. Honda UK doesn't import the Integra, fearing it would clash with the Civic Type-R, but  would the Integra really clash with the Civic? I don't think so; it's much more hardcore, even if neither the noise level nor the ride firmness are quite as extreme as in the original Integra Type-R. As a cheaper alternative to the Impreza STI/Evo VIII duo of extreme Japanese rice rocketry, it's an irresistible piece of track day heaven.

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Design SCUK - Page last modified 19/12/2006 - E&OE