- Joined
- Oct 19, 2022
- Messages
- 19
Looks like another stellar report on my 94 Integra GSR that I've owned since 2001. 381,000+ miles on the original drivetrain, never rebuilt, and this was sampled just after a 1,000 mile road trip to Tail of the Dragon with plenty of 2nd and 3rd gear VTEC runs on the mountain roads.
A little backstory: I purchased the car in 2001 from a neighbor, the original owner, with about 88k miles on the car. Drove it all through my last 3 years of college, and my 20's and 30's, when it was my only car. I put huge amounts of miles on the car back then. At one point I was driving 3,000 miles a month for about 18 months or so before moving closer to work. In 2019 I bought a Miata and planned to sell this car, but couldn't bring myself to part with it. So now most of my driving and commuting are split among this car, the Miata, my wife's car, and my bicycles that I ride to work on some days. Now I only drive the car about 3K miles a year, except this year going to the Dragon. This was the first road trip the car has been on in over a decade, and it performed flawlessly. Even got 35+ MPG on the way home.
The car did blow its head gasket in 2013 at 330,000 miles. I pulled the head off, stripped it and took it to a machine shop, where the machinist showed me a couple of tiny nicks in the head mating surface. He resurfaced the head, cleaned it up, put in new valve seals, and ground the valve seats just a touch. That was over 50K miles and almost 10 years ago now. The engine does have a couple of oil leaks that I'll be addressing in the future. I don't have any recent compression or leakdown numbers, but I don't doubt that they would be just fine.
Early on, I ran Castrol GTX 5w30 and later Mobil1 5w30. About 15 years ago, I read some of the Dr. Haas articles on here and Ferrari Chat about engine oil viscosity during hot and cold start conditions and how that relates to engine wear. I switched to Mobil1 0w30 back then, and haven't looked back. I only started getting UOA's done a few years ago, but it's very comforting to see oil reports come back with zero water, oil or fuel detected.
Oh and yes, I drive the car hard quite often. I only drive it to work a couple times a week, but I always be sure to crack VTEC on highway on-ramps at least a couple times a day on the days that I do drive it.
Old pic from when it still looked nice:
A little backstory: I purchased the car in 2001 from a neighbor, the original owner, with about 88k miles on the car. Drove it all through my last 3 years of college, and my 20's and 30's, when it was my only car. I put huge amounts of miles on the car back then. At one point I was driving 3,000 miles a month for about 18 months or so before moving closer to work. In 2019 I bought a Miata and planned to sell this car, but couldn't bring myself to part with it. So now most of my driving and commuting are split among this car, the Miata, my wife's car, and my bicycles that I ride to work on some days. Now I only drive the car about 3K miles a year, except this year going to the Dragon. This was the first road trip the car has been on in over a decade, and it performed flawlessly. Even got 35+ MPG on the way home.
The car did blow its head gasket in 2013 at 330,000 miles. I pulled the head off, stripped it and took it to a machine shop, where the machinist showed me a couple of tiny nicks in the head mating surface. He resurfaced the head, cleaned it up, put in new valve seals, and ground the valve seats just a touch. That was over 50K miles and almost 10 years ago now. The engine does have a couple of oil leaks that I'll be addressing in the future. I don't have any recent compression or leakdown numbers, but I don't doubt that they would be just fine.
Early on, I ran Castrol GTX 5w30 and later Mobil1 5w30. About 15 years ago, I read some of the Dr. Haas articles on here and Ferrari Chat about engine oil viscosity during hot and cold start conditions and how that relates to engine wear. I switched to Mobil1 0w30 back then, and haven't looked back. I only started getting UOA's done a few years ago, but it's very comforting to see oil reports come back with zero water, oil or fuel detected.
Oh and yes, I drive the car hard quite often. I only drive it to work a couple times a week, but I always be sure to crack VTEC on highway on-ramps at least a couple times a day on the days that I do drive it.
Old pic from when it still looked nice: