Well, as the title says, Hello! I'm pretty new to these forums.. I've been ghosting around HAN for about a month now, and have learned a lot just from that, but I don't know a whole lot about vehicles, and I don't know much about cars but I would love to learn as much as I can!

I just recently upgraded from my piece of crap 94 cavalier beater to a '96 Acura Integra GS-R! I've been driving it for a little over a month and a half, and I'm loving the hell out of it!

Some of the pictures can be seen @ http://dominia.whoppo.net/acura

2 problems i'm not sure about... when the car's tach reads between 3k-3.5k rpms, they're a tinny sounding, fast paced tick... and I don't know what that is, if it's bad, or anything.. it happens at the same rpm range no matter what gear i'm in. I was thinking maybe it was a thing where hopefully I just needed to clean/replace the spark plugs because the consistency of them firing off between those rpms might cause a misfire in one of the cylinders? (It's a pretty far fetched guess, like I said I don't know much.)

Also, I'm new to Honda, and V-Tec.... and the car seems like it revs very high.. I don't know if it's just my ears playing games with me since I'm not used to having the car yet? But I usually shift @ 3,000rpm if i'm driving steady, and 4 if I'm accelerating quickly. Are these high rev sounds normal? Could the be related to the 1st problem??

At what points to other GS-R drivers around here shift for normal/speeding??

Thanks so much,
Brian

 

here
Check that site out brian, its team-integra.net. You can find ANNNNNNNNYTHING about an integra on there. The tick at 3k RPMs sounds like you need your valve clearance checked, it's nothing major. Took me about 30 mins to do mine. If you wanna tackle it yourself heres a writeup. here
Go to ti.net and read up about Vtec and the other aspects of the the DOHC engines honda has been building. When I drive my GSR around, I shift at around 4 pretty much through all four gears, unless I floor it and then I shift at 8K.

Vtec engages at 4400 RPMs, you might not be able to feel the power difference but it's there. When you reach 5600 special butterflies in your intake manifold open to create more high end torque, you should be able to hear that one.

Make sure to check your oil OFTEN, monitor the color. Oil is the blood of cars, do not forget it. If you want to save up some money to keep your car running at tip top shape, go ahead and change the manual tranny fluid, coolant, spark plugs, spark plug wires and other misc little things. Should keep the baby running till 200k. HAve fun man, I remember my first two months with my GSR

 

first off welcome an integra is a great thing to acquire especilly when a cavalier has been in you past. the ticking i agree is the valves but beforeyou touch that valve cover consider where the sound comes from is it in the dash or under the hood does it do it only when yor driving or when you just rev it. diagnostics before repair always.

 

Thank you for all the wonderful resources right off the bat dust! I'm going to check em all out right now, as for both of your answers about it being valve related, it's kind of hard for me to check, because it won't make the noise if i'm just in neutral and rev it, only if i'm in gear, and it's not like I can open the hood to pin point the sound since I dun own rollers But I'm definatley going to get it checked out, right now i'm babying the thing because I unfortunatley got the car the FIRST day it snowed here (in maine.) and So i've only had a chance to get the thing to 100 twice...

I'm actually in a really crappy position where my crummy job decided to lay me off right as I was making my 1st month's payment on the damn thing though, luckily it's tax returns time, so that'll help me keep on top of stuff while I get a new job!

I'd like to save my money up so I can toss it into the car when the snow melts though, what would you all suggest I do first? I figure, I'm not gonna do anything huge to it, just bolt-on type stuff like Intercooler, Catback etc, since the engines got a decent amount of miles on it thus far, i'm not gonna bother even thinking about or considering turbo related stuff, or anything that's higher end like that until I drop a new engine in.. but i'm sure you all have a better more straight forward answer for me! Thanks!

 

Depending on how many miles you have, you should probably make sure all the recommended maintenance is up to date (just like dustimus says ) before you do anything.

Air filter + removal of intake resonators could be your first thing to do to let your engine breathe a little better (k&n filter) until you're ready to plop some cheddar into it. Team-Integra.net is a great source IMO (preach dustimus PREACH) not only for general info (specs and such) but in-depth articles on just about everything Integra.

Oh, and there are pleny of people to wave the bullshit flag too so you can feel pretty confident the info you get is reliable. (just dont forget about search)

 

an intercooler is only used for turbo applications

 

Welcome to HAN

 

welcome to HAN you'll like it here

 

:wavey: Welcome to HAN

 

I'm sorry, I didn't mean intercooler, I meant Intake... i've not slept in 2 days haha, mistake!

thank you all so much for the positivity though!
I've been to other forums, and had people be all like "Yup, effin' noobs... blargh!"

but you're all very accepting to people who want to gain knowledge! And for that, i thank you, but Now I go sleep cuz i've been awake for way too long.