Yahoo Autos 2024 Acura Integra Type S vs. Modded 1996 Integra SE
When Acura brought back the Integra and announced the high-performance Type S, it was clear the brand was speaking to its longtime fans. We were won over, putting it on the 2024 10Best Cars list along with its Honda sibling, but to find out what a true Integra die-hard would think, we brought in Travis Langness, who has been daily driving, and upgrading, a '96 Integra.
Acura is selling the car I've been trying to piece together for nearly 20 years, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I bought my 1996 Acura Integra in college. I purchased it with the intention of getting something practical and reliable to replace my 1988 Pontiac Fiero, a car that, while lovable, had neither of those qualities.
Since then, I've spent two decades modifying my Integra, swapping out, upgrading, or replacing nearly every part that wasn't welded down. I've tried to build a version of my car that was fast enough to maintain a respectable pace on the racetrack but comfortable enough that I could drive it daily. And generally, I felt pretty good about it—right up until Acura swooped in with the new Integra Type S, which does everything I've ever wanted my car to do and more.
Driving the Type S, I was acutely aware that it shares most of its underpinnings with the current Civic Type R—the fastest front-wheel-drive production car to make it around the Nürburgring—so I expected the Type S to be fast, but it surprised me by being so easy to drive. There's no need to drop a gear for a passing maneuver—the Type S has plenty of torque for that—but you'll do it anyway because the clutch action is so light, and the movement of the shifter is smooth and direct. More than just fast, it’s comfortable and luxurious too. It has heated seats, an excellent ELS stereo, and extra sound deadening that keeps things civil at highway speeds.
All the upgraded suspension bushings and additional bracings I've added over the years give my Integra some impressive handling capabilities, but the Type S has no problem keeping up. My lighter Integra feels a bit more nimble around tight corners, but only by a small margin. And the Type S has much more confident footing in long sweeping corners. The Type S doesn't have height adjustment like my aftermarket coilovers do, but it does have adaptive dampers that make it comfortable across all sorts of surfaces—a trick my car hasn’t pulled off in years.
After graduating college, the modifying bug bit me hard. Multiple suspension setups came and went, along with several big-brake upgrades. I gutted my Integra's interior, swapping all the tan panels for black ones. Out went the four-speed automatic, replaced by a five-speed manual, and I added a limited-slip differential sourced from an Integra Type R. My five-speed manual has a similar feel to the latest six-speed from Acura, but the gear shifter is distinctly less refined.
My Integra came with a 140-horsepower, naturally aspirated, non-VTEC engine: the B18B. It was excellent at the practical daily-driver stuff, but it wasn't enough. After a few track days, feeling down on power, I pieced together a turbocharger kit. With the addition of a turbocharger, bigger injectors, and some other bolt-on modifications, my B series now puts 292 horse—a respectable number for a car that weighs just 2700 pounds.
By comparison, the Integra Type S makes 320 horsepower and 310 pound-feet from the turbocharged K20C engine under the hood. Output is sent to the front wheels via a six-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip differential.
The Type S weighs just 3219 pounds, which works out to a ratio of 10.1 pounds per hp, but my car checks in at 9.2 pounds per hp. In a direct comparison between the two, it's one of the few categories where my car takes a win. I only had to sacrifice the rear seats, several pieces of sound deadening, and any dreams of a quiet interior to get there.
The desirable engine back in the days of the third-gen Integra was the B18C—it outshined my B18B and pretty much every other four-cylinder engine at the time. In the Type R, the B18C produced 195 horsepower at a screaming 8400 rpm redline, incredible numbers for a 1.8-liter naturally-aspirated engine. The B18C also had a sweet red valve cover. The Type R's red valve cover inspired me to paint my valve cover red, and it would appear that it had the same effect on the Acura folks, who also put a red engine cover on the current Type S.
When you look closely, there are a few other design touches that tie the Type S to the third-gen Integra. "INTEGRA" is stamped into the front and rear bumpers of the third-gen Integra, and the newest Integra gets them too—and in a similar font. Type R gauges in the mid '90s used yellow needles, an element that set them apart from the standard Integra. The newest Type S uses yellow needles too. They're digital needles on digital gauges, but the designers paid attention to the details, and that's worth mentioning.
After nearly two weeks of driving the Type S and my Integra back-to-back, focusing on all the little details, picking apart each car's driving idiosyncrasies, and trying to piece together my feelings on the newest Integra, it became clear. Nostalgia has a strong hold on my heart and I'm attached to the car I've spent countless hours tearing apart and putting back together, but the new Type S met and exceeded my ultra-high expectations.
The current Integra pays homage to the past without being a sycophant. It honors the legacy but also embraces modern tech. It scratches all the same itches that my old Integra does while also being a respectable luxury compact sedan. My biggest complaint is that I'd have to sell my old Integra to make space in the garage for a new one.
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