Driving the Type R is the best kind of hard work. Two decades after our infatuation began, the car lives up to expectations. The result: 108 horsepower per liter, a benchmark for naturally aspirated production four-cylinders that’s only been beaten once-by another deep breathing, high-revving, VTEC-enhanced Honda engine, the one in the S2000. At redline, the Type R’s pistons are covering distance faster than any Honda F1 or Ind圜ar engine of the time. From behind the wheel, you’re swept into a tidal wave of intake noise, gallons of air honking through that straight-shot plenum. It’s not just the exhaust note, a surprisingly throaty bellow emanating from a slash-cut tip that, Acura was proud to point out, looks just like the ones on that year’s NSX. Whether you’re strapped into the driver’s seat or leaned up against the pit wall, the sound is hair-raising. The Integra Type R Still Feels Magically New All this in a car that was seam-welded, braced, and lightened by nearly 100 pounds straight from the factory. When it’s on the cam, the Type R accelerates maniacally, all economy-car associations left in the dust as the tach needle magnetizes itself to the far peg. The engine pops over to its high-RPM cam profile, the one with the radical advance and crazy lift that sends the engine blaring to its 8500-rpm fuel cutoff. That’s when-say it with me now, the invocation of the elders- VTEC kicks in. What happens at 5700 rpm makes it all worthwhile. The Type R’s big-bore single-port unit knocked seven pounds of mass out of the engine bay and actually weakened the engine’s output in the crucial 3000-to-5000-rpm range. Gone was the clever dual-plenum intake that gave the lesser Integra GS-R a nice nudge of midrange torque. The intake valves are 12 percent lighter, a weight savings you’d undo by losing a few french fries under the seats, but one that helped the Type R sing to a screaming 8400-rpm redline. The connecting rods are so precisely machined, assembling them required a special tool designed by Honda to minimize bolt stretch, more accurate than a conventional torque wrench and only given to dealership service departments on special request. The intake and exhaust ports are hand-polished. It was the hard work of a thousand tiny changes. Honda fire-hosed every drop of its engineering skill and racing prowess at the Integra’s 1.8-liter, turning a pliant and durable workhorse into the peaky baby brother of every racing engine that ever put a tapered H badge on a podium. That legendary engine: the B18C5, a pedestrian four-cylinder elevated to hero status and burned into the minds of a generation of car enthusiasts. Senior editor Zach Bowman summed it up with reverence: “This was the only thing I wanted when I was 17.”
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