Mark On Europe

My Integra... update time with lots of new bits...

2010-03-31T17:10:00.000+01:00

Ok time for an update...

Last week had some huge boxes from Tegiwa arrive... treated myself (and the car of course) to some new toys, seeing as it had had its big service I thought it would be rude not to have some fun with it ;)

So the following bits arrived...

Tegiwa Mugen Replica air box

Cooling plate

3 point front strut brace and matching rear brace

Carbon plug cover

Beaks replica rear bar

Magnecor ignition leads

various fancy screws and sunken washers from the Tegiwa line up...

Basically I tried my best to buy everything on their new website :P lol

We had some nice weather last week, so I took full advantage to get as much stuff fitted to the teggie as possible...

Only got two pictures of some of the new items as I opened them... was in such a rush to get them on....

Right first off... here is my engine bay as it was

Ok here are some pics of the fitting of everything, they aren't all that great so I apologise for the quality :D But they give you an idea of how it all went into place :)

First of all, front bumper must come off for the easiest fitting.

Instructions on how to do that easily can be found here:

http://www.team-integra.net/sections/articles/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=68

Then its a case of removing the old air box, resonator and silicone pipe, so as to give you as much room as possible to work with.

I couldn't actually believe how big the resonator box actually is! Massive thing!
Out with the old...

This gave me plenty of room to put all the new bits in... so first off me and my friend swapped out the cam cover, and fitted the new leads and carbon plug cover...

Much better already!

Then as there was loads of room, ready for the Mugen replica air box to go on, I fitted the brake master cylinder stopper too...

Ok time to fit the air box into this space...

This bracket that used to support the standard air box, must be removed.

Its just two bolts, so should come off easily.

I have an ABS equipped car, and it does look very tight, so for safety sake I covered the ABS unit in bubble wrap until the air box was in properly.

Then me and my friend manoeuvred the new air box into its proper location.

This was very tight and took a few pulls and pushes to get it to sit right!

We did up the rear bracket first, to make sure it was all in line and rotated to the right place.

As that one is the least fragile of the two brackets (metal vs fibreglass), and then we did up the lower front bracket.

Screwed in fully

We then fitted the lower bracket brace, its connected via a jubilee clip included in the pack, and attaches to a bolt hole on the car, a hole which holds up the front drivers side arch undertray. didn't get any specific pics of this, but it does make sense when your under there!

We then went to fit the splash guard, if I'm honest, this is what confused me the most! So I've taken some pics of how the brackets fit to it and the chassis.

I then fitted the upwards snorkel intake bit... technical term ;) And put some duck tape around it to keep it in place as show here:

We then connected up the old silicone hose, double checked everything, and put it all back together :D

Once that was done we fitted the 3 point strut brace, that was a bit of a pain and required the car to be off the ground at the front with the top tower strut bolts un done, it then slipped into place nicely....

So the finished result is...

Oh and one quick one showing the Skunk2 socks I got on it too...

By the end of all this, I was rapidly running out of light.

So I didn't get round to doing any proper photos of the new engine bay look, that is still to come :)

I also didn't manage to get round to fitting the rear brace, or the rear lower beaks replica bar.

I will do that at the same time as the H brace most likely, which is still waiting to get fitted at some point.

As for these improvements I have just done, the car feels a lot better for it all! The air box has made the car a lot more drivable at lower revs, and really comes alive once in VTEC, going from OEM to this has really impressed me!

The front brace has all stiffened things up, and turn in does appear to be sharper, so I am happy with that also.

The brake master cylinder stopper has also tightened up brake pedal feel.

All in all, a productive day improving an already awesome car :D

Jobs to do:

- H brace

- lower bar

- plenty more Tegiwa screws and sunken washers to fit

- New brake pads to fit

- HEL braided lines to fit

- New discs all round

Its a never ending project hehe :)

Thanks for looking and reading!

Cheers,

Dan

My 98 UKDM Integra Type R... Update time :)

2010-03-23T01:01:00.001Z

Well I thought it was about time for another update...

Car has now come back from TGM, and I have to say Tom really looked after me and the car, cannot recommend him and his team enough!

So thanks to TGM, its had:

- Cambelt changed
- Tensioners changed
- Water pump
- Valve clearances done
- Thermostat
- Fuel Filter

Drives like a dream now :D Love it!

However, Tom has informed me that my brake pads are pretty much dead, so looks like Ferado DS2500 are in order for me :D

Going to get them from VTEC direct at some point this week or the next... link for reference:

http://www.vtecdirect.com/online/cgi-bin/cp-app.cgi?seo=item--Ferado-DS2500-Front-Brake-Pads--FER-000-001

Anyway, I've been quite busy with the car the last few weeks, first thing I did was something I've been wanting to do for ages...

Get rid of my blingin 6x9s...

So, these speakers were purchased from my local audio shop... with the plan to put them into the rear speaker mounts.

So we proceeded to strip the Integra down so as to be able to get to the rear speakers...

Funny how you can always find friends to help you strip a car hehe

The rust you can see, isn't actually rust, its like a dust that has covered the rear of the car from when TGM removed the rusted out passenger side wing, it just wipes off :)

So anyway, on with the carnage....

All back together half way through ;)

The speakers I bought were slightly too big, I expected this, so we filed down the oem mounts and got them to fit nice and snug.

Now I realise this may be against 99% of DC2 owners, but I fitted some sound deadening... nothing much, I promise :D but enough just to help with the sound, as shown in these pics:

Anyway, put it all back together just as it was getting dark, and end result is this:

and nasty 6x9s have gone!!! :D yay

Next step on the audio front is to fit some new front speakers... luckily Ive already got a tweeter mount so should be easy enough :)

Ok so on to the next, feeling pretty positive, I did some more extreme modding... new front Honda badge hehe.

Off with the old...

My bumper is from a milano red DC2, hence the red underneath the badge ;)

Anyway, on with the new :D

So weather was good, and I thought I'd try fitting something else... pushing my luck by now....

On with the Mfactory solid shift bushes, 15mn job I thought... easy I thought... hehe

So got the car up, located what needed to be changed,

Its the rod on the left which you change the bushes on, the one that is slightly out of focus.

Anyway got the old ones out, put the new ones in, and well I didn't read the instructions properly and went to do up the bolt with a ratchet... and disaster struck!

Yep I sheared the bolt inside the gearbox mount for the shifter support rod...

As you can see in that pic... I had made a right pig of it! So I called friends for help... and all the suggestions required a lot more room than was available to get this sheared bolt out... so manifold came off, well the 2 to 1 part...

My friend then volunteered to get it out, he proceeded to attempt to drill it out, however this wasn't having much luck, so he tapped ridges into it, and then proceeded to spend the next 5 hours slowly tapping the bolt out... to say I am forever in his debt is not exaggerating at all!!! I am so thankful he had the patience to do that for me! Major kudos were earned lol

And here is the bolt for you guys to see...

But the other good thing, my Grandma heard how much trouble I was having, so brought me round a cake lol :D

Anyway back to the car...

Next mods to eventually go on, are first of all the H brace, which has been sitting in my garage for a while now...

But I found the bolts it goes onto already seeing as I spent quite a while under there helping my friend get that sheared bolt out...

The one on the right is where the back of the H brace fixes too, makes sense when your under the car.

I also need to give my recaros a good clean, and fix the bolsters, especially the drivers side one which has collapsed... bought a new bolster for it a while ago, just need to take the time to fit it.

So anyway thats all for now, but here are a few more recent pictures I've taken of the car!

Thanks for looking! And more updates to follow :D

British Leisure Show...

2010-03-23T00:05:00.001Z

Last weekend was the British Leisure Show, held at Windsor Race Course.

Mark On Europe was exhibiting from Friday, till Sunday and we were very proud to be part of this fantastic show!

We had on our stand, one of our luxury Burstner motorhomes (From the A Class Luxury fleet), our very own 175 Roadsport Caterham 7, and the star of our stand... the Caterham R500, as driven by the stig on BBCs Top Gear!

Thank you to Caterham Cars Ltd for letting us borrow the R500 for the weekend!

Each day at 1 o clock, the show organisers had a super car sound off... yep thats right... we turned on the engines and revved up the cars for a few minutes, waking up the crowd and most likely the surrounding area!

Anyway here is a video of us firing up the R500 on the Satuday and showing Windsor Race Course why its so special!

During the show we had a brilliant time, and met up with many other very interesting exhibitors as well as of course the very keen and interested general public.

I'll put up more info about future happenings thanks to this show once its all been finalized... still need to recover at the moment hehe :)

The show, and the interest of the general public once again affirmed, that our idea, and our concept is hugely popular among all petrolheads!

Here is a bit of info about the British Leisure show, as provided by the official website:

-------------------------------------------------------
http://www.britishleisureshow.com/

For three days visitors were treated to an active, visual feast including swooping Birds of Prey, impressive Big Air Mountain Boarding, stunning kite displays and adrenaline fueled land yachting.

On show were a sumptuous array of exhibitors showcasing exciting ways to get on the water with canoes, powerboats and sailing boats, a wide range of holiday homes, motorhomes, caravans and enticing holiday destinations, lots of clothing and accessories, exhilerating extreme sports such as quad biking and bungee jumping and if that's not enough...there were motorbike rides and over four million pounds worth of supercars to drool over!

-------------------------------------------------------

Thoroughly looking forward to the next time!

Mark On Europe Team

My 98 UKDM Integra Type R... Small update from 1/03/10

2010-03-09T15:29:00.000Z

Just a brief update on the Integra, since December 2009, I had been suffering some really confusing engine issues, well it turned out my hesitation and poor fuel economy was nothing to do with my o2 sensor, well not entirely anyway, or the other 10 odd bits I replaced and changed... oh well I can't complain, all the new bits are all service parts :)

So what was causing my car to play up?

Well... it was the Battery leaking in the end that was causing a bad electrical flow to the ECU and throwing up a CEL light...

And I am very pleased to say the car is running exactly how it should now :D

My problem has most definitely been fixed :)

So in interest of the blog, I took a few pictures whilst I was diagnosing and changing parts to try and fix this problem, so thought I'd share :) most are phone pictures, so apologies for the bad quality, but maybe could be used for reference by someone :)

Distributor cap and rotor arm removal.

The next one is a really bad quality pic, but it shows the orangey dust that had collected on the rotor arm. This was then all cleaned off before the new one was fitted.

Then seeing as my o2 sensor had been causing my car to run rich, I got the old spark plugs out to inspect and clean if necessary.

Glad I did :D

And then lastly, the new battery went in, which fixed the problem altogether :)

It was a lovely day today also, so I decided to do some extreme modding ;)

New gearknob :D

at least 40bhp from that ;)

Thats all for now, thank you for looking!

Dan

My 98 UKDM Integra Type R...

2010-03-09T15:22:00.000Z

This is less company orientated, and more of a personal blog topic...

My 98 UKDM Integra Type R, or DC2 as they are known in short.

Well I have been a DC2 owner for around 7 months now... and the love for the car is still strong! In fact it's become a bit of a project to get it exactly how I feel it should be :) I will be therefore keeping the Mark On Europe blog up to date with goings on with this car, how it changes and improves within my ownership.

So that being said, I thought I would do a kind of blog post about the happenings with my car, updating with my experiences/modifications and restorations :)

Well what has happened over the last few months since I bought it... I shall try and break it down a bit for everyone.

September 09 - Admitting to myself I could not live with the sound of the Apexi n1, I went about trying to find a replacement...

Awesome looks, but too loud:

That came in the shape of a pretty hacked up HKS Hi Power, oh it definitely was not perfect, but it was an improvement.

So the apexi n1 came off...

And was sold to Stevepteg on the DC2 forum www.itr-dc2.com he was the first member off the forums that I met in person, and I was happy to meet a good guy!

Anyway on went the butchered HKS hi power....

As you can kind of see in this photo alongside, the exhaust was no longer at its original upwards angle, and had been modified and bent... so it came out at an angle, and actually burned my bumper pretty bad, in the same picture alongside you can also just make out the heat tape I used to try and protect it from the exhaust.

Still the exhaust was the perfect noise, just not the perfect look... but did me fine for getting to JAE 09

October 09 - I then sold the HKS hi power pretty soon after JAE, made a very honest for sale ad, and managed to sell it for cheap to a member the DC2 forum, hopefully they have managed to rectify its problem, or moved on from it themselves.

I was then very lucky to be able to buy a standard exhaust from Hanzo666 off the DC2 forum :D Great guy and very honest, even though getting to his through London in rush hour was a lot of fun :S hehe.

But still I was so happy to get a standard system, and it was then put on very shortly after that.

During this month I also took part in a charity London tunnel run for "Bowel Cancer UK", my third tunnel run, and the first in the Integra, definitely a lot of fun, and even my strange sense of humour went down well with the JAP car crowd...

November 09 - was pretty quiet on the Teg front, managed to fit in a small shoot alongside one of my Caterham 7 rental cars.

To me this shoot is symbolic as the DC2 is the closest I have come in a "sensible" road car to the feeling of being one with the vehicle that a Caterham can provide, its as raw imo.

I realise I noobed out when doing this pic, didn't let her warm up fully... so apologies for that guys :) but its a celebrate of idle vtec :S hehe

Over christmas things were quiet with the car, pretty sure the o2 sensor went early in December, and my thread here talks about all of that fun I've had diagnosing it among other things :)

http://www.itr-dc2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=69857

But I have been collecting modifications and researching improvements during this down time, a few of the things listed below....

- H Brace - bought from a member off the forum.
- Energy suspension engine mount inserts
- HEL braided brake lines
- Pro Sport gauges from the group buy that took place on here. - Oil temp and oil pressure :)
- Skunk2 gearnob - I couldn't resist... it was pretty :)
- Servicing items have been stock piled as and when Opiesoils have done a special deal hehe :)

Anyway its 2010 now, well and truly! and as the weather is starting to improve so the work on the car can start again...

First off was some fresh new number plates :D

Bought from Craigs Plates, can't recommend them enough, always helped me with plates and are very pleasant to talk to over the phone and email.
Anyway my rear plate had a nasty black surround around it... (can be seen in the shots above of the HKS and Apexi exhaust).

so that came off.... and cleaned it all up (yummy yellow paint stains on the rear number plate holder...) And on goes the fresh plate :)

notice the red surround ;) classy lol

And to replace my nice and illegal front sticker number plate (as mr Plod pointed out earlier this week hehe) I got a nice matching front one... Voila hehe

Also got myself a nice new parcel shelf to replace my "blingin" 6x9s hehe

I have also just today got myself a freshly refurbished b18 cam cover :D :D :D
Thank you to Marc_EE9 on the forum for putting the time into this to get it looking so perfect, can't wait to put it on :D really recommend his work also! Top guy!

Future improvements:

I have booked my car in with TGM sport in Fleet for a big old service :)
http://www.tgmsport.co.uk/

-Cambelt, water pump, tensioners, thermostat, valve clearances, and fuel filter.

Once this has been done it will then have the following work carried out:

- Clutch (oem exedy one), and fidanza lightweight flywheel fitted
- Braided HEL clutch hose
- Gearbox oil change
- engine mount inserts fitted.
- Fitting of sandwhich plate + the two pro sport gauges
- Hardrace full bushes setup and new track rod ends and ball joints.
- New tyes - If I can't replace my Hankook RS2s I will be going with Yokohama prada spec 2s.

Then if time and funds allow possible improvements (toys) could come in the way of... Tegiwa air box, coilovers... and camber/toe adjusters. But we shall see :D

Trips planned this year:
To take it to that holy place that I have been going to for a few years now...

And I've been very lucky to fit it into a SPA session in March, so another track to add to my list :D

My goal with this car is to bring it back to its original glory, but improve where I can along the way. I would I aim to achieve a car that is 70% road with the rest being track focused.

Well thank you very much for reading all of this! I hope you found it interesting! And this is just the start... I will be updating and adding to this thread as I carry on with looking after and improving this awesome car :D

Oh and If I bored you... sorry ;)

Dan F

More updates to follow as and when they happen :)

Caterham 175 Roadsport press car.

2010-03-08T22:07:00.001Z

When I found that video done by Performance Car magazine on Youtube earlier, as featured in my previous blog post.
I also found Tiff Needells review of the Caterham 175 Roadsport press car.

Well the video brought back some memories, as I was given the oppertunity of using this exact same car for a few days of the summer last year, it was before we got hold of our very own Caterham 175 Roadsport, so this some would say was quite a test drive!

I took advantage of the long weekend I was given with the car, to get some of these photos!

This car was Caterhams prototype of their new Roadsport 175, and around the time I drove this it was featured in an article in Performance Car magazine where it was put through its paces alongside a Bentley Continental GT.

As far as performance goes, it has a 2.0 Duratec engine producing 175bhp, 0-60 is achieved in roughly 4.8 seconds, exactly like our rental car... oh and did I mention that our car is available for rental throughout Great Britain and Western Europe ;)

Oh and its alot of fun to drive too :D

Performance Car Magazine - Their trip to the South of France

2010-03-08T21:07:00.001Z

I was browsing the net earlier, doing some updates on Twitter, our Facebook page and so on, and well I came across some footage taken by the guys at Performance Car Magazine when they took our complete package down to the south of France.

By complete package I mean, one of our luxury motorhomes, a trailer, and their very own Caterham to play around in :-D The full works!

They did such a great write up for us in the magazine, that it is now used as part of our brochure when we are exhibiting at shows and so on.

So Anyway the footage is below, and gives a real taste of what we can offer! Enjoy!

WightBlat 2010... Now taking bookings...

2010-02-23T14:29:00.002Z

http://www.wightblat.co.uk/

WightBlat 2010 is a Caterham owners club meet that takes place on the Isle of Wight, its a 3 day event (from the 9th April till the 11th of April, and during that time Caterham owners taking part are based out of Whitecliff Bay Holiday Camp.

A fantastic time is organised among fellow enthusiasts, brilliant evening entertainment and of course plenty of driving thrown in for good measure!

Mark On Europe is really looking forward to this years WightBlat!

Especially as this year we have our own Caterham available to attend the event :)

oh and because we would like to do a little better at the evening quizz this year... last place isn't anything to be proud of hehe.

Last year was our first time among the Caterham owners community, and we were made to feel very welcome! Even if we did only bring a motorhome... well it did have Caterham stickers on it ;)

But anyway we are doing it properly this year!

I'll make sure to keep everyone updated on how we are getting on, and what we are up to once we are there, as well as hopefully plenty of Caterham pictures to drool over after the event!

Anyway bookings for the event are now being taken, so feel free to check out the link at the top and get involved!

Autosport / Pistonheads show 2010

2010-02-22T23:37:00.004Z

The Autosport / Pistonheads show was held at the NEC in Birmingham.

We were exhibiting their, and it was a great show to be part of! We had our stand alongside our friends at Caterham UK, directly alongside their CDX track ... so hearing took a while to recover!

We got loads of attention due to our fantastic spot, and we were able to show off exactly what we can offer fellow petrol heads :D and answer questions directly!

Next show we will be exhibiting at is the Windsor Leisure show in March, looking forward to that one!

Mark On Europe advertising campaign continues...

2010-02-22T23:27:00.000Z

Recently had a few promotional videos done, so as to spread the word and show off what we can offer :)

Enjoy!