Robert, Mike, and I went to go pick up my NSX from Downforce today. It’s finally all painted, color-sanded, and buffed and it looks awesome. I’ve got to hand it to Sam at Downforce. He said it would take about four or five weeks to finish; it took five. He also said the estimate could fluctuate a bit due to the uncertainty of a few items; it came in less. I can’t recommend these guys highly enough. Yeah, the paint looks great but my car is a mess. I’ve got tons of interior pieces to put back in, an engine and a transmission to stuff inside, and all kinds of miscellaneous bits and pieces that’ll turn what I think should take a weekend or two into three or four. Thanks to Sam and the guys at Downforce, Mike Arpon for the muscle, and Robert Young for the truck and trailer. That reminds me, today was just another day I kicked myself for selling my F-150 and fully enclosed trailer, but that’s a rant for another time.
Filed under: New stuff, Project TSX | Tags: Bisi, Bismoto Engineering, TSX dyno
Today the Editorial Lackey, Mike Arpon, and I headed over to Bisimoto in Chino Hills to make a few dyno pulls on Project TSX. Mike’s TSX was supposed to be his second car. The car you buy so that you can fix up your other car, the one you really care about. Somewhere along the line Mike began building his TSX. Like most of us, he has the disease. Its engine mods are basic but it picked up some serious power. I’ll post the dyno sheets in the February/March issue of HT but, basically, the K24 picked up 28 hp and 31 lb-ft of torque with sizeable gains across the board. Wait until you see the torque curve. Oh, like I said, the mods are ridiculously basic: Just a Skunk2 exhaust, a K&N cold-air intake, and a DC Sports header bolted to the stock cat. That’s it. Seriously. The ECU is stock, the valve cover’s never been off and, best of all, all three mods can be bolted on in just over an hour or two. Oh, and the header and intake are even CARB legal.
On a side note, I love going to Bisi’s shop. Bisi’s one of those guys who never tries to make you feel stupid, but you just can’t help but feel like you’ve still got a lot to learn after talking to the guy. He also runs just about the most professional, on-the-ball, dyno facility I’ve ever been to – and I’ve been to a lot of them. Don’t know who Bisi Ezerioha is? Shame on you. Check him out at www.bisimoto.com
I got my first tool set a little over 20 years ago. I used it mostly to set up skateboards and to build launch ramps in my parents’ front yard. Later, I added a few automotive-specific tools to the ol’ Craftsman box just to keep my ’78 Celica running. That was around 1990. I haven’t stopped collecting tools since. Today, my home garage has got enough tools in it to put most full-time mechanics’ quarters to shame. Dial indicators, micrometers, and other precision measuring equipment: check. Torque wrenches of all sizes: check. An entire drawer full of Honda-specific tools: check. I’ve never actually thought about it until now, but I’ve probably got 25 different ways to remove a 10mm-head bolt. Of course, I have my favorites. I can’t imagine doing a clutch job without one of these ring gear holders. I’ve had this one forever, and I believe it’s actually specific to VWs. It works fine on Hondas though. I’ve used it on everything from Accord clutch jobs to my NSX clutch and flywheel install this weekend – more on that later. Simply lock it against the flywheel, bolt it to the block, and loosen or tighten bolts without worrying about spinning the crank. So simple, but so effective.
I was rummaging through some of my old photos the other day and found this. Yep, that’s one of my old DC2 Integras and, yep, that’s a D16Z6 in there. This was my only car at the time, so when I pulled the B18C out to rebuild it, I had to slap something else in there to drive it. Incidentally, I had just yanked this clean specimen of a SOHC D-series out of a customer’s car for an H22A swap, which gave me the idea to de-swap my GSR. Installing the drivetrain was really no different than if I were to put it in a Civic. Of course, I had to use a Civic tranny mount, a Civic rear mount, a Civic throttle cable and ECU, and so on. Since the Integra has larger radiator inlets and outlets I simply squished the hoses onto the engine’s water necks with worm-gear clamps. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I used a long enough one on the cylinder head’s outlet. Also, notice my custom, ultra-short intake that I found laying around the shop and the Crane ignition coil on the left. Oh, and yes, this thing was as slow as you’d expect. The timestamp says January of 2000, but I’m pretty sure this was sometime during ’97 or ’98. I ended up rocking the D for about two months.
Filed under: New stuff, Project NSX | Tags: Downforce, Honda Tuning, Project NSX
Everything’s painted now and the guys at Downforce started putting the car back together today. Color-sanding is next, then buffing, and the rest is all me. I’m having them leave both bumpers off as well as the side sills, taillights, mirrors, and all sorts of other things that are, together, saving me a pretty big chunk of change. As for the bumpers, the front one pretty much has to stay off in order to get the car onto our trailer and the back one, well, I’ll be slipping my engine in from the rear and having the bumper off makes it that much easier. Once the car hits my garage I’ll be cleaning the engine bay, installing the drivetrain, putting the rest of the body and interior together, and cutting and drilling for the new sidemarkers. Of course, there’s also the exhaust, the wheels, the new radiator hoses, and so much more. Expect updates.
Really? Are we doing this stuff again? I pulled up behind this thing the other day and just had to whip out the BlackBerry to take some pictures. We know that it’s a ’94-’97 Accord, that it’s got ’99 Mustang taillights, a ’99 Mustang rear bumper, some sort of wing that doesn’t belong, some sort of side skirts that shouldn’t be there, and a fresh coat of primer – no paint yet, just primer. I tried pretty hard but couldn’t get around to document the front. Early ‘90s Camaro, perhaps?
Filed under: Honda news, New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: Honda display, LA Auto Show
Honda always has the coolest displays. It doesn’t matter where they are, the Tokyo Auto Salon, the Tokyo Motor Show, Paris, New York, or Los Angeles, which is where I was this morning. You do know that the LA Auto Show starts later this week, right? American Honda has a couple of interactive displays that are pretty awesome. The first one is basically a crash simulator. You turn the fake key, push the fake starter button, and wait for the video of the real car to slam into the real wall. I’m told the sound effects are pretty outrageous but I had to enjoy it in silence – Honda PR leaves the volume off on media days so as not to disturb adjacent press conferences. Anyways, once you’ve crashed your car into the big block wall you can turn that shiny wheel on the right, back and forth, to view various points of the accident. Go back, forward, stop, whatever – you can even rewind all the way and pretend it never happened.
Honda’s other interactive display is really just a giant iPhone but with lots of information and pictures of Hondas. You can’t call anybody on it, but you can flick through photos and text on the four-foot-wide touchscreen just like you do on your iPhone. The display basically walks you through everything in Honda’s history that’s green-related, like the old CRX HF, which was the first compact to achieve over 50 mpg, and the ’99 Insight, which was the first hybrid offered in the U.S.
Filed under: Honda news, New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: Honda FC Sport, hydrogen cars, LA Auto Show
“Oh crap!” That’s pretty much what everyone around me was saying when American Honda’s VP, Dan Bonawitz, revealed what was underneath the mysterious cloak at this morning’s LA Auto Show Honda press conference. It’s called the FC Sport and, officially, it’s a design study model, which means it’s a concept car. The thing about Honda’s concept cars is that most of them become reality. Take recent history for example, the FCX Clarity is available, the second-generation Insight goes on sale in about five months, and the CR-Z is not too far off either. All of this means that a RWD, hydrogen-powered sports car like the FC Sport being offered to the public in the not-too-distant future isn’t all that ridiculous. We’ll take a closer look at the concept in the magazine but, basically, this thing is a three-seat sports car with a center-mounted, Formula One style driver seat, massive, cross-drilled rotors and beefy calipers, and a body that, despite it’s race-inspired appearance, still has classic Honda lines – you just have to look harder for them. The zero-emissions FC Sport has a seriously low center of gravity and is reportedly lightweight. The fact that there’s no engine up front left the door wide open for Honda R&D to devise something completely different. And they did.
There’s this Championship White NSX that I like to check up on each time I visit Downforce (the shop that’s painting my NSX). I don’t know the owner but apparently he had his car stripped down elsewhere and was so unhappy with whatever it was that they were doing that he towed it out of there. The car ended up at Downforce where the crew was given the job of putting the entire thing back together. I’m talking everything – the entire suspension, brakes, drivetrain, wiring harnesses, interior, supercharger – everything. Apparently it’s going to cost $18,000 but, when you think about it, I guess it’s not that bad. I mean, every piece of hardware was thrown into one huge box. There are Comptech blower components mixed with OEM headlight hardware. Can you imagine trying to figure out where each 6mm bolt goes? You know there’s a ton of them. The guys have got their work cut out for them. Any competent mechanic could put this car back together, but only a few would take the time to ensure that the proper length bolts are going back into their respective spots and that each clip, fastener, and seal is put back just the way it was meant to go. If it’s true that you get what you pay for, then this guy’s got nothing to worry about.
Filed under: Old school stuff | Tags: Civic hatchback, Honda Tuning race car
It’s been a year since I sold my old race car and, I’ve gotta say, I still miss working on it – not driving it, working on it. I came to terms years back that I enjoy building cars more than I do racing them, but that’s beside the point. My car was sold to a friend of a friend who owns a small shop nearby, and I haven’t seen it since I let it go. One of the selling points of my car was that all it needed to hit the track was a fresh gallon of 118 octane and it was good to go. The engine was in top-notch condition, the chassis was straight, the slicks and skinnies were still fresh; even the turbo, the fuel pump, and the battery were in practically new condition. But I heard recently that the new owner decided to tear the whole thing apart, despite everything I told him about the car. I guess he didn’t believe me.
On a side note, this car took me about three years to build during my spare time back when I had my shop. I did everything in-house except for the tune. The car had a lot of fab work hours put into it. If I couldn’t buy it, I made it. Shoot, even if I could buy certain things, I still made them – the exhaust manifold, the fuel cell, the water tank, the window frames, everything. Only problem was that, once I was done, I was ready to cut something up just for the sake of getting to fabricate something new. It’s a sickness.
