I love this ARC titanium shift knob that I’ve got but it’s almost impossible to use this thing on hot days. I drove the NSX to the office last week on one of those 95-degree days and made the mistake of parking outside for a couple of hours. I had a heck of a time getting home. The thing’s got to be well over 150 degrees once fully baked.
Here it is. This is what I’ve been spending the last seven months working on. The paint’s done and so is the engine, suspension, brakes, wheels and tires. I’ve got some interior modifications I’d like to get to, but the car is drivable, and the interior doesn’t look like it’s in need of anything, really. Downforce did an awesome job painting the car — I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I took this snapshot this evening after washing the car but plan on shooting several more photos somewhere else soon. Of course, I plan on driving it too.
I came across these photos of my last shop as I was cleaning out my office the other day. I know they’re not very exciting, but I took these on the very day I handed the keys back to my landlord and said goodbye to Holeshot Racing and running my own business for good. I know I’ve got some photos of the shop from its heyday—when it was packed full of cars, engines, welders, and a lift—but I’ll have to dig those up another time. Jon Spackman and I opened up Holeshot sometime around 1995 or 1996, when we began doing so much work for friends and “customers” at our homes that it proved more profitable to get ourselves an expensive shop and some helping hands. But, at $600 a month, our first shop wasn’t all that expensive, especially considering it was in the heart of Orange county and we could pack eight or so cars in it. That first shop didn’t have much. Besides our respective tool boxes, we made due with a MIG welder, two homemade workbenches, a couple of floor jacks, and an air compressor that never seemed to shut off. There was a pole holding up the roof right in the center of the shop, the ceilings were only eight or nine feet high, a really strange guy lived in his unit next door, and the “outhouse” bathroom that was retrofitted inside of our office used a K&N filter at the end of its exhaust fan, so whatever fumes came out of the john that the K&N couldn’t handle ended up right in the shop. Good times. The lack of equipment and crappy conditions didn’t matter though. We cranked out B-series swaps almost weekly as well as the occasional ZC or H-series swap and any type of maintenance or mechanical repair that you could imagine. We also performed hard-wired OBD conversions before the phrase “OBD conversion” was coined, chipped ECUs back when the Internet was considered a neat fad, and did a few non-Honda jobs when money was tight. At a time when few shops existed, business was good. Sometime around 1999 or 2000 we moved into the shop shown here. It was bigger, newer, nicer, and a whole lot more expensive. Unfortunately, this was also around the same time every kid with his first Craftsman tool set and the know-how to lower a car began opening their own shops. Prices were driven down, we eventually closed up, and such was the beginning of the end of the small Honda shop.
I’ve been holding out for one of those super-expensive ARC aluminum radiators for the last several months but suddenly changed my mind. Even with the significant discount I was offered, it still was no match for the Mishimoto one I picked up. To be fair, the Mishimoto radiator was free, which made it all the more difficult for the ARC piece to compete. Mishimoto set me up with one of its open-box units, possibly a production version, but it fits as you’d expect. The OEM fan shroud bolts up with just a little bit of trimming as do the factory hoses and clamps. I expect that final versions won’t require any trimming at all. Mishimoto is supposed to retail these for less than $500, which is more than four times cheaper than the ARC unit. The choice is yours.
Have you ever ordered a part for your car only to get it in the mail and realize it’s just not what you thought it was? I have. Take this aluminum coolant reservoir/oil breather combo tank that I’ve installed in my NSX. The idea isn’t a new one for the NSX; a couple of Japanese companies offered these over the years, although they’re fairly difficult to get now, not to mention expensive. So when I found out about a local supplier that was fabbing these up and selling them for less than $300, I jumped on it. In hindsight though, I probably should have made one myself. First off, the lower nipple on the coolant side was way smaller than the NSX’s hose as were the two nipples on the oil side. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the sight glass pushed up against the front VTEC solenoid and the breather filter—which originally sat up top—hit the engine cover. I ended up grinding off each nipple and welding on AN bungs instead. I also relocated the filter to the upper side of the tank for clearance. The combo tank really is a good idea, but this particular one really could have used a bit more engineering. Perhaps this’ll teach me to just make my own next time I need something like this.
