Filed under: New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: carbon wheels, Tokyo Auto Salon, WedsSport
I’ll admit, when I saw WedsSports’ dry carbon-fiber wheel at the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier this year I was impressed with its quality and construction. You can pretty much manufacture anything in carbon-fiber nowadays and somebody will buy it. But I’m not sure how practical such a wheel is. Despite how well-manufactured the Weds wheel looks, and despite how expensive they’re supposed to retail for—about $10K-plus for a set—carbon fiber is not meant to experience loads or compressive forces that regular steel, aluminum, or magnesium wheels do. Imagine hitting a pothole with these things. Despite that, I expect we’ll be seeing these on a few show cars in the near future. Oh, and they weight about six pounds each, and that’s for some of the larger, non-Honda sizes.
If you follow the engine removal procedure outlined in the 1991 Acura NSX service manual, you risk breaking the car’s delicate yet expensive aluminum suspension components. And we aren’t talking about sloppy, inexperienced home mechanics who have no business changing their own oil let alone swapping an engine—this was a problem that seasoned Honda- and Acura-authorized technicians experienced. As a result, the service manual was revised, instructing technicians to remove the entire subframe, suspension, and braking systems as a single unit, along with the drivetrain, just to eliminate the need to un-pop the suspension’s ball joints. Under no circumstances should any of the NSX’s ball joints be popped apart (unless you actually need to replace one), like you’d naturally assume to do when pulling most any other Honda engine from its chassis. All of this made me having to change my NSX’s two rear, upper control arm ball joint covers all the more sketchy. The trick is to use the uber-expensive NSX-specific ball joint removal tool and to center it perfectly over the joint. If you don’t, and pressure isn’t applied evenly, very expensive aluminum pieces will crack. How expensive? Well, an NSX’s rear upper control arm retails for just over $1100, it’s knuckle about half that, and there is not an OEM-replacement ball joint offered by Honda since it’s sold as part of the arm assembly. Needless to say, one false move and it’s all over. With the suspension off the car, I could normally change two ball joints in no more than five or ten minutes. The NSX’s took me about an hour…to do two, and that goes without mentioning the beads of sweat that dripped down my face and the trembling hands as I contemplated the likelihood of a several-thousand-dollar mistake.
I posted on this before, but walking around Mugen’s headquarters parking lot is every bit as interesting as walking around inside. As you’d expect, anything that was modified was done so with Mugen bits. I wonder what the employee discount is?
The writing’s been on the wall for some time, but Honda announced today, officially, that its S2000 production will end this year. With the company taking a turn toward more environmentally responsible vehicles as of late, cars like the FR roadster that sold fewer than 65,000 units in the U.S. during its lifespan just doesn’t make sense anymore. This comes just after the news of the long-awaiting NSX successor project being cancelled, which, by many accounts, was far less disappointing than the S2K’s demise. If the renderings and speculations were accurate, the redesigned NSX was going to be a far cry from the legendary sports car, far enough to where it arguably should have carried a different name. But the S2000 will be missed. What began as a tribute to Honda’s 50th anniversary, the company prolonged its production much longer than it had originally intended due to customer demand and critical acclaim.
I haven’t posted anything about my NSX lately because I haven’t done anything to my NSX lately. There are several hold-ups. I wanted to replace my engine mounts, but OEM ones were out of the question. They’re ridiculously expensive — because they’re aluminum and because they’re for an NSX — but they’re really no stronger than what I’ve already got, just newer. The solution I came up with is taking a bit longer than I wanted but it’ll be worth it. More on the mounts once they arrive. And then there are the A/C condenser shrouds. The NSX has two of them and they were only a couple hundred bucks, but they’re holding up my build big time. Since they’re placed fairly low to the ground, mine became damaged, but they’re not exactly routine parts that Acura keeps in stock. The condensers are located behind the front bumper. It’s easiest to bolt the shrouds on when the fenders and bumper are removed. As such, I’ve yet to align my body panels up front and the bumper’s still sitting in my spare bedroom along with the rear bumper and the side sills. Everything’s got an order in which it must go on. The rest should go together fairly quickly once I bolt the shrouds up and get my mounts. Here are just a few parts I’ve gathered in the meantime.
I went to Mackin a little while back to pick up a few ARC parts for the NSX. There’s the Super Induction airbox, the oil cap, the radiator overflow cap, the titanium shift knob, and the rainbow intake manifold cover that you’ll either love or hate. Now all I’ve got to do is find the long-discontinued ARC rear shock tower bar. No luck on my last visit to Japan.
And then there’s my Taitec GT Lightweight exhaust. This thing sounds awesome…once you put the silencers in it. It’s really a nice piece; it fits great, is much lighter than stock, and sounds good.
Filed under: Feature cars, Honda Tuning issues, Honda news, New stuff | Tags: Honda Tuning February/March 2009
The February/March, 2009 issue of Honda Tuning goes on sale January 20, but, for the most part, it’s already been circulated. I’ve got to say, I am really happy with this issue, but it’s a far cry from what we had planned. Take the cover cars for example, Eric Dickerson’s ITR and NSX. We had planned on featuring both of them, but not on the cover. We’ve got a serious stockpile of white cars here at the office, which means securing a cover spot with something white isn’t easy—not that Eric’s cars aren’t worthy, but we did have something else in mind and we do have others lined up. Our original cover cars fell through, which left the door wide open. If it wasn’t for Rodrez’s spot-on photography of Eric’s cars, the choice wouldn’t have been so easy. Fortunately, Rodrez handed in the shoot with a few vertical shots that got us out of our cover bind and apparently made Eric quite happy.
Sometimes it’s the little things that are the most exciting, like the handles you grab onto when you walk into the Mugen headquarter’s showroom. They look like connecting rods because they are. And these aren’t door handles that just look like connecting rods. Nope, they’re real, used connecting rods that were turned into door handles. I couldn’t tell what material they were made of or what application they were from since they’re coated, but you can definitely see the knick marks on them and tell that they saw action at one point. Hmm, I have some extra rods lying around. Maybe I’ll do something like this at home.
Filed under: Honda news, New stuff | Tags: Super Autobacs, Tokyo Auto Salon
I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to visit one of the Autobacs stores in Japan but, if you’re near one, what the heck, check it out. Make sure it’s a Super Autobacs though and not the smaller Autobacs. The Super stores are fairly large, but unfortunately, even they don’t have very many parts that the U.S. locations don’t have. If you’re into automotive literature though, paying a visit to the Super Autobacs Shinonome location isn’t a total waste of time. The second floor is dedicated mostly to books, posters, magazines, DVDs, and pretty much any other medium you can think of. I walked out of there with a couple hundred dollars worth of NSX memorabilia that I’ve yet to see in the U.S.
Filed under: Honda news, New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: M-Tec, Mugen, Tokyo Auto Salon
Yesterday we visited M-Tec’s head offices in Saitama — the guys who produce Mugen. This is where the company stores all of its demo cars and is where a lot of the R&D and production is done. The place is huge and its employee parking lot is every bit as impressive as you’d expect. We had an opportunity to check out its NSX-RR concept and FD2 Civic Type RR up close as well as Mugen’s S2000, ’09 Fit, and other various Civic demo cars. M-Tec’s showroom isn’t huge but there’s plenty to see in it, including some of its early Formula 1 engines, which are simply amazing. There was even plenty to see in the employee parking lot like this DC2 Integra. We also saw a couple of pretty sick Odysseys and an older Fit on M5s.
If you plan on visiting the Tokyo area, be sure to stop at the Honda Welcome Plaza. The plaza, located in Aoyoma Itchome, is basically a display of each of Honda’s latest Japanese domestic models. That means that you won’t see cars like the Pilot or your mom’s Odyssey there and that the TSXs are all labeled as Accords. All of the cars are unlocked and visitors can check them out just like they would at a dealership. Inside there’s a gift shop with all sorts of expensive Honda shirts, souvenirs, and literature. I was lucky enough to pick up another NSX book to add to my collection among other things. And before you leave, be sure to check out the ASIMO show, which takes place throughout the day. Seeing ASIMO in action really is an interesting experience. Oh, and all of this is free save for roughly two bucks’ worth of subway fees. To get to the Honda Welcome Plaza make your way to the Ginza line and exit at the Aoyoma Itchome station. Walk up the stairs and lift up your head – it’ll be right in front of you.
