Internet forums will never cease to amaze. At any given moment you can find out how to season and cook a two-pound ham from a knowledgeable chef yet read utter nonsense from the forum monkeys regarding where exactly underneath your NSX you should place your floor jack. Posts like this are not uncommon on the NSX forums (about jacks, not meat), so it’s really no surprise that someone created a thread asking if he could or couldn’t jack his car up from a certain spot. The spot in question doesn’t have a big arrow on it and it doesn’t have its own stamp next to it that says “jack here.” It also doesn’t have its own page in the NSX service manual. All of this is enough to make the NSX weenies promptly tell the guy that he cannot and should not jack his car up there. But most anybody who knows his way around a car knows there’s almost always at least a few other spots to stick a jack under than where Honda tells you to. And if you need to create a thread on a forum to verify this, well, maybe you should think about putting that jack away for good. Sorry, but if you can’t tell that raising an NSX by its engine cradle/subframe, which sits right up against the rear frame rail, is okay, then make the world a safer place for yourself and stop crawling underneath your car.
Unlike most other Hondas that can be raised by their front crossmembers and rear structural members, the NSX’s designated jack points are directly under its doors. That means that NSXs are raised laterally, not longitudinally—a strange procedure if you’ve never done it before. It also takes a bit more time than it does to jack up your Civic, which is why some NSX owners look to the rear subframe when only one corner needs to be raised—like when changing the oil filter. Ah, but if only the NSX weenies would approve.
Anybody who doesn’t think the NSX can do daily driver duties simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Since I’m in between extra cars at the moment, I’ve been commuting to work and back – and everywhere else – for the last month in the NSX. And the car is every bit as reliable as any other Honda, albeit not quite as practical. Trunk space is limited to little more than my camera bag. There’s only one extra seat. And the car is low. Really, really low. Today I couldn’t eat lunch at my favorite taco place because I couldn’t get into the parking lot. Daily-driver-capable? Yeah. Practical? Not so much.
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’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.
Since the NSX’s engine is mounted in the rear, and the radiator’s mounted up front—for obvious reasons—Honda implemented a series of aluminum tubes to transfer coolant back and forth. Somewhere beneath the shifter assembly, inside a tight galley that runs underneath the chassis, some rubber hoses connect the aluminum pipes together. The rubber allows for flex but lasts nowhere near as long as aluminum. There’s one hose in particular that’s especially tricky to get to. Take my car for example. Each of the 25 or so cooling hoses appear to have been replaced at one point…except for this one. I guess whoever changed the other hoses figured this one was too difficult to get to. Check out the bulge. I think I got to this one just in time.
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.
Not having a lift in your home garage means you’d better be creative or willing to take your car to a shop. I wasn’t interested in towing my NSX back to one of my friends’ shops to reinstall the drivetrain. Doing so would have meant loading and unloading my car onto a trailer and risk damaging it twice. I just replaced the AC condensers up front and wasn’t about to risk damaging the new ones. I’m also not interested in leaving my car unattended at a shop for who knows how long at which time customers can take turns sitting in it while I’m not there. Besides, I work better alone, without distractions, which makes my garage the perfect place to get things done. But I still don’t have a lift, which means I had to get creative. In short, I needed 27 inches of clearance out back in order to slide the drivetrain in place. The solution involved two ramps, four three-ton jack stands, two six-ton jack stands, two hydraulic floor jacks, and an engine hoist. Both bumpers also had to be removed, which wasn’t really a big deal since they’ve only been held down by a couple of bolts since the car left the body shop. If not, the front bumper would’ve hit the ground when jacking up the rear so high and the rear bumper wouldn’t have allowed the engine to slide in. The only downside to installing the engine this way is that the subframe must be installed separately, after the engine and transmission are hung in place by the two side mounts. One of the nice things about installing an NSX engine with a lift is that you can install the axles, assemble most of the suspension, connect the front and rear engine mounts, even fill the transmission with oil, all without having the car anywhere in sight. But doing it my way works too—and I didn’t even need an expensive lift.
Despite the NSX’s cost, exotic nature, and exclusivity, its construction is quite raw. The car has two strikes against it from the get-go: it’s made of aluminum and it’s hand-built. Both attributes make for a difficult reassembly process, one in which I’ve been struggling with for days. Mass-produced, stamped-steel body panels—like those for your Civic—are relatively easy to put back where they came from. It isn’t terribly difficult to line up fenders, hoods, and bumpers as they pretty much go back on the way they came off. Aluminum parts like to re-shape themselves after sitting around getting painted, and NSX aluminum panels vary from one another. A lot. This is where shims come into play. You might not expect to hear the words shims and NSXs in the same sentence, but they play a vital role in assembling one. But the shims are not some body shop hack. No, NSXs were shipped directly from Honda this way, shims and all. You might find one nearly a quarter-inch thick behind the lower part of your driver-side fender, all in an effort to make the fender and door flush with one another. But don’t expect to find a similar sized shim, if any, behind your buddy’s NSX’s fender. The whole process is quite random and, while a single shim might have worked in a certain spot before teardown, it’s likely that it won’t work there during assembly. The solution is to have a big bag of shims handy and plenty of spare time.
