Midnight_Raven's Build

[racer9x]

Great job, nice choice of wheels:smile:
I think STMPO makes motor mounts and claim to last the life time of you're NSX, might want to check it out, they actualy have a pic of a OEM mount with cracks like you'res and they state that this should be replaced as it is a worn out mount. hope this helps:wink:

 

[shawn110975]

I think its gonna look bad ass

more pics when i do my builds I take pics pics pics

and post them cuz it keeps the people interested longer LOL

think 5-6 sec attention spand LOL drooling over a car rather than a lollipop

:biggrin:

keep them coming

 

[Midnight_Raven]

Alright guys so this morning I got up and had nothing better to do so I put the car back on jack stands and removed my top catalytic converter. I pulled the heat shields off and wire brushed the entire exterior of the cat. I then used simple green to degrease the exterior of the cats and water to rinse off the soap. Let the cat sit in the sun for 30 min. I also simple greened the heat shields. After that I used brake cleaners to remove any oil or contaminants on the shields and catalytic converter. I let all the parts air dry for 30 more min. I assembled everything with some new hardware and started the car up.

Smoke is gone!

Now I have no worries and am happy with the end result.

And as promised in my last post I have a video of the before and after results.

Enjoy!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1JRFmwWTVL8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[TURBO2GO]

Sounds awesome! You happy?

You know ou could have just let that smoke burn off lol.

 

[Midnight_Raven]

Sounds awesome! You happy?

You know ou could have just let that smoke burn off lol.

Yes I'm happy with these. I love the low throaty sound they make. Also since these are not too loud I can drive it to and from work at night and not disturb my neighbors when I come home.

I was a bit paranoid man. It was really bothering me that smoke was coming out of my engine bay. :biggrin:

Here are some pictures I took.

 

[TURBO2GO]

Looks 10x better

 

[NH123]

Anthony,

Looks and sounds great. Can't wait to see it in person...maybe when we have this NE group outing Dave was talking about.

 

[TURBO2GO]

Anthony,

Looks and sounds great. Can't wait to see it in person...maybe when we have this NE group outing Dave was talking about.

Lol I guess maybe we should set one up...

 

[Midnight_Raven]

Update:

After not driving my NSX for a month, I decided I might as well do something with it while it sits in my garage for the winter to keep myself occupied. I'm going to attempt to shed more "free" weight off the car this week.

Tomorrow I'm planning to remove the sound insulation behind the seats. I'm also contemplating an idea in regards to the carpets.

Last year I removed my carpets entirely and tried it out for like a week. I liked the weight savings but I didn't like the somewhat exposed look of the floor. Additonally when the carpet is not installed the wire harnesses are all out in the open exposing them to potential damage. Today I came up with an idea that might look very OEM but reduce weight at the same time. I'm thinking of sacraficing my carpets and cutting the base off but leaving the area that covers the wires on the perimeter of the floor. I would then either paint the remaining section of the floor black or use the floor mats to cover the bare floor. It should look very OEM but still remove a good amount of weight. If I remember correctly each carpet in it's entirety is 7lbs each but I could be wrong. Considering my carpets have like 2 or 3 cigarrette burn marks in different areas it not like I'm ruining a perfect set either. Here is a picture comparision showing you what I mean.

Before:

After:

What do you guys think bad or good idea?


I think I'm also going to remove the fan in the engine compartment and also remove the center speaker since I'm currently not even using it. Hopefully I can get a total of like 30-40 lbs out of the car with all of this.

If my estimations are correct that should put me under 2900lbs with a full tank. My car weighed at 2860lbs with half a tank of gas last year, when they did my corner balancing after I installed the KW V3s. Since then I've installed my my comptech headers and exhaust which I believe I saved about 10-15lbs with that.

Another idea that I haven't really seen people do is remove the intake manifold covers off the motor. From my understanding these magnesium covers don't really do anything except display the Honda plate on the engine.... If this thing weights a substancial amount I'm removing it.

Additionally today I ordered the NSX-R chassis reinforcement bars and the downforce scoop. I'll probably install those next week when they arrive.

I'll keep the updates rolling in as things keep progressing this winter.

 

[Sonic*]

Car looks great! Loving the silver calipers, nice contrast with the wheels.

 

[Midnight_Raven]

Thanks Sonic*

Day 1 of NSX weight loss program:

I've removed the big rubber mat from behind the seats and weighed the mat. I weighed it to 12lbs. I checked the weight of the driver side carpet. That weighs 7lbs approximately. Maybe I can shed a total of 10 lbs from both carpets if I modify them like my previous post described.

Here is a picture of the firewall as it sits now.

I then removed the center speaker and also removed some brackets from the firewall that seemed useless. I believe when I weighed the speaker with the brackets and all the buttons and stuff I took off of just the rear firewall, I measured 17 lbs total.

I then proceded to remove the driver side carpet to get to the tar under it.

That's as far as I got for the day. Tomorrow I'll continue the removal of the tar panels under the floor and remove the fan assembly in the engine bay.

 

[gabedm]

very nice sir, the RE30's look spectacular. Different.

 

[Midnight_Raven]

Thanks gabedm. I agree with you on the RE30s. Not many of these rims on NSXes now a days which means my NSX is a little more unique .

Day 2 of NSX weight loss program lol

So today I worked on the car some more. I finished removing the top plate covering the tar sheets on the floor. I also started to remove the tar sheet from the foot well. I put all the pieces I picked up in a plastic bag and weighed it. They weigh a total of 2 lbs. Now the tar I'm assuming is were more of the weight resides. I have to say this is harder than I thought. Maybe I need to get a better heat gun to soften up the tar faster than this hair dryer I'm using lol. Anyway here is a picture of how it looks now.

Here is a close up of the tar removal.

After I'm done with the driver side floor I think I'm going to try to reroute that yellow wire harness up under the steering rack and off the floor pan. It's going to interfere with my idea of a clean black floor if I leave it there.
At the rate I'm going I think this is going to take me about 3 weeks to do if I keep doing 3-4 hr increments per day. Any recommended methods to remove these tar sheets faster?

 

[Midnight_Raven]

Day 3 of NSX weight loss program.

Today I was able to get a full 4 hours of work on the car. I completed removal of the tar from the driver side floor pan. I weighed the total of everything I removed from the floor and so far I'm weighing a total of 4lbs. It's a little more considering some of it is in my vacuum as well. I sprayed the floor with goo gone and I'm letting it sit for the rest of the day. Hopefully it soaks into the tar and the rest comes off with ease. Then I'll move on to the rear firewall driver side.

Here is how it sits now:

 

[TURBO2GO]

Dude you really have some patience. I commend your work ethic. That yellow harness contains airbag wires. Be careful. Yellow is for airbag.

 

[Midnight_Raven]

So yesterday I put in 5 hours into the car. I removed as much tar as I could from the rear driver side firewall. I also removed some more from the floor with a dremel. It's now to the point where I have to decide what I want to do with the floor. I have two options 1) Paint floor black and sacrifice carpet (Most weight savings) 2) Leave floor silver remove as much sound deadening from carpet and install (less weight savings but keeps OEM look). I'm kind of thinking option #2 would be better because it would still get me close to 40+ lbs of weight savings in the interior and keep the oem look but option 1 would be 50+ lbs of weight savings. I did paint one corner of the cabin black to preview the look if I did paint the entire floor black. I think it looks good but it won't look OEM.

One rant for the job I have. Whoever at Honda put this epoxy on the seems was not very careful, they dropped that stuff on random parts of the floor pan and it's a pain to get off. Basically all the part of the floor that still have tar on it is there because there is that hardened epoxy under it. I really wish I could make it super clean looking but that is going to require too much work for little return in weight savings.

Here is how it sits now:

Here is the painted corner:

Here is how the floor would look like if I just use the mat and no carpet. Basically it looks like you wouldn't be able to tell there is no carpet if I do it this way since the seats cover up the remaining of the uncarpeted floor.

What do you guys think?

 

[scottg]

Have you explored less drastic weightsavu=ing such as changing the battery, removing the spare wheel and tool kit, audio system etc.

 

[Midnight_Raven]

I've already removed the spare wheels (31.6lbs saved), spare wheel bracket (2.4 lbs saved), my trunk tools have been removed (15 lbs saved), my trunk carpet has been removed (4lbs saved), the trunk CD changer is gone plus new head unit(4lbs saved), comptech headers (10lbs of savings), engine cover removed (15.4 lbs) putting me at about 70lbs removed from the car as it sits. It might be a little more cause I think the comptech exhaust I have is a little lighter than the OEM muffler as well but I lost my weight comparison sheet for that so I'm not sure what the actual weight saving is. I should be at 120-130 lbs removed once I'm done with my little project.

If any of you are wondering I'm basically trying to give my NSX the NA1 Type-R treatment. I don't think I'm going to go all the way though but a curb weight of 2711lbs sure sounds appealing...

I don't think I want to remove the AC or the sound system which mainly is where most of the weight would be from but I'm thinking down the road if I were to do it, I would change my glass to a lighter plastic type, put in some downforce type-r replica seats in, change the steering wheel out. I would then get to 2800lbs which is Type-S Zero weight if I remember correctly.

 

[laurent1475]

Love your project so far! keep the pics and video coming. Have you got a video of how your nsx sound like today with your new exhaust set up (more than 5 secs)?

 

[TURBO2GO]

What's the stereo?

 

[Midnight_Raven]

So I went a little farther this morning and now I'm on hold since I'm out of primer. So as you can guess I'm painting the floor black. I removed the plastic raceway for the air bag cable and relocated cable up away from the footwell. I plugged the holes that were left on the floor with the black plugs that held in the rubber mat on the rear firewall so if anyone ever plans to relocate the cable, save those black plugs! I removed the panel under the driver side dash that had the footwell light as well. That's probably .5lb there alone felt surprisingly heavy. I also cut the carpet how I had envisioned it. I removed about 6 lbs from the driver side with my modification. That's 12 lbs if I do both sides which is a good amount. 18lbs if I don't even use the floor mats . Here are some pictures of how it looks before I started applying the primer and with the modified carpet installed.

No floor mat and no bright yellow cable lol:

With floor mat from passenger side:

With the door closed:

With the door opened:

As you can see when the seats go in it'll not even be noticeable. Now I need to go buy more primer and paint the driver side. I guess that should be done some time the end of this week.

Dave,

The head unit that is installed is a Pioneer Avic-D3 I think. That is my guess for the change in weight with the new head unit but without the CD changer in the trunk. I could be wrong but I did some research on the weights and I believe that is what I came up with.

 

[TURBO2GO]

What is it driving? Factory speakers?

 

[bngl3rt]

I think with the seats and the floormats in it will look fine, don't bother putting down any carpet - a bit of exposed metal (assuming you can get it clean) is great for that race car look, without sacrificing comfort.

- - - Updated - - -

What is it driving? Factory speakers?

Heh, what's Dave's extreme lipo audio setup? Would you lose the Bose amps and run deck power if the goal was in fact to approach NSX-R weight?

 

[TURBO2GO]

Definitely or a small amp. That head unit is not light either. The Bose drivers are heavy... And shitty...

 

[bngl3rt]

Definitely or a small amp. That head unit is not light either. The Bose drivers are heavy... And shitty...

So a lighter HU, deck power to lighter drivers in the doors... what about the OEM sub?