My LoveFab turbo 98 Berlina Black NSX-T - an introduction

[VR4Rob]

Hey Prime, I'm Rob. A little over two weeks ago I was lucky enough to acquire Accel Junky's beautiful NSX and have been enjoying every minute of it. The day after I brought her home, I had my friend and professional photographer Evan Verschoore of Raw Imaging capture some amazing pictures of my NSX and a friend's built Evo 9.

Some details on the NSX
1 of 5 Berlina Black/Camel 6MT 98s
78K miles
LoveFab stage II turbo - 460whp on 93 octane
CCW Classics 17/18 stagger
Megan street series coilovers

A little background on me:
I've been a car guy since I could glue plastic models together and I've always been particularly fond of 90's Japanese 'supercars'. I think that period of design and innovation stands alone as one of the best automotive eras. My first love was the 3000GT, and in 2004 I bought an extremely rare 94 VR-4 in Mariana Blue Pearl from the original owner. I loved this car dearly and spent 11 years modifying, racing, showing, detailing, traveling the country with it, and generally obsessing over it.

Sadly, this car was taken from me two months ago. While on the way to a Cars and Coffee event, a drunk driver blew through a red light while running from the police and hit us nearly head on. The loss of my blue car was like the passing of my best friend; I was crushed.

Luckily, I was able to find this amazing car from a great owner... and now I'm here. Enjoy

 

[JoseJA1979]

congrats on the purchase... One of my favorites. Do you have any plans to change anything up?

 

[VR4Rob]

congrats on the purchase... One of my favorites. Do you have any plans to change anything up?

Thanks! I have a few small things on the list but otherwise the car is built exactly as I would have done it if I were doing it from scratch.

To do list goes something like this:
1. New shift knob - I have run myself in circles on this one. I'm usually sway towards OEM stuff but ~$160 for an nothing-special OEM knob doesn't really excite me.
This one looks nice, and I think is the OEM knob out of either a TSX, Civic Si, or S2000. I'm not super familiar with other Hondas so maybe someone can chime in. Also not sure if this will fit or look right with the OEM shift boot.

2. Stereo replacement - I don't need anything fancy but the stock unit doesn't power on at all... so I need to remedy that. Again, tons of options here but I'm not sure what direction to go.

3. Caliper paint/powdercoat - The calipers aren't all that visible through the CCWs but they aren't as clean as the rest of the car. I might do a red caliper, I think that would look sharp peeking out from behind the wheels. Does anyone on the forum do caliper powdercoating/rebuilds?

 

[JLCoolman]

Congratulations Rob!

Enjoy and take care of her.


p.s. Sorry for the loss of your VR4, it looked very nice.

 

[JoseJA1979]

2. Stereo replacement - I don't need anything fancy but the stock unit doesn't power on at all... so I need to remedy that. Again, tons of options here but I'm not sure what direction to go.


3. Caliper paint/powdercoat - The calipers aren't all that visible through the CCWs but they aren't as clean as the rest of the car. I might do a red caliper, I think that would look sharp peeking out from behind the wheels. Does anyone on the forum do caliper powdercoating/rebuilds?

If you like the stock headunit i'm sure [MENTION=7588]Briank[/MENTION] can fix it...

You can paint the calipers yourself with this great kit:
http://www.amazon.com/Temperature-Leveling-G2-Caliper-System/dp/B000AUMYMM

 

[VR4Rob]

Congratulations Rob!

Enjoy and take care of her.


p.s. Sorry for the loss of your VR4, it looked very nice.

Thanks! Losing the VR-4 was really tough, but the NSX has proven to be quite a suitable successor

If you like the stock headunit i'm sure [MENTION=7588]Briank[/MENTION] can fix it...

You can paint the calipers yourself with this great kit:
http://www.amazon.com/Temperature-Leveling-G2-Caliper-System/dp/B000AUMYMM

Thanks for the link. I have painted calipers before with mixed results but it sounds like that is some really good stuff. My VR-4 calipers were powdercoated professionally and looked gorgeous. I may try to paint the NSX calipers though... at worst case I can have them powdercoated later.

I have done some research on repairing the headunit and it doesn't look like BrianK is repairing them anymore, nor is Willmans.

 

[RYU]

Accel's car is one of my favs on here. Congrats.

If anything, i'd swap out that suspension asap and get the more bang for every NSX mile with a better set of dampers.

 

[VR4Rob]

Accel's car is one of my favs on here. Congrats.

If anything, i'd swap out that suspension asap and get the more bang for every NSX mile with a better set of dampers.

What would you recommend? To be honest, I am pretty impressed with the Megans. This car is strictly a street car so the ride needs to be firm but not punishing... something the Megans have accomplished pretty well. Granted, I have never ridden in or driven a stock NSX so I don't really have a basis of comparison. My VR-4 had Tein Flex coilovers which were overall great, but were pretty harsh over big highway bumps and expansion joints.

 

[Sportsmind4me]

KW3's seem to be a popular choice here for track and street use.

 

[RYU]

What would you recommend? To be honest, I am pretty impressed with the Megans. This car is strictly a street car so the ride needs to be firm but not punishing... something the Megans have accomplished pretty well. Granted, I have never ridden in or driven a stock NSX so I don't really have a basis of comparison. My VR-4 had Tein Flex coilovers which were overall great, but were pretty harsh over big highway bumps and expansion joints.

Dampers are one of those things were ignorance is bliss. if you're happy with your current setup then i'd say leave it. It's one of those cases were you really don't know what you're missing and that's ok

 

[VR4Rob]

KW3's seem to be a popular choice here for track and street use.

KW3s are also very popular with the E90/E92 crowd. They seem very high quality for sure.

Dampers are one of those things were ignorance is bliss. if you're happy with your current setup then i'd say leave it. It's one of those cases were you really don't know what you're missing and that's ok

Thanks for the input. Ride quality is all relative and some things bother folks more than others.... The NSX rides like a 60s Cadillac on fresh asphalt compared to our lifted Wrangler. The horse-and-buggy ride quality of the Jeep is part of the fun though