Well, after a year of looking, I finally took the plunge. I was looking for a 1997-2001 Red NSX. At first I was set on the Red/Tan combo, but after months of searching, the Black interior grew on me. So, naturally, the 2001 Red/Black that was available for sale locally in St. Louis sold the week before I called (the car had sat on the lot for 9 months and I even test drove it in the summer!). I planned to give up my search until 2007, but then in December, a 2000 Red/Tan in Minneapolis that I had inquired about this summer (when the asking price was $55K) had the price lowered. I made an offer this summer, but wasn't able to get the dealer to budge. Well, my patience paid off, as the price was dropped to $50K. I was pretty comfortable with the price, as it was a low mileage car (under 13,000) and a couple of Prime members had already looked at it for me, so I snapped it up (sorry, no pics in this thread, as I don't have a camera, but you all know what a stock NSX looks like:wink: - hopefully I can get some pics once I make some changes).
I flew up to Minnesota this Wednesday (I actually had driven up a couple of weeks earlier to look at the car - 16 hours of driving and over 1100 miles in one day!) on a one-way ticket with the plan to drive the car back the same day. Of course, my flight got delayed an hour before I could even get up there - I hoped it wouldn't be a sign of things to come!:smile:
I got in and out of the dealer within an hour and was on the road by 1:00. I had an 8 hour drive ahead of me, so I couldn't wait to get going. I had purchased a Valentine1 Radar detector a couple of weeks earlier specifically for this trip and future use of the car:wink: However, I still wasn't sure how much to trust the radar detector, plus I hoped to avoid a ticket or worse, so I took it relatively easy at first.
Once out of Minnesota, the highways opened up. For those that haven't made the trek going south out of Minnesota through Iowa, let me tell you - there is nothing around! I had a two lane highway each direction and there were hardly any cars on the road. I pushed the car a few times from 70 to the 110-130 range just so I could rev the RPM's. Wow is all I can say - the car sounds awesome when the RPM's get up there.
I ended up getting home at 9:30 without incident - the trip actually took longer than my previous drive - partially because I couldn't eat in my car:smile: plus with a Red sports car, I felt like I had a target on my back, so I took it easy most of the trip. Of course, there was hardly an law enforcement on the roads, so I could have probably pushed it a little more, but I was still working up in my confidence in that department.
The car has been sitting in my garage for the last couple of days, since we've had a steady stream of rain in St. Louis. However, when spring comes and the weather clears up, I look forward to meeting other local prime members. I'll probably drive it when the roads are clear, but St. Louis has to be due for some snow in the next month or two.
In the meantime, I'm working on my plans for the car. I've already done a ton of research on this site (I probably spent 100+ hours reading various threads on this site in the last year) to figure out what I like on this car, so here are some thoughts I have - any opinions or information that might be helpful would be appreciated (especially recommendations where to purchase some of these items and/or have the work done), as I'm still a novice when it comes to a lot of this stuff. Feel free to PM me so as not to make this thread out of control - I'll probably be posting specific questions and re-reading a lot of the threads I read earlier once I begin to make some decisions.
Thanks for bearing with me. I look forward to meeting other members on here, either locally or at NSXPO if I can make it. If anyone has any other tips for a first time owner or things I should do immediately (such as, should I join the NSXCA), feel free to PM me.
I flew up to Minnesota this Wednesday (I actually had driven up a couple of weeks earlier to look at the car - 16 hours of driving and over 1100 miles in one day!) on a one-way ticket with the plan to drive the car back the same day. Of course, my flight got delayed an hour before I could even get up there - I hoped it wouldn't be a sign of things to come!:smile:
I got in and out of the dealer within an hour and was on the road by 1:00. I had an 8 hour drive ahead of me, so I couldn't wait to get going. I had purchased a Valentine1 Radar detector a couple of weeks earlier specifically for this trip and future use of the car:wink: However, I still wasn't sure how much to trust the radar detector, plus I hoped to avoid a ticket or worse, so I took it relatively easy at first.
Once out of Minnesota, the highways opened up. For those that haven't made the trek going south out of Minnesota through Iowa, let me tell you - there is nothing around! I had a two lane highway each direction and there were hardly any cars on the road. I pushed the car a few times from 70 to the 110-130 range just so I could rev the RPM's. Wow is all I can say - the car sounds awesome when the RPM's get up there.
I ended up getting home at 9:30 without incident - the trip actually took longer than my previous drive - partially because I couldn't eat in my car:smile: plus with a Red sports car, I felt like I had a target on my back, so I took it easy most of the trip. Of course, there was hardly an law enforcement on the roads, so I could have probably pushed it a little more, but I was still working up in my confidence in that department.
The car has been sitting in my garage for the last couple of days, since we've had a steady stream of rain in St. Louis. However, when spring comes and the weather clears up, I look forward to meeting other local prime members. I'll probably drive it when the roads are clear, but St. Louis has to be due for some snow in the next month or two.
In the meantime, I'm working on my plans for the car. I've already done a ton of research on this site (I probably spent 100+ hours reading various threads on this site in the last year) to figure out what I like on this car, so here are some thoughts I have - any opinions or information that might be helpful would be appreciated (especially recommendations where to purchase some of these items and/or have the work done), as I'm still a novice when it comes to a lot of this stuff. Feel free to PM me so as not to make this thread out of control - I'll probably be posting specific questions and re-reading a lot of the threads I read earlier once I begin to make some decisions.
- Timing Belt - I guess my car would be due this year. Just wondering if fellow owners with a 2000 are planning on changing theirs this year. I hate to spend all of that money when the car only has 13,000 miles, but I'll probably bite the bullet and do that this year. If anyone has any recommendations on who to take the car to do the service, please PM me. I'd probably be willing to drive a reasonable distance to have it done right, so any neighboring cities would work (I've heard NSX techs are pretty much non-existent in the St. Louis area).
- Wheels - I'm considering several wheel options right now, probably looking for a 17/18 setup (I'll probably make a separate post when I decide on the wheels, as I'll need some help with offsets, widths, etc). Right now, I'm considering Work Equip, Work VS-SS, Volk GT-C, and the Racing Hart M5's.
- Lowering the Car - I definitely plan to lower the car, just not sure with what springs or shocks. In my notes that I took from my previous research, I had written down using H&R Springs and Koni sport shocks, but for the life of me, I can't remember why. Based on some other recent threads I've seen, it seems like a lot of people use Eibachs.
- Rear Valence - I definitely plan to do the 2002 rear valence and rear lights upgrade. If anyone can recommend a body shop or Acura dealer to do this work, please PM me.
- Body Kit - At some point, I may do something. I'll probably lower the car first and then go from there if I decide I want to do more. Right now, I really like the body kit on NSX2NV's car.
- Stereo - I'm not sure what I'l do here, as the stock system is just so-so. I do know that I need to get a CD player. This might sound strange, but I didn't realize that my car didn't even come with a CD player when I bought it. For some reason, I had assumed that it had a CD changer, but I now realize that was optional (not that it would have been a deal breaker or anything). Hard to believe a car was made in 2000 with just a tape deck. My options now seem to be (a) add a cd changer and leave the stereo stock (b) add a different CD head - it seems like the trim of the dash is custom fit for the tape deck, so would it require cutting of the trim to fit a different head unit in there? (c) get an Ipod adapater - I wouldn't be opposed to this if there was a way to hide the ipod somewhere (say the center compartment) rather than having some clunky adapter and holder sitting out - anyone here do anything like this?
- Clear Bra - I definitely would like to get this done so I don't have to worry as much when I'm driving. I need to go back and re-read some threads, but the one question that keeps coming to mind is can you still wax the car with a clear bra on?
- HID Kit - From my research on here, I saw that WhiteNSX sells (or at least used to) a kit.
Thanks for bearing with me. I look forward to meeting other members on here, either locally or at NSXPO if I can make it. If anyone has any other tips for a first time owner or things I should do immediately (such as, should I join the NSXCA), feel free to PM me.
