Figured I would make a thread to share my experiences and keep record of everything. I bought my '95 nsx-t early Oct this year, so just over a month now. This was my dream car and I never really seriously considered buying/owning one pretty much until this one came up during conversation at a local meet. I knew I wanted this car, but with prices steadily rising, I didn't think I'd have any real opportunity to own one. When this car came up, the price sounded right. Went to check it out, test drove it, talked to the wife pulled the trigger. I knew if not now, then possibly never. When I bought the car, it had 59k and was mostly stock with the exception of Comptech headers and exhaust and some big 18/19 Volk wheels.
To rewind a bit, I've been an avid autoxer for about 10 years now, started when I was 17yrs old. I have 2 other cars, '95 Civic coupe and '91 Civic Si, that are purpose built for autox. The '91 Si is nationally competitive and I've done extremely well with it. But, I've been primarily autoxing FWD cars for this whole time. I've recently been itching for something else. I've autoxed more cars than I could ever count, ranging from beat up stock dailys to super cars. So now with this NSX in my hands, there was no doubt that I would be autoxing it and enjoy it to it's fullest. SCCA doesn't class the NSX well. Other cars beat it out in every way for any given event. And 2nd gear on the NA1 is not good for autox. But, knowing it's disadvantages, I'm still diving in. I'll be running the car in Street Touring R locally even though the car is not classed there. My local region STR class is the largest and has almost a dozen highly nationally competitive drivers in the class, many driving S2000's. I figure this would be the best class to run in consistently to bench mark my times against other competitors to see if what I'm doing is right or wrong with the car. I'll do ST* modifications because I feel that is the best suited for fun, street driveability and even on the track.
I've tried to do a decent bit of research to see if anyone has really autox'd an NSX before. Only found one person which I am familiar with the name but haven't met, who had ran their NSX in what was then B-Stock class a long time ago. So there really isn't a whole lot of useful information for what I'd like to do with the car. Most of what I'll do is simple testing. Jump in and see what happens. Make things better, make things worse and learn as I go to optimize the car for the rules and what I want out of it.
Picking up the car after buying it 10/8/15
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Before I had even technically bought the car, I had already ordered wheels and tires to replace the large 18/19 Volks. I would have liked to get RPF1's or PF01's or something along the very light side but also great looking wheels. But TireRack had a great discount on Enkie Kojin 17x8, 17x9 that I couldn't pass up. I liked their look and the weight was good enough, esp for the price.
Tires were the biggest and toughest decision. To be honest, tire sizes for the front on this car really suck. Most people stick with the OEM 215 size, even the previous owner has 215's on the massive 18" front wheels. I wanted to stuff the widest, stickiest street tire I could on the front. Front end grip is very important for turn-in for autox. The choice in tire came easily, it was either going to be between Bridgestone RE71r's which I'm already very familiar with running on my '91 Si, or BFG RivalS. These are currently the 2 fastest street tires available. Problem was these companies didn't offer the "right" size for this car. Talking to friends, they all quickly said try and stuff a 235 under the front. More and more research said that likely wasn't possible under the stock front fenders. So, I opted for 225/45r17's Bridgestone RE71r's. They are oversized but the pro's of the front grip would greatly outweigh the con's of it being a large tire.
Since I knew rubbing would likely be an issue, I got 5mm spacers. This helped reduce the rubbing on the inside rear fender wall, but still have rubbing at full lock. Also got a Karcepts shift knob.
While on the shift knob, this knob is clearly not made for the NSX shift boot. If you've replaced your shift knob, you'd know that there is a clip that holds the boot securely up and on to the knob. If you were to use most aftermarket shift knobs, this may be an issue since then the boot would dangle low on the shifter, exposing the shifter and just not look all that great. I came up with a very simple, extremely cheap solution. I took some 1/8" ABS plastic, cut it round to the size of the shift boot collar, drilled a hole the size of the shifter and put some double sided tape on to stick to the boot collar. This now make a seamless connection with the boot to the shift knob. All for nothing.. Beats paying for some high dollar aftermarket shift knob that's specific for the NSX or just using OEM..
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With wheels and tires on, set out to get an alignment. I can't find the alignment sheet but from what I remember, we maxed out the camber on the front and rear which ended up being around -1.7* front and -2 rear. Toe was pretty close to 0 on the front and the rear was toed out, around 0.1 I believe it was.
This was in prep to get ready for the first autox with the car just about a week after owning it. I was fortunate enough to make 8 runs all day on it's first event. I ran in the morning with the local B-Street class and in the afternoon with the local STR class to compare times for both classes. I would have trophied in both classes. Needless to say, the car did extremely well and surprised me with how fast I could get it. To hang with the top in those too classes locally is not easy.
My videos from the event. Lots of rubbing on the fender liners just about everywhere on course...
https://youtu.be/oFHyIBDJKXg
https://youtu.be/rEFUMOSN5ic
What I learned: The car exceeded my expectations in every way. The tires felt really good, had no problem putting down power and turning in. Even though I was rubbing a lot, I felt my decision on the front tire size paid off. The alignment felt perfect. The car turned in, rotated and exited well everywhere. I didn't feel like I was battling the car at any time. It rotated, but was controllable. The tall 2nd gear didn't seem to matter much. Yes, it would be better to be in the power band at a lower rpm with a shorter gear, but the corner exit acceleration felt good and my times showed that it didn't hurt *that* much.
- - - Updated - - -
Did this event and another the weekend after. Car did extremely well between the 2 events. Made me even more excited to continue its journey. One thing I quickly noticed was the amount of body roll on this car. As well as it handles, it does lean, A LOT! And with the large front tires, it looks like a monster truck lol. So I quickly ordered coilovers and an OEM front lip. Decided to try out Koni/Ground Control for coilovers. Reason being, they are fair priced and have a strong reputation in the autox community.
I'll spare the explanation of my troubles with the coilover here, but if you're interested, you can see everything in this thread: http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showt...ol-users-need-your-input!-Issue-with-my-setup
They're installed and I've put some miles on them and so far, after the initial struggle with them, I am happy. I chose to run 550# front and 650# rear. I have to wait about 5 months before the next autox season starts up to really get a good feel for them, but, on the street they are great. They are extremely comfortable and handle well. The biggest draw back on these coilovers now is that I cannot really corner balance the car. I'll just have to live with it..
But I like the look and I can drive around city streets without much concern.
After getting the suspension figured out, I decided to make my own short ram intake. I had some material left over from when I made my own intake for my '91 Si. Enough just to make an SRI for this car. At zero cost to me, it works well. Sure beats spending ~$250 on something similar from Weapon R... For crying out loud all they are selling is a cheap pipe with a couple of holes in it and a cheap filter... This intake is only temporary. I will be making a cold air intake that routes down in to the fender. Again, will be significantly cheaper than any aftermarket one and work just as well, if not better.
To rewind a bit, I've been an avid autoxer for about 10 years now, started when I was 17yrs old. I have 2 other cars, '95 Civic coupe and '91 Civic Si, that are purpose built for autox. The '91 Si is nationally competitive and I've done extremely well with it. But, I've been primarily autoxing FWD cars for this whole time. I've recently been itching for something else. I've autoxed more cars than I could ever count, ranging from beat up stock dailys to super cars. So now with this NSX in my hands, there was no doubt that I would be autoxing it and enjoy it to it's fullest. SCCA doesn't class the NSX well. Other cars beat it out in every way for any given event. And 2nd gear on the NA1 is not good for autox. But, knowing it's disadvantages, I'm still diving in. I'll be running the car in Street Touring R locally even though the car is not classed there. My local region STR class is the largest and has almost a dozen highly nationally competitive drivers in the class, many driving S2000's. I figure this would be the best class to run in consistently to bench mark my times against other competitors to see if what I'm doing is right or wrong with the car. I'll do ST* modifications because I feel that is the best suited for fun, street driveability and even on the track.
I've tried to do a decent bit of research to see if anyone has really autox'd an NSX before. Only found one person which I am familiar with the name but haven't met, who had ran their NSX in what was then B-Stock class a long time ago. So there really isn't a whole lot of useful information for what I'd like to do with the car. Most of what I'll do is simple testing. Jump in and see what happens. Make things better, make things worse and learn as I go to optimize the car for the rules and what I want out of it.
Picking up the car after buying it 10/8/15
- - - Updated - - -
Before I had even technically bought the car, I had already ordered wheels and tires to replace the large 18/19 Volks. I would have liked to get RPF1's or PF01's or something along the very light side but also great looking wheels. But TireRack had a great discount on Enkie Kojin 17x8, 17x9 that I couldn't pass up. I liked their look and the weight was good enough, esp for the price.
Tires were the biggest and toughest decision. To be honest, tire sizes for the front on this car really suck. Most people stick with the OEM 215 size, even the previous owner has 215's on the massive 18" front wheels. I wanted to stuff the widest, stickiest street tire I could on the front. Front end grip is very important for turn-in for autox. The choice in tire came easily, it was either going to be between Bridgestone RE71r's which I'm already very familiar with running on my '91 Si, or BFG RivalS. These are currently the 2 fastest street tires available. Problem was these companies didn't offer the "right" size for this car. Talking to friends, they all quickly said try and stuff a 235 under the front. More and more research said that likely wasn't possible under the stock front fenders. So, I opted for 225/45r17's Bridgestone RE71r's. They are oversized but the pro's of the front grip would greatly outweigh the con's of it being a large tire.
Since I knew rubbing would likely be an issue, I got 5mm spacers. This helped reduce the rubbing on the inside rear fender wall, but still have rubbing at full lock. Also got a Karcepts shift knob.
While on the shift knob, this knob is clearly not made for the NSX shift boot. If you've replaced your shift knob, you'd know that there is a clip that holds the boot securely up and on to the knob. If you were to use most aftermarket shift knobs, this may be an issue since then the boot would dangle low on the shifter, exposing the shifter and just not look all that great. I came up with a very simple, extremely cheap solution. I took some 1/8" ABS plastic, cut it round to the size of the shift boot collar, drilled a hole the size of the shifter and put some double sided tape on to stick to the boot collar. This now make a seamless connection with the boot to the shift knob. All for nothing.. Beats paying for some high dollar aftermarket shift knob that's specific for the NSX or just using OEM..
- - - Updated - - -
With wheels and tires on, set out to get an alignment. I can't find the alignment sheet but from what I remember, we maxed out the camber on the front and rear which ended up being around -1.7* front and -2 rear. Toe was pretty close to 0 on the front and the rear was toed out, around 0.1 I believe it was.
This was in prep to get ready for the first autox with the car just about a week after owning it. I was fortunate enough to make 8 runs all day on it's first event. I ran in the morning with the local B-Street class and in the afternoon with the local STR class to compare times for both classes. I would have trophied in both classes. Needless to say, the car did extremely well and surprised me with how fast I could get it. To hang with the top in those too classes locally is not easy.
My videos from the event. Lots of rubbing on the fender liners just about everywhere on course...
https://youtu.be/oFHyIBDJKXg
https://youtu.be/rEFUMOSN5ic
What I learned: The car exceeded my expectations in every way. The tires felt really good, had no problem putting down power and turning in. Even though I was rubbing a lot, I felt my decision on the front tire size paid off. The alignment felt perfect. The car turned in, rotated and exited well everywhere. I didn't feel like I was battling the car at any time. It rotated, but was controllable. The tall 2nd gear didn't seem to matter much. Yes, it would be better to be in the power band at a lower rpm with a shorter gear, but the corner exit acceleration felt good and my times showed that it didn't hurt *that* much.
- - - Updated - - -
Did this event and another the weekend after. Car did extremely well between the 2 events. Made me even more excited to continue its journey. One thing I quickly noticed was the amount of body roll on this car. As well as it handles, it does lean, A LOT! And with the large front tires, it looks like a monster truck lol. So I quickly ordered coilovers and an OEM front lip. Decided to try out Koni/Ground Control for coilovers. Reason being, they are fair priced and have a strong reputation in the autox community.
I'll spare the explanation of my troubles with the coilover here, but if you're interested, you can see everything in this thread: http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showt...ol-users-need-your-input!-Issue-with-my-setup
They're installed and I've put some miles on them and so far, after the initial struggle with them, I am happy. I chose to run 550# front and 650# rear. I have to wait about 5 months before the next autox season starts up to really get a good feel for them, but, on the street they are great. They are extremely comfortable and handle well. The biggest draw back on these coilovers now is that I cannot really corner balance the car. I'll just have to live with it..
But I like the look and I can drive around city streets without much concern.
After getting the suspension figured out, I decided to make my own short ram intake. I had some material left over from when I made my own intake for my '91 Si. Enough just to make an SRI for this car. At zero cost to me, it works well. Sure beats spending ~$250 on something similar from Weapon R... For crying out loud all they are selling is a cheap pipe with a couple of holes in it and a cheap filter... This intake is only temporary. I will be making a cold air intake that routes down in to the fender. Again, will be significantly cheaper than any aftermarket one and work just as well, if not better.
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