What's the consensus on this? Gimmick, or legit? I watched Spoon's video on the benefits, but I'm not sure the NSX has all that much slop in the mounting holes. Having just dropped the front subframe, it seemed fairly tight to me. Waste of $300?
Back in the 80's, Bimota sold high $ frames / running gear as upgrades for the larger Japanese motor cycle engines. Some of the designs had bolted up frame sections and used special bolts with tapered shoulders (as my increasingly bad memory recalls) to minimize movement at the bolted joints. This helped when you had relatively small mating surfaces. So perhaps the Spoon product has some theoretical merit. The idea worked on the Bimota because the mating surfaces on the bolted joints were smallish and the bolt became a structural element in the joint. However, if the mating surfaces on the NSX are relatively large and rigid and have good flatness, the benefits may be minimal / undetectable. You would have to look at all the sites that Spoon has identified to assess whether the potential benefits might be material.
A couple of things concern me a little bit after viewing the video. The actual deformation in the collar appears to be limited to the mounting flange. I take it that the flange is supposed to squish out improving the contact area between the two bolted surfaces? Given that the collar flange does not appear to be very large in diameter, is there a possibility that you might actually be reducing the contact area if the flange does not squish out super thin? If you use these on subframe mounting points and you get some differential squishing, then you potentially alter alignment / ride height / stuff. The video makes much of the fact that the OEM bolt holes have clearance to allow for ease of assembly. If the collars are sized to eliminate that clearance, it strikes me that this could make assembly more challenging (bloody impossible?). If after assembly, the collars deform (as the video suggests) is it possible that they make removal of the bolt more challenging and if the collars deform and lock themselves in the hole, this may make the whole disassembly and reassembly process more interesting.
I think I might skip this mod. There was no movement at all in the subframe even with the bolts loosened. I think a quality alignment with someone that knows how to align the NSX is a better option.
What's the consensus on this? Gimmick, or legit? I watched Spoon's video on the benefits, but I'm not sure the NSX has all that much slop in the mounting holes. Having just dropped the front subframe, it seemed fairly tight to me. Waste of $300?