Big McLargeHuge’s 1990 JDM NSX Adventure Thread

[MotorMouth93]

**This advice is based on my own experience of doing expensive things and then and regretting them, then doing more expensive things to try to salvage the situation. Do whatever you want though. :biggrin:**

At under 50,000 miles I don't think there's much of a reason to do any machining on the heads or really even remove them, if your engine is putting up healthy compression and leakdown numbers it would just be a waste. If you're worried about the graphite gaskets you could change the head gaskets and bolts like Paul did or go the "bulletproofing" route and get ARP studs and MLS gaskets. (just take your time on the surface prep and get it all perfect)

I'm not sure what balance you're referring to but nothing of the sort needs to be done for valve springs and cam swap, you don't even have to remove the heads to install valve springs, just pressurize each cylinder with air (or feed rope into each cylinder and then pressurize to keep the valves fully seated during keeper installation) to keep the valves from dropping while you work.

I don't think $3000+ for NSX camshafts is worth it unless you're committing to a fully built engine. The HP/dollar ratio is just too crappy, but when you're already $$$$ in the hole its kind of a "f*ck it why not" kind of deal.

A set of M/T cams, OEM valve springs (could probably source them used for very cheap or free), and then RDX 410cc injectors are probably what I'd do. So far pretty much of all of our homebrew ECU tuning is based around RDX injectors so getting those going DIY would amount to basically flashing someone elses map and then datalogging and seeing what needs to be tweaked.

(Something I've wondered about is if there's even any reason to get the M/T exhaust cams, the A/T cams have the same specs according to the service manual, but the part numbers are different so possibly the duration is changed a bit?)

 

[bogle]

As a data point, my last amayama order was $280 shipping for an 8kg package. I thought it was so high cause they merged 2 orders and didnt calc them together, but maybe that’s just the going rate these days. It also got stuck in customs for the first time, which ended up at another $100.

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

At under 50,000 miles I don't think there's much of a reason to do any machining on the heads or really even remove them, if your engine is putting up healthy compression and leakdown numbers it would just be a waste. If you're worried about the graphite gaskets you could change the head gaskets and bolts like Paul did or go the "bulletproofing" route and get ARP studs and MLS gaskets. (just take your time on the surface prep and get it all perfect)

I'm not sure what balance you're referring to but nothing of the sort needs to be done for valve springs and cam swap, you don't even have to remove the heads to install valve springs, just pressurize each cylinder with air (or feed rope into each cylinder and then pressurize to keep the valves fully seated during keeper installation) to keep the valves from dropping while you work.

The balancing thing came from either the cam or tuning thread where there were springs that needed small shims, I guess to match the heights more exactly. If I measure them and make sure nothing's out of whack I guess it should be fine to drop-in. If I end up keeping the heads on I wouldn't mind replacing the springs myself with the methods you mentioned.

I don't think $3000+ for NSX camshafts is worth it unless you're committing to a fully built engine. The HP/dollar ratio is just too crappy, but when you're already $$$$ in the hole its kind of a "f*ck it why not" kind of deal.

A set of M/T cams, OEM valve springs (could probably source them used for very cheap or free), and then RDX 410cc injectors are probably what I'd do. So far pretty much of all of our homebrew ECU tuning is based around RDX injectors so getting those going DIY would amount to basically flashing someone elses map and then datalogging and seeing what needs to be tweaked.

I think you're probably right (and FSFNSX)...going down the rabbit hole a bit too much here. I could definitely try the injectors and a basic flash. That's about as far as I'd want to go, and a good learning experience.

As a data point, my last amayama order was $280 shipping for an 8kg package. I thought it was so high cause they merged 2 orders and didnt calc them together, but maybe that’s just the going rate these days. It also got stuck in customs for the first time, which ended up at another $100.

I think what's happening is that they're building some markup into the shipping quote since they probably haven't updated their catalogue prices. That, or their shipping guy is on crack. I built the same cart on Megazip and got about $150 less total, but shipping was initially quoted at like $90 instead of $540 and the unit prices were slightly higher. I sent Ama a message so I'll see what they say about it before I place an order. This is the first time I've had this problem, usually the shipping is high just because of weight or oversized dimensions. Unfortunately they take 2-3 days to update the quote or respond usually.

EDIT: I take it back, they messaged back same-day and lowered shipping to $400 "based on the volume of all the parts in one package". Granted I do have 300+ items in the cart, but almost all of them are gaskets, bolts, and o-rings...so sure, still cheaper than anywhere else.

 

[Honcho]

Rambling ahead since I've been doing some thinking on future projects.

One, I keep having to re-make my Amayama order to try and bring the shipping down since they quoted me $540 by Fedex for a 7kg package. I deleted the evaporator and windshield trim since I thought it was size related, but it's still $540 and the biggest thing in the box would be the crankshaft pulley, otherwise it's all gaskets and bolts. Sent them a message to see what gives so hopefully that can get sorted out. Megazip is also another option but their prices are in the middle of Amayama and Acura. MITA can get a steering rack overseas for $150 and I can't get a simple box for that?


Otherwise, I still can't decide what cams to go with. I learned yesterday from another Prime thread that the A/T engines don't have the intake inner valve springs, so I probably shouldn't go over 7500 RPM even if I could change it through the Demon II which arrived yesterday (still needed to order the 4P header cable which wasn't included). That means I'll have to have new valve springs installed whether or not I choose the M/T or ATR cams, which means they need to be balanced and the heads "should" come off, which means I'm doing head gaskets regardless and sending my heads to a machine shop for a valve job. I have no cost basis or contacts for that either, maybe you guys would know? I'd think the labor isn't cheap. At minimum I want the M/T cams though, and I need the valvetrain to support them long-term.

If I'm doing that, what's the incremental cost for copying Paul and putting in larger intake valves and porting the intake? I don't have any unique ideas, just relying on other people's R&D and experience. I have no plans of going FI at any point, but the NA builds interest me.

Assuming I'm at that point and choose stock M/T cams, I'd put the engine back together, snip the ECU resistor to change to M/T maps, and be good to go. There are probably some gains to be made with some minor tuning through the Demon which I'm not really comfortable doing, so then I'd need to put in widebands too and take it to EBTEC or somewhere near-ish to have the car tuned. But that's a way simpler option overall.

If I go with the ATR cams, where does it end? I'd probably have to get bigger injectors to support the duty cycle requirements, I haven't done enough reading to see what the most efficient solution for that is yet. I'd definitely have to get the car tuned, install widebands and whatever other sensors, maybe fuel pump, maybe EGR delete, and entrust my engine to someone else which I'm wary of. That's at least another $3500+ above the M/T cam route, is that worth all the extra money and effort? Part of me thinks so, since if I do my job right I wouldn't have to open the engine again until 2032 after Honda stops making parts for these things anyways. Why not go the extra mile now? The "while you're in there" curse is strong with this one. I guess the cost and tuning process are my biggest holdups right now, but the cost would really be amortized over 10+ years.

So, yeah. Welcome to my brain-space. Hopefully my experience can help you decide. The main reason I wanted the Comptech cams is that I want my NSX to feel like a well-tuned factory MT car at sea level. I live at 6,000 ft and most of my driving, including track time, is around that altitude. You are lucky to get about 0.8 Bar manifold pressure up here (a "healthy" compression number is about 180-190 psi vs. 220+ at sea level), so the NSX is down on power. Most owners go with the supercharger to cure this issue, but to me, it's not in the spirit of the car. So, I want down the Comptech rabbit hole like you described above. The key point is that if I lived near sea level, I would have just swapped the MT cams, added the RDX injectors and called it a day.

The NSX with weight reduction, short gears, manual steering and just a light tune (RDX injectors) is perfection to me. Removing 200 lbs and going with a good suspension alone make the car come alive, even without tuning. Thus, I think you would be very happy swapping the MT cams, changing to MT valve springs and running the RDX injectors. John is doing God-level work with the Demon and Tunerpro and already has a really elegant tuning solution for the car, so you should take advantage of it- the injectors do make a big difference, especially in the mid-range of the power band.

In addition, another option would be to do the ATR S cams and Supertech valve springs. You technically don't need to remove the head to do this. An old hot-rodder trick is to lay a coil of rope into the chamber (through the spark plug hole) at TDC. Then, when you remove the keeper, the valve won't drop into the chamber. Swap the springs (and maybe change the valve seals), install the keeper, pull the rope out and and you're back in business. You'd just need to find a tool or make a rig that can compress the spring enough to remove the keeper with the heads still on the engine block. I was prepared to do this, but then I talked to Shad, who advised that the CT cams really love the 36mm intake valves. I committed and then the heads had to come off. At that point, it made sense to do all the things. But, if you stick with MT cams, no need to make the valve bigger.

Another thing to keep in mind is valve guides. The NSX uses steel guides that typically last a long time. In my case, I had to change the intake guides because I was going to 36mm valves. There is an issue with the 3.2 engines where intake guides are dropping. Honda has not been able to figure out the cause, but they suspect it is related to the harmonics of the larger valves. Thus, in Japan, if you put-a the big valves, you change-a the guides. However, when my machinist checked the exhaust guides, several were out of spec, so I had to replace those too. This engine has 137,000 easy AT miles. If you choose the heads-on spring replacement method, you're kinda gambling your valve guides are still ok. If your engine has less than 100k miles, you're probably fine.

All-in, my head work cost $2,500. A big piece of this cost was replacing the valve guides, which is quite time-consuming on the NSX due to the number of oven heating cycles required to remove, install and measure 24 guides. Without the guides, it would have been $1000 to $1,500 for everything else (I supplied the parts).

With all this said, I think you should just swap the MT cams and springs, change your valve seals and do the RDX injectors. No machine shop needed. You can tune the car to about 280 whp with that setup. You will love it.

*EDIT* Looks like John and I were typing at the same time. Funny that we reached the same conclusion!

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

So, yeah. Welcome to my brain-space. Hopefully my experience can help you decide. The main reason I wanted the Comptech cams is that I want my NSX to feel like a well-tuned factory MT car at sea level. I live at 6,000 ft and most of my driving, including track time, is around that altitude. You are lucky to get about 0.8 Bar manifold pressure up here (a "healthy" compression number is about 180-190 psi vs. 220+ at sea level), so the NSX is down on power. Most owners go with the supercharger to cure this issue, but to me, it's not in the spirit of the car. So, I want down the Comptech rabbit hole like you described above. The key point is that if I lived near sea level, I would have just swapped the MT cams, added the RDX injectors and called it a day.

That makes a lotta sense. That is what I will do :biggrin:

The NSX with weight reduction, short gears, manual steering and just a light tune (RDX injectors) is perfection to me. Removing 200 lbs and going with a good suspension alone make the car come alive, even without tuning. Thus, I think you would be very happy swapping the MT cams, changing to MT valve springs and running the RDX injectors. John is doing God-level work with the Demon and Tunerpro and already has a really elegant tuning solution for the car, so you should take advantage of it- the injectors do make a big difference, especially in the mid-range of the power band.

That's the only other major thing I'm planning on is rebuilding the EPS rack or swapping to a manual one. The manual one is cheaper overall, I just need to find a local NSX to test and see which I like better. I'm sure I can find someone willing . The EPS is very convenient though.

In addition, another option would be to do the ATR S cams and Supertech valve springs. You technically don't need to remove the head to do this. An old hot-rodder trick is to lay a coil of rope into the chamber (through the spark plug hole) at TDC. Then, when you remove the keeper, the valve won't drop into the chamber. Swap the springs (and maybe change the valve seals), install the keeper, pull the rope out and and you're back in business. You'd just need to find a tool or make a rig that can compress the spring enough to remove the keeper with the heads still on the engine block. I was prepared to do this, but then I talked to Shad, who advised that the CT cams really love the 36mm intake valves. I committed and then the heads had to come off. At that point, it made sense to do all the things. But, if you stick with MT cams, no need to make the valve bigger.

I should be able to change the valve stuff out without removing the heads, the only reason now I'd want to replace the HG's is for preventative maintenance, but doing that will probably let some of the "magic" out too. A tool like the Lisle 36050/36200 can fairly easily remove/install the keepers in-situ, I just need to make sure it'll fit right. I think the valve stem size is 5.5mm so it should work okay. Plus the valve seal remover pliers are easy enough to get. I should probably try a few tests to see if my HG is okay before trying to replace it anyways. I'll probably leave the guides alone.

With all this said, I think you should just swap the MT cams and springs, change your valve seals and do the RDX injectors. No machine shop needed. You can tune the car to about 280 whp with that setup. You will love it.

Yeah, agreed. Thanks for the advice, all involved.

Where's the best place to get real RDX injectors that also aren't in a set of 4?

 

[MotorMouth93]

FWIW the valve guides in my cylinder heads at 60-70k miles all measured within spec, so unless your car has been horrifically abused which I doubt then they should be just fine. I just had bronze guides put in anyways since I went oversize on the intake valves and want to spin to 9000.

There's a ton of fake RDX injectors out there, I'd buy them from one of the online Acura dealerships to negate this risk entirely. APFL has them for $65 each which is a lot cheaper per unit than the sets of 4 I've seen. Part number is 16450-RWC-A01.

For pigtails, you can either buy premade adapters, make adapter harnesses yourself for about $60 worth of connectors, or go the permanent route and cut the stock injector plugs off and install RDX plugs onto the factory harness. There are some mega cheap adapter harnesses available on Ebay but frankly thats scary for something as critical as injectors, but the reputable companies tend to charge about what it would cost to make them or a bit more.

RDX connectors ($5 each) https://www.hamotorsports.com/products/rdx-fuel-injector-connector-kit-priced-individually

OBD1 male connectors ($5 each): https://www.bmotorsports.com/shop/product_info.php/xrf/gshp/products_id/570

You'll need top hats to fit them into the stock fuel rails, pretty cheap, can be bought from a variety of places.

I'd also recommend the @OLDMNSX kit if he still has any as they fit a lot better that way. Downside is the intake manifold has to be removed for this since you have to drill the injector pockets out to 14mm. (this does not affect fitment of factory injectors in any way) EDIT I see you already found that post.

Also some 6mm washers to adjust the fuel rail height.

You'll also need to bypass your injector resistor box.

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

Thanks for the info! Very helpful. I'll probably make my own harnesses with those connectors, I suppose I'd need to make sure the wire insulation & sheathing is rated properly. Definitely not going for the eBay special here.

I'm just ordering the injectors and valve seals from my Acura dealer for pickup. Also finally placed the Amayama order with the re-quoted stuff. About 320 items total.

I messaged OLDMNSX to see if he's got any kits. It says it's been a few months since he's been on Prime though. I'd much prefer that instead of double-stacking rubber seals. I do plan on completely disassembling the intake manifold during the engine service to clean out every passage, VVIS screw tacking, and replace gaskets. I could try a quick runner polishing too I guess.

 

[Honcho]

Thanks for the info! Very helpful. I'll probably make my own harnesses with those connectors, I suppose I'd need to make sure the wire insulation & sheathing is rated properly. Definitely not going for the eBay special here.

I'm just ordering the injectors and valve seals from my Acura dealer for pickup. Also finally placed the Amayama order with the re-quoted stuff. About 320 items total.

I messaged OLDMNSX to see if he's got any kits. It says it's been a few months since he's been on Prime though. I'd much prefer that instead of double-stacking rubber seals. I do plan on completely disassembling the intake manifold during the engine service to clean out every passage, VVIS screw tacking, and replace gaskets. I could try a quick runner polishing too I guess.

Smart on the intake- your EGR probably hasn't actually worked for years. If I had to do it again (and wanted to keep EGR), I would have taken my intake to my machine shop and let it spend a few hours in the ultrasonic hot tank they have. That's about the only way you'll ever get those tiny EGR passages unclogged.

No need to polish the runners if you are on stock cams and rev limit. They already flow really well, just like the heads. Shad seemed to think port-matching them also was kind of pointless at stockish power.

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

I wouldn't mind doing an EGR delete, I would just need to make sure to tune it out and prevent any CELs. I still need to refresh my IACV/EACV/idle screw/IAT sensor plus the other items anyways, and I bought all the EGR parts in case I keep it. Now you're gonna make me buy my own ultrasonic cleaner, lol.

At this point I'm basically replacing and cleaning everything I can without taking the heads off (probably). Including dry ice blasting if I can figure out how much a machine rental and the ice will cost me/how much ice I'll end up using. Seems like about $1k for a week plus a hundred(?)(s?) pounds of ice or so where shipping costs become an issue. Also thinking about making my own DIY vapor blasting cabinet, there's a guide online I found that I have to find again..maybe more on that later.

 

[MotorMouth93]

EGR delete on a chipped ECU is quite easy, uncheck one box and its done, then you can remove all the hardware and block off the passages without a CEL.

At that price it would probably be cheaper (or roughly the same cost) to just find a detailer with dry ice blaster and pay them to do it.

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

Been Lackin'

Hello again everyone, I'm still alive and driving. All systems still nominal. Glad to see Prime back online, thanks Paul/Spencer/others involved.

I've been doing a few minor NSX related things but mostly parts collecting, front bumper repainting, and an autocross-ish event, so a couple of post's worth of content that I've been neglecting.

I'm still not planning do to this major engine service ordeal until maybe later in the fall this year, at the moment I have no reason to start tearing into things earlier and I want to enjoy the car over the spring/summer without messing with it too much.

Blessed box of every engine part besides ones made of metal.

I should probably stop trawling through the parts catalogue and ordering every part that looks remotely interesting or replaceable.

Surprisingly, almost all the parts I wanted were in stock within a few days. This time around, the odd ones that were unavailable were the intake manifold 8mm washer/spacers that the FSM says to replace, the cam seals, head oil control o-rings (same as dipstick o-ring), and a block coolant bleeder bolt. I was able to get most of the above from some US sources like eBay.

More parts, some from Rockauto wholesale as well for super cheap. I copped an OEM-adjacent knock sensor for like $20.

I essentially also have the M/T spec cams and valves locked in, so I have 99% of the parts I'd need for a full M/T OEM+ engine conversion. Also pictured are the dealer-sourced RDX injectors and an RDX adapter kit kindly supplied by OLDMNSX, plus the new LMAs from Amayama and a new Demon II.

In other exterior cosmetics-related news, I got around to dropping off my front bumper for a repaint to fix the bits of damage from front lip destruction and other minor bits.

Right before removing it, I figured it'd be good practice to try wet-sanding and polishing the bumper without worrying if I blow through the clear coat to see what kind of improvements can be safely made. I started with around 1500-2000 grit up to 5000 grit before compounding/polishing.

Well, I ended up sanding through part of the clear coat anyways, lol. So 1500 grit with 1-2 passes is a bit much.

Trying again on the other side, this is the before. Mainly concerned about the solvent pop texture.

After sanding, compounding, and polishing. A bit less aggressive sanding this time and turned the paint to glass. A bit too smooth actually in comparison to the rest of the car, but good practice if I want to do a small correction to a problem spot.

No truck/SUV needed with a hatchback shitbox.

One long-ish drive and a few weeks over Christmas/holiday break later, I received pictures from the shop of the progress made. They ended up sending it off to a legendary "bumper doctor" guy around ATL that is an expert at nitrogen-welding ABS and other bumper plastics to fix cracks and things. Mine had a few repaired cracks from typical Tokyo street-bumpage, so they completely stripped them back to bare plastic and welded everything up.

They were nice enough to send me pictures in progress as well. They matched the paint to a headlight bucket I removed to give along with the bumper halves.

Eventually, the pieces were ready for pickup around mid-January and I worked on assembling the front end again with new hardware where possible. The bumper looks basically brand new from the back now instead of being slathered with filler.

Finally assembled again. So many little pieces and nuts to fit together that took me hours.

Several hours of fitting later. Getting more proficient every time, still not perfect but good enough for now. They did a fantastic job with the finish and didn't even end up buffing it after spraying. The top side matches very well, the match between the fenders and the back edges of the bumper is a bit off if you're picky (I am) so I'm considering dropping the car off again to have the fenders blended into the bumper, which will correct a few chips at the same time.

I'm not in a rush to get the fenders blended and want to wait until the shop is freed up so I don't have to wait so long. I left the Honda badge off for now because of that and because I want to get the bumper PPF'd after it's all done and I've had the chance to do a thorough detailing of the car. Likely around April-May timeframe.

Got-dang though. The shop I used was Holt Wheels Collision in GA, they were recommended by a few car guys I know in the area as one of "those" shops that's been around for 40+ years and knows their shit. Nice to work with so I'd recommend them.

I made a tiny car too.

Tiny car. The headlights pop up too. I just need to change the seats to black and the wheel covers from what looks like reps of the Advan Model 5...

I'm in me mum's car. Vroom vroom.

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

Jzilla Clinic

I signed up for my first ""performance"" driving event back in Feb hosted by Jzilla @ Barber Motorsports Park in AL. They called it a Car Control Clinic based around Barber's proving grounds for autocross, skid pad, braking, and slalom modules. I figured it'd be a fun and safe (for the car) way to get more comfortable driving and using the car for its intended purpose without sending it into a tire wall.

To save my newly-refreshed bumper, I put on some TrackArmor before the short road trip from Atlanta to Leeds, AL. It's a temporary film that applies easily enough and can be peeled off after use. Basically a step-up from blue painter's tape.

Oh yeah, and I installed the NSX-R front lower chassis bar (w/ SoS spacer hardware kit) that connects the two compliance pivots as well. I love easy jobs under 30 mins that have a noticeable improvement like that.

A couple of hours later leaving during rush-hour, have to make an obligatory stop at Buc-EEEEEEEEE's which is across the road from the track. If the TrackArmor is applied well enough, it won't peel off on the highway and potentially flap in the wind to damage paint.

Overnight hotel stay.

Bright and early on a frozen 6AM morning we headed over to the gate and started the day. I stuck my phone to the rear window as a "dashcam" to get some video of my first go-arounds on an autocross course so I figured I'd share some clips too.

I swear you can hear the Downforce intake scoop sound kick in midway through the 1st gear pull here. Can confirm the S2K ABS works great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SVdIeEDNPM

Highly embarrassing footage of me trying to drift a mid-engine car on a skidpad. It was a fun 4-5 mins but I wish we had more time to play around with the car. You really get an appreciation for how quickly you can lose the back end if you apply just a touch too much throttle in the wet, and how screwed you are if you don't immediately catch it, otherwise you're doing a 360 no matter what. Definitely more wary of driving in the rain after this..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuja-nDi0sA

And finally, one of a couple runs of Barber's nicely made autoX course, which even includes a banked section. I think this was everyone's favorite part, and it was a pretty low-key way of getting into the sport with most people doing it for the first time. I had another instructor sit-in for a bit too which was nice to have, all the Jzilla staff were great. Really tried not to send it into the grass and get a bill from Barber. The car was in a weird place between 1st and 2nd gear but I found staying in 2nd was the way to go, helped more by the NSX-R short gearing too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdvaKzBkjW8


Once the morning session was over, it was another short and pleasant road trip back home (with another stop at Buc-ee's) to then peel off all the PPF. It did the job nicely, not a mark on the paint and it peels off with relative ease without lifting any paint. It's a bit of an effort to apply but I'd certainly do it again for longer road trips or for when I knock over cones on the course.

We had a lot of fun at the event, thanks to Jzilla for organizing it and making something accessible. Likely more beginner autocross content to come soon :biggrin:. Fortunately this was all before the 2022 Gas Crisis hit.

 

[RYU]

not to put a damper on your amazing progress but just a mild word of cauting using non-OEM knock sensors. Over the years i've heard mixed reviews about them. Kind of makes sense as it's essentially a calibrated microphone. Not sure if the RA units cause problems but just something to look out for. @MotorMouth93 might know more about how the OEM ECU looks at the knock sensors.

now i'm looking for a Buc'ees

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

Thanks for the heads-up. The ones I got were WVE "by NTK" 5S2139, where WVE is owned by NTK who might've been the OEM in this case. I felt comfortable ordering them since I've use the front & rear WVE ABS speed sensors and trans ring gear sensor and they were exact fits, even for the rear ABS speed sensor with all the special brackets and all, not that it has anything to do with knock sensor calibration. The impetus was paying $80 total instead of $250 from Amayama/etc., but I'm sure most people would rather pay $170 more than to have to take the intake manifold off again.

You'll have to go on and git down to the South if you want to experience a Buc-ee's . They're basically 100 gas pumps with a supermarket in the middle.


Also, if anyone knows of aftermarket urethane/rubber front lips, I'm open to suggestions. I miss my Shine GT front lip but I won't be doing fiberglass/FRP again because of the damage it does to the bumper if it gets hit. If the Shine GT lip came in a more flexible material I'd get one again.

 

[bogle]

The autox looked like fun! The skid pad looked like driving on ice.

Glad the track armor came off without issue, especially on that new paint. Some of the reviews I read of the stuff say it left a residue or pulled paint

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

It felt like ice for sure. No clutch kick or handbrake required

I waffled on the TrackArmor for a while, some of the Amazon reviews had me worried and it comes with a warning about applying to new headlights w/UV coating. It helps to wax/coat the paint before application to make it easier to remove, it stuck way harder to my fresh bumper since I hadn't waxed it yet. But they did a great job with whatever primer/adhesion promotor they used because it wasn't affected at all.

 

[docjohn]

skid pads are fun until your clutch fails and you have to flatbed your car home from VIR...:redface:

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

In that case maybe you could slip the clutch until it welds itself to the flywheel and you can drive home in 2nd :biggrin:

 

[docjohn]

Lol....

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

Daily Driver Scion tC Vinyl Wrap

What's up everyone, I finally figured out how to log back in to my Prime account after being soft-locked out when my desktop browser was stuck on a basic HTML page with a non-functional login button for a few weeks. That, plus I've been very busy with "life events" as they say, but still have plenty to post from the backlog.

One month-ish long project was vinyl wrapping my daily & first car, a 2007 Scion tC with 162k miles affectionally called the shitbox. As with most things I'd never vinyl wrapped anything before so I decided to spend about $700 on a big spool of Hexis Satin Nacre White vinyl and give it a go. Not NSX related but a big enough project that's worth sharing.

Most of the upper surfaces had clear coat that was long gone or close to it, mainly from living outside in the open 24/7. As much as I'd like to get a newer, nicer daily, I want to squeeze another 2-3 years out of this one before the engine probably will consume so much oil that I can't keep up with it anymore. The car looks bad enough now that I felt embarrassed driving it..

I quickly popped off the aftermarked cheapo headlights to sand and re-clear them with 2K gloss clear since the old coating was yellowing. The left headlight also experienced a weather seal breach that I dealt with for the following month while it was raining inside the headlight until I finally got around to removing it again and finding the leak with compressed air and soapy water to make bubbles around the break.

First bit of vinyl cut from a 5'x81' spool and placed on the hood after claying & decontaminating the car. It was at this point I realized I had no idea what I was doing.

After throwing away a hood's worth of vinyl (~$100), I managed to finish the hood and fender. So far so good, slowly developing a technique.

Then I tried to handle this nightmare, which took me about half a day to finish but I learned a lot. Like how to work from the center outwards to avoid gathering excess material (which I didn't do), making inlays for deep concave areas (didn't do), etc.

Many hours later I came up with something half decent. The bottom part of the bumper started fingering and peeling horribly due to the scrapes and how much tension I'd put into the vinyl, and there were big areas in the fog light recesses that weren't covered at all.

I ended up buying a cheap polyurethane front lip spoiler and some cheap foglights to cover up my mistakes instead of redoing the entire thing. It wasn't my original plan but it does the job nicely.

It's something at least.

Next up was the driver's side. I drove the car around with a white front end for a week until I had the time for this side, which took another day.

I found that the roof made a good place to measure out and cut the spool into appropriately sized pieces. From one 5' wide cut I covered the door, A-pillar, side sill, and rear quarter.

I wanted to do the A-pillar and rear quarter in separate pieces so that I didn't have to work with one giant piece of vinyl and mess something up. Knifeless tape was used to make a clean cut where the two pieces meet along a body line so it's not as noticeable.

One full day later. The door handles were easy to remove and wrap separately, and yes they were a pain in the ass.

Next day, rear time. I should've removed the taillights too but didn't bother.

Another giant piece in progress.

This thing was also a pain. It's taped to the car and not bolted, so I didn't want to try and remove it. Ended up re-doing it 3 times to get all the sharp corners right.

One day's worth of struggling later. I think the rear bumper was actually the hardest part of the car, maybe tied with the front bumper but it turned out a bit worse. Oh well, I'm not going for perfection.

Also plasti-dipped the Scion logo to make it match a black & white color scheme that just kinda happened since the wheels & windows were already black, and I didn't want to re-paint the wheels even though they're a bit rough.

Last but not least is the roughest side which involved some minor bodywork. This was almost a month after I had started the job so I was driving around a clown car for a few weeks until I found the time.

Sanded off the peeling clear to level things off. I didn't bother filling in any of the door dings/etc. with Bondo, not worth the effort & time for this car.

Yes, you can very much tell this my first car by the questionable 12" sub in the back that I installed back in...2016? Stilll works great though.

Another day or two and, like magic, it's finished!

Before

After

What a project that was. I'd consider this a pretty easy car to wrap (simple shape and the roof is all glass) but it was probably about 35 hours of work for me as a beginner, I'll keep my day job. Besides some mistakes here and there, the car's a solid 5-footer which is what I was going for.

I went back & forth on the color choice for a few weeks but I'm very happy with the satin white. The tC has a bit of a "reputation" and most of them are near-destroyed so I wanted to go with a bit more mature color that still stands out a bit, and stay away from the "early-2000's" tuner style as much as possible. Some strangers have even complimented it which I never expected for this car :biggrin:

Not sure how long the wrap will really last but I'd guess maybe 3-4 years considering all the melting Georgia summers it'll be sitting outside through. That's about all I need until I should just upgrade to a new daily, but this being my first car has a lot of sentimental value. I also ceramic coated the wrap with Gyeon's matte-specifc coating that seems to work very well, so washing is easy and you can't really see scratches on the satin white like you would with gloss colors. Overall, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r06heQ5HsI.

Next up is a 993 911 full detail for fun and then more backlog from the Mideast NSX Meetup last June in Raleigh, NC.

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

"NSX" "Content"/Porsche Detail

More from the archives.

Me posted up next to Ed "Edward" Bolian of Vinwiki's TVR that was used on their latest Cartrek series. Only one in the country allegedly?

Figured I'd post this 993 911 detail I did for a friend/car club member recently. The dumpster in the background isn't an allegory, it's a really nice car, used as a daily and sits outside.

Somewhat of a mish-mash of repaints on the front end with the original factory single-stage on the rear.

I tried out the new IronX snow foam as a 1-step decomtamination and wash, which smelled awful as always but did a great job at removing various deposits, exhaust stains, etc. I ended up washing with normal soap afterwards as well to make sure there was no iron remover left sitting around on the paint.

Frunk and rear bay detailed.

Cleaning the wheel barrels for the first time, probably.

Insides & outside ceramic coated.

Classic old single-stage paint.

The rear bumper and engine cover were likely painted before. Doors, roof, and rear quarters were original.

I managed to get my cheap paint meter to work again, but it seems now it just works on steel and not aluminum. Luckily Porsche was still all about steel in the 90's.

One quick pass with the MF pad and compound on the right side just to see what happens. Single stage is very satisfying to work with.

Surprisingly, no detectable change in paint thickness after this and final polishing, or it was <5 micrometers.

Before compounding.

After compounding.

Exhaust tips removed to clean out the gunk.

After metal polishing. Someone went at it with a wire wheel in the past.

Rear end after a solid going-through with various pads and Menzerna 400 -> Carpro Essence

The rear spoiler was completely oxidized before, and had some of the hardest paint I've ever seen. Either that or the old single-stage was so aged that it formed a super hard exterior layer that I ended up doing a light wet-sanding on since none of my pads would touch it. This was before with some heavy compounding.

After wet-sanding and more polishing, finally has some gloss back. The remaining paint was super-thin and started to show the black primer underneath on the edges, but at least this will save having to do a repaint while still looking good.

Had to do some hand-polishing in the tighter areas under the spoiler and around the pinch weld rain gutter things on the sides.

Final rear after polishing and ceramic coating the paint and all the black rubber/plastic trim.

Final side

I think this was probably my favorite detail I've done so far. About 35 hours of work over a weekend. Glad I got the opportunity to work on this art piece. I'm starting to specialize in 90's red sports cars...(3000GT, NSX, 911, ???)

The hidden realities of single-stage paint. I should charge another hour for hand-washing all the red off the pads.

More actual NSX content up next from various car shows and the Mideast NSX meetup in NC. I'll also be posting a new C32 head up for sale soon

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

NSX Mideast Meet & Others

Kinda peeved since Prime timed out and deleted this post as I was writing it, but here goes again. This will be a somewhat random assortment of pictures I've collected from the past few months.

Caffeine & Octane at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the 2nd year. Wasn't quite as busy this time, maybe since Formula Drift was the same time

Snake on John's car, sure?

Lining up for Caffeine & Exotics at Lanier Raceway, which is across the road from Road Atlanta

They let the showcase cars apply to autoX on the course during the show which I thought was a cool idea. I ended up doing a few laps early on, and for some reason I can't find a single video of me driving anywhere...

Lining up

Safe to say I was about the oldest car there by quite a bit

Most of the showcase area. Where's Waldo?

Caravaning from ATL to Cary, NC for the NSX Mideast meetup with some locals. Always more fun driving as a group than alone, but I'm usually the slowest one...

The temporary record for most expensive fillup until this past weekend. This might look familiar to our Cali friends

Some of the main group outside of the hotel which I didn't end up staying at (Marriott points baybeee)

Gotta post the car I've been stalking for a while. This is the factory custom JDM pearl white car that was listed by Toprank and reviewed by Daddy Doug Demuro himself, I was very surprised to learn a local owner in Savannah, GA bought it and now here it was in person. This thing is one of the cleanest NSX I've seen which is even more impressive since it's from overseas and a factory manual trans.

Always kinda surreal to see so many NSXs on the road at the same time.

Pizza time. You can tell I didn't take this picture by the way it is, unfortunately I forgot who actually took it

Lining up at Red Oak brewhouse which is a cool venue with great beer. Worth a stop if you're on a road trip and not the driver..

Wish there were more group drives but there's NSXpedition for that in July

Completely unrelated but I bought like 3 NSX heads in various conditions plus a set of factory M/T cams for my big engine project coming up. I gave them a check using Plastigauge for the first time plus a micrometer to check wear and they seem good to go in.

Bonus Honda Legend at another C&O show at Perimeter Mall. The organizers recently moved it after several years at Perimeter to a different mall 30 mins up I-75 which means it's an hour each way for me now at 7am Sunday morning, so unfortunately it's a lot more work to show up every month now

Posted up with the boys

Next up will be the much more recent NSXpedition led by Richard & Liz of Lap of the World in TN

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

NSXPedition 2022 & A/C Woes

More driving! NSXPedition is a great meetup for Eastern US owners to experience the Tail of the Dragon (and other nearby mountain roads) and hang out with others. This was the first one I was able to attend and my first time driving the Dragon.

Thanks to Richard & Liz from LOTW for organizing, you can check out their blog covering the trip & their YT channel here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXuJp41lEvU

Arriving the night before in Knoxville to see downtown

Grouping up before heading to the foothills

Pose for pics in the swealtering heat at the dam. The CTR is welcome too because it's a Limited, basically an honorary NSX.

We stopped off at Tampoco Lodge nearby which had great food, A/C would have been nice too haha.

Overall only one breakdown right after this pic where the yellow car's relocated alternator (for a supercharger) wore through the battery cable, grounded out, and blew the 120A main fuse. Only about 45 mins of troubleshooting for the group to find the root cause and the famous Steven G. to come through, somehow carrying a spare 120A fuse. I've learned to always keep a complete set of fuses and a multimeter in my trunk toolkit, seems like every trip I end up using something.

I bought some pics from Killboy who are posted up at various points along the Dragon. There are a few other photography companies that have followed suit since, and a surprising number of people camped out at random corners of the road. They have more faith in other people's driving ability than I do..

Personal fav

The Dragon is tons of fun, great day trip for those in the surrounding states. Nothing like taking hundreds of corners with summer tires in their natural habitat. Yes, I'm aware the new A/C drier looks like a shiny bucktooth in the middle of the bumper which I can never unsee, gotta paint it matte black soon.

Finally met Chris Cut and his famous dog meeting us partway through.

The absolute madlad ended up taking his Motocompo with dog trailer down a few hundred feet of the road, guarded from behind by us in the CTR of course. I need to get one of these before they blow up from $4-5k for a meme scooter to even higher.

Attending the big car show in Knoxville on Sunday, here's the real showstopper. A recently imported Renault Twingo.

If I had $5000 to spend on a daily beater I'd choose importing a $1500 Twingo from France over anything else.

Super clean and stock(!) FD RX-7. I didn't know they came with this ridiculous Bose soundstage system with a bunch of plastic tunnels and whatnot in the rear trunk. I'm sure most of them were removed to store extra bottles of 2-stroke oil after the first owners sold their cars.

Good times were had by all. I couldn't help but notice though, I was starting to lose cold air on the driver's side again just like before I converted to R-134a. Just in time for summer, wow!

Good news, no UV dye in the pint of evaporator juice left on the ground after a long drive in the humid air.

Compressor hose crimp looking a bit sus, I cleaned it off before the NSXpedition trip and will check back to see if the dye reappears to really tell if there's a leak.

Drier sight glass is foamy which should be normal for R-134a, but after the trip I noticed some bubbles instead of a solid foam stream, plus obviously the cabin isn't getting cold air, merely "cool" if I keep the windows up.

I checked all the connections and hoses once I got back from NSXpedition and actually saw zero UV dye on any of the components (even the ones I cleaned dye off before the trip), so I'm not sure really where my leak is unless I just need to keep driving to let the new dye/gas leak out of whatever orifice is the issue. My condensers are pretty beat up but not a spec of dye on them as far as I can tell.

Regardless, I've been mentally preparing myself for the evap core replacement and purchased a new one and the "discharge pipe C" from good ol' Amayama, as well as new suction/discharge flex hoses. Before next summer I'll end up discharging whatever's left and doing the great big dash out job, HVAC unit rebuild, and replace any suspect hoses or lines so that I never have to do A/C again. The evap might not be the source of my leak, but I'd like to replace the 30+ year old one and re-do all of the disintegrating foam on the HVAC unit to get better airflow from the blower. Purchased Joe G's foam kit off FB, he's the one guy I've seen specialize in that job.

All to say, I'll be temporarily moving to Denver, CO. for a few months soon (Sept-Dec? Feb?) to a client jobsite so I won't have to deal the with middling NSX A/C for very long. Most likely, I'll take a couple of weeks off when I get back in ATL and will spend much of that time performing what will essentially be a minor restoration of the car, including:
-A/C rework (again), HVAC unit rebuild
-Drivetrain out, rear beam camber bushings & toe links, Spoon collars
-Installing M/T cams, RDX injectors, LMAs, Demon II install, intake manifold rebuild, TB/WP, basically a real 10-year service
-Building a DIY vapor blasting cabinet to clean up parts as I remove them
-Potentially dry ice blasting the chassis & drivetrain once they're separated since the access will be great

Things might be quiet again for a while once I leave, but after that there will be plenty more posts to come

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

How Do I Make a Title in the New Format?

Anyways, I fixed my A/C again a few weeks back.

Culprit #1: FR condenser line from compressor

Culprit #2: Compressor discharge(?) hose

First, I had the remaining R-134a removed by a kind local shop in about 15 minutes.

Fix #1 was undoing the condenser line to see what was up. I believe the two lines were misaligned when I put them together replacing the O-ring last year, which combined with a burr on the incoming line meant that the O-ring was pinched and created a very slow leak. I probably spend an hour massaging this line into place and carefully smoothing out any burrs to ensure the new O-ring seats perfectly.

Fresh from Amayama, I had bought the same long hardline from the compressor to condenser just in case there was a problem with the line itself that I couldn't fix. Nice to have but hopefully unnecessary. Shipping was surprisingly reasonable for such a large box.

Also from Amayama, a new evaporator core. I had suspicions this was leaking, but a visual inspection of a few pints of Georgia liquified humidity from the evap drain tube didn't reveal a spec of UV dye. Because of the other 2 leaks I found, I decided to leave this alone as a spare for later on.

New drier of course. This one was by GPD instead of Four Seasons, so it was already matte black instead of shiny chrome which looked horrible. Did not include new O-rings for some reason. It was much heavier than the Four Seasons version, maybe that means more desiccant inside? Wouldn't be too hard to find out.

I didn't get any pictures of the A/C hose replacements since it was such a pain in the ass. The A/C compressor must be detached from the engine to get enough clearance to work properly, so the front beam and engine mount has to come out too. Not too bad if you've done it a few times already..
Once that was done, I prepared to fit the aftermarket UAC hoses (super cheap vs. OEM), which had the right length but two differences. One was the aluminum end fittings were a few mils thinner than the OEM, so I had to use a few spacer washers on the long compressor bolts so that they wouldn't bottom out (and I wanted to use the OEM bolts).
The second difference was that the inner aluminum tips of the hoses were 1-2 mils longer than OEM and also squared instead of tapered, which you can kinda see in the hose pic below of the same that I used (ridge past the green O-ring). I was concerned that this would not allow the O-rings to seat inside the hard lines, so I then spent another ~2 hours using my metalworking and dremel skills to taper the ends and shorten the tips by hand.
I was mostly driven by frustration and the need to finish the job that weekend, and figured the O-rings are doing all of the sealing work so as long as the tips were close to OEM then it should seal fine. My recommendation would be just to pay out the nose for the OEM hoses next time.

After several hours, I was again pulling a vacuum on the system for around an hour, checked for leaks, and continued pulling vacuum again to remove any leftover air or moisture. Yes my hood latch is gross, it will be vapor blasted when I build my own cabinet before the engine refresh next year.
This cheap manifold gauge set is actually pretty nice, especially having separate vacuum and refrigerant ports.

Some napkin calculations for how much refrigerant and oil to add. Because of the parts I replaced and at the Honda shop's recommendation, I added about 60mL of ND-8 oil and a bit more dye to make sure there was enough in the system. That was poured into the discharge side of the compressor during the hose replacement, much easier than trying to add it through the manifold gauge hoses.
Then it was only a matter of adding about 2.8 cans of fresh R-134a, which I weighed out to be about 825g of refrigerant. Right in the middle of the 800-850g range.

Pretty good for a humid summer night. I did try and compare with the modified psychrometric charts in the FSM; either I read it wrong or my A/C works way better than it's supposed to. Probably the former.

happy driver = happy car

Next up will be some parts I've been collecting for my engine refresh.

 

[Big McLargeHuge]

Part Hoarding

I've been ordering a bunch of different parts to complete my engine refresh bill of materials. Some necessary, some not so much.

Ordered two VTEC spool solenoid caps straight from T3TEC in JP. One of those totally unnecessary things but I justified it by seeing how corroded my caps are and how it'd be kinda cool to have at least one T3TEC thing on the car. I like keeping the engine bay OEM looking, these caps are a bit buried which keeps it subtle. There are 2 sizes based on your model year since the VTEC caps are smaller for newer cars.

It's like a minigame trying to decipher the Google Translate text recognition. Definitely improved over the years.

Next up, I spent an afternoon coming up with a solution for the EGR valve delete that I was planning on doing along with the Demon II ECU recoding. Nearly every Honda EGR valve has the same triangle-shaped flange design that has plenty of aftermarket blanking plate options available. That's the brown flange between the lower piece and the valve/solenoid in the pic below.
The exhaust gas flow goes into the port on the bottom (bolts directly to engine block), past the valve seat when the ECU commands it open, into the pipe hidden in the background, and then through the pipe (foreground) into the intake manifold.

(Not my pic, from the AH Parts website)

Blanking the valve itself would work fine, but then I'd have a big useless block of metal left stuck to the side of the engine. What about removing the entire assembly (like in the pic above) and blanking directly against the engine block? Well that part is specific to the NSX, so as far as I could see there were no ready-made parts available.

A quick search later I found eMachineShop which is a custom CNC/machine shop that seemed like a good fit for this type of pet project. They have an online easy to use CAD program that allows you to model the part you want.
Since I already had an OEM EGR block gasket on hand, I took a picture of it and imported to serve as a template for modeling the blanking plate. Not the most accurate way of doing things, but if I measured 100 times and cut once then I figured I'd get close enough. Really, it's just two bolt holes in an oddly shaped aluminum plate.

Eventually, that turned into this. There's tons of settings to tweak for material type, thickness, tolerances, shapes, etc. that can have a huge effect on price. Eventually I found the right settings to avoid spending a fortune on a pretty simple piece made of 6061 aluminum alloy. I enlarged the bolt holes from 9 to 10mm just in case my tolerances were off. The odd indent on top is to clear one of the thermostat housing to block flanges.

About a week later, this showed up at my house. I ordered 3 for about $150, the unit price for >1 item was minimal so I figured why not get more in case someone else wants one.
They turned out a bit thicker than I visualized at 0.5", at least they (probably) won't warp from heat. I can test fitment on my spare front cylinder head but the gasket is almost a perfect match anyways. I'll likely scuff mine and paint it high-heat black before installing, we'll see.

That leaves the open EGR pipe flange on the intake manifold, which is a close enough standard Honda size that I was able to find a pre-made blanking plate kit that should fit (for the 18721-PR7-A01 gasket).
You can see the EGR valve triangle-shaped gasket below that I was talking about earlier. Plenty of plates for that already.
Also pictured is the Science of Speed pre-made injector resistor bypass plug that is required for the RDX injectors.

Just a quick side project to keep me occupied. I'm really moving to Colorado for the next few months, promise. By the time I get back I'll probably want to drive more than tear the engine apart, so hoping that can happen around April-May before next summer hits and I'm forced to work in my tin-can uninsulated garage again.

This weekend I'm planning on attending another Jzilla car clinic, same venue at Barber Motorsports Park so hoping to post more fun autoX and skid pad videos.