MexiRicer's 97 MCB
- Thread starter MexiRicer
- Start date
My exhaust set up is finally complete!
To recap:
A few months ago in June, I came across a set of Fujitsubo headers for NSX way too cheap to pass up. The caveat was that they were missing the adapters that attached to the collector. Being that these headers are designed for 91-94 and my car is 97, I knew I would have to do some custom work even if I had the adapters; cheap price w/o adapters- win win for me. After a few hours, some IPA’s and several curse words later, the Fujitsubo headers were installed on the car. I was determined to try to make my ARC titanium test pipes fit, but due to differences in length requirements and clocking angle at the front bank, to name a few, I knew I’d need to go custom piping. I wasn’t sure if I should just go to a generic muffler shop and have them slap something together or hold out for some custom titanium fab work. Thanks to my buddy Angel (Art of Attack) for putting me in contact with Ryan of Humble Engineering. We went over my game plan and came to agreement. My vision for these test pipes was to simulate very closely the same design and philosophy that went into the ARC piping I ran previously. These attributes included a large inlet opening (3/4 inch wider than header collector outlet) then down stepped a half inch to slip joints. Also since my car is 97 it does require 4 oxygen sensors, 2 of which should be on the headers. I did not want to molest the Fujitsubo headers, so we opted to put all 4 02 bungs in the piping instead (91-94 cars have 2 oxygen sensors total, each in the catalytic converter). Ryan executed my vision flawlessly and can’t recommend him enough.
Final results: Optimizing scavenging of pulses with a larger than the (2.25”) collector; 3” inlet where the test pipe mates to header collector. Then down stepped to 2.5” utilizing slip joints. After the 2.5” entry point at exhaust, ARC down-steps it's piping to 2.25” and then meets the muffler. I'm guessing this is all good and stuff
. Credit is due to @RYU for providing insight on why the Hytech header has elongated conical shape at their header collector. The car feels like has better throttle response, objectively deeper and throatier tone, all while still maintaining zero drone and zero rasp. A trifecta of components!
ARC Ti pipes side by side for reference, then the 2 pipes that were fabbed up.
Fab work in the flesh
All buttoned up. I will address the routing and spiraled o2 wiring later.
Sound clip!
To recap:
A few months ago in June, I came across a set of Fujitsubo headers for NSX way too cheap to pass up. The caveat was that they were missing the adapters that attached to the collector. Being that these headers are designed for 91-94 and my car is 97, I knew I would have to do some custom work even if I had the adapters; cheap price w/o adapters- win win for me. After a few hours, some IPA’s and several curse words later, the Fujitsubo headers were installed on the car. I was determined to try to make my ARC titanium test pipes fit, but due to differences in length requirements and clocking angle at the front bank, to name a few, I knew I’d need to go custom piping. I wasn’t sure if I should just go to a generic muffler shop and have them slap something together or hold out for some custom titanium fab work. Thanks to my buddy Angel (Art of Attack) for putting me in contact with Ryan of Humble Engineering. We went over my game plan and came to agreement. My vision for these test pipes was to simulate very closely the same design and philosophy that went into the ARC piping I ran previously. These attributes included a large inlet opening (3/4 inch wider than header collector outlet) then down stepped a half inch to slip joints. Also since my car is 97 it does require 4 oxygen sensors, 2 of which should be on the headers. I did not want to molest the Fujitsubo headers, so we opted to put all 4 02 bungs in the piping instead (91-94 cars have 2 oxygen sensors total, each in the catalytic converter). Ryan executed my vision flawlessly and can’t recommend him enough.
Final results: Optimizing scavenging of pulses with a larger than the (2.25”) collector; 3” inlet where the test pipe mates to header collector. Then down stepped to 2.5” utilizing slip joints. After the 2.5” entry point at exhaust, ARC down-steps it's piping to 2.25” and then meets the muffler. I'm guessing this is all good and stuff
. Credit is due to @RYU for providing insight on why the Hytech header has elongated conical shape at their header collector. The car feels like has better throttle response, objectively deeper and throatier tone, all while still maintaining zero drone and zero rasp. A trifecta of components!
ARC Ti pipes side by side for reference, then the 2 pipes that were fabbed up.
Fab work in the flesh
All buttoned up. I will address the routing and spiraled o2 wiring later.
Sound clip!
Your guy does great work. Glad to hear you're not getting a CEL. I don't have an 3.2L but I believe that's been the common complaint when ditching the cats or even with HF cats sometimes. Can't wait for the sound clip! Sounded great on your IG.
TL;DR: got new wheels, scroll down for pix.
Welp, after 2 years of waiting and searching... I am done piecing together what will be my forever set of Te37 for the car.
Some history about the process to get here:
Back some time in 2017, I had a vision of fitting double max concave 16/17 te37, a combination that I had never seen done on an NSX before. At the time, I was rolling on a set of 16/17 mf10; 16x8 +42 and 17x9 +42 to be exact. With spacers and proper tire selection, I was extremely content with how the car sat:
Eventually, I would move on from the mf10 in pursuit to piece together my first set of 16/17 te37. I went with 16x8 +30 and 17x9 +22 because those were my exact effective specs on the mf10 with spacers. The front of this te37 set was only mild concave but fit flawlessly:
I began searching for 16x8.5 +30, bcuz max concave face. I knew about another max concave 16" spec that existed (16x8 +15) but thought that was much too aggressive for comfort. I settled on a new pair of 16x8.5 +30 and due to tire selection availability and to achieve proper sidewall ratio from front to rear, I opted to have the wheels resized to 16x7.75 so that the 215/45 ad08r would fit very nicely on the wheels. I ended up just selling the first set of 16/17 te37 outright and found a rear 17" pair (17x9 +15) to accompany my newly resized concave fronts. After all was said and done, the wheel set was on:
This set was almost perfect, but of course I had to modify some suspension bits and in turn, deem the wheel set no longer optimal. I installed a rear camber correction kit from Richard Wong, whom replicated the Ayotte technologies kit from back in the day. I was extremely happy with the camber correction, putting me at -2.0, but now the rear wheels poked out way too much for comfort. I had no choice but to sell the wheel set and start over but this time, utilizing a 17x9 +22 rear. I really wanted this spec initially but at the time I had only found the +15 and thought it would be fine. Anyhow, it worked out fine because I also did not like the look of the diamond black powder-coated wheels on the mcb. This spec was 16x8.5 +30 resized to 16x7.75 and rear 17x9 +22:
This was supposed to be my final form te37, but I'd soon acquire some new information on fitting wheels up front that would change my mind about that. I would soon stumble upon and purchase a pair of ce28n 17x9.5 +35 which for those that dont know, is a crazy rare unicorn spec. Oddly enough, this wheel spec has a deep concave face and nice lip whereas the 17x9.5 +28 does not concave. This is probably catered to s2k community that want to run bbk up front or something. Anyways, now I needed to find a front 16" max concave pair to complete the wheel set. I had been on the hunt for 16x8 +28 or +30. Had some sets pop up but costed way too much than what I was willing to pay. Then a buddy sent me a lead on a pair of 16x8 +15 ce28n that were priced at a point where even if it didn't work on my car, I could sell it and recoup plus some. Well I ended up installing Ti Dave's front lower non-compliance camber offset bushings to achieve -3.5. This was the golden ticket to fitting the wheels up front without compromising my 215/45 ad08r tire selection. I wanted to paint them as closely as possible to Washi grey, so I opted for Desert Silver Metallic from an RSX:
Knowing now that I can fit 16x8 +15 up front, I wanted to put together my last and final form of 16/17 te37 for the car. My ideal glory set up had to be original bronze finish from the early to mid 2000's. I absolutely loved the contrast of bronze on my mcb from previous wheel set ups. The newer variants of volk bronze finish began production in 2010 which for some odd reason, darkened the contrast of the bronze luster. Also, this was around the time frame where several replica wheels hit the market and Rays was forced to add stamps in between the spokes so that consumers could verify authenticity more easily. I tracked down a pair of 17x9.5 +28 original bronze finish te37 in immaculate condition, which was important. It's so easy for this finish to get ruined over the years being that they are sensitive to harsh cleaning chemicals and of course improper handling of them over their lifespan. About 2 years go by and there were some pairs of 16x8 +15 bronze te37 that I simply had to pass up due to poor condition. Alas, just last month I secured a pair of them in minty condition much too good to pass up. Unfortunately, the seller had them accompanied by a pair of 16x7.5 +30 also in immaculate condition, but would not split the pairs, so I was forced to buy the full set (the 7.5 pair is for sale btw). Here they are installed and ready for some driving:
I'm beyond content with this wheel set and can't wait to set up a proper photo-shoot real soon.
Welp, after 2 years of waiting and searching... I am done piecing together what will be my forever set of Te37 for the car.
Some history about the process to get here:
Back some time in 2017, I had a vision of fitting double max concave 16/17 te37, a combination that I had never seen done on an NSX before. At the time, I was rolling on a set of 16/17 mf10; 16x8 +42 and 17x9 +42 to be exact. With spacers and proper tire selection, I was extremely content with how the car sat:
Eventually, I would move on from the mf10 in pursuit to piece together my first set of 16/17 te37. I went with 16x8 +30 and 17x9 +22 because those were my exact effective specs on the mf10 with spacers. The front of this te37 set was only mild concave but fit flawlessly:
I began searching for 16x8.5 +30, bcuz max concave face. I knew about another max concave 16" spec that existed (16x8 +15) but thought that was much too aggressive for comfort. I settled on a new pair of 16x8.5 +30 and due to tire selection availability and to achieve proper sidewall ratio from front to rear, I opted to have the wheels resized to 16x7.75 so that the 215/45 ad08r would fit very nicely on the wheels. I ended up just selling the first set of 16/17 te37 outright and found a rear 17" pair (17x9 +15) to accompany my newly resized concave fronts. After all was said and done, the wheel set was on:
This set was almost perfect, but of course I had to modify some suspension bits and in turn, deem the wheel set no longer optimal. I installed a rear camber correction kit from Richard Wong, whom replicated the Ayotte technologies kit from back in the day. I was extremely happy with the camber correction, putting me at -2.0, but now the rear wheels poked out way too much for comfort. I had no choice but to sell the wheel set and start over but this time, utilizing a 17x9 +22 rear. I really wanted this spec initially but at the time I had only found the +15 and thought it would be fine. Anyhow, it worked out fine because I also did not like the look of the diamond black powder-coated wheels on the mcb. This spec was 16x8.5 +30 resized to 16x7.75 and rear 17x9 +22:
This was supposed to be my final form te37, but I'd soon acquire some new information on fitting wheels up front that would change my mind about that. I would soon stumble upon and purchase a pair of ce28n 17x9.5 +35 which for those that dont know, is a crazy rare unicorn spec. Oddly enough, this wheel spec has a deep concave face and nice lip whereas the 17x9.5 +28 does not concave. This is probably catered to s2k community that want to run bbk up front or something. Anyways, now I needed to find a front 16" max concave pair to complete the wheel set. I had been on the hunt for 16x8 +28 or +30. Had some sets pop up but costed way too much than what I was willing to pay. Then a buddy sent me a lead on a pair of 16x8 +15 ce28n that were priced at a point where even if it didn't work on my car, I could sell it and recoup plus some. Well I ended up installing Ti Dave's front lower non-compliance camber offset bushings to achieve -3.5. This was the golden ticket to fitting the wheels up front without compromising my 215/45 ad08r tire selection. I wanted to paint them as closely as possible to Washi grey, so I opted for Desert Silver Metallic from an RSX:
Knowing now that I can fit 16x8 +15 up front, I wanted to put together my last and final form of 16/17 te37 for the car. My ideal glory set up had to be original bronze finish from the early to mid 2000's. I absolutely loved the contrast of bronze on my mcb from previous wheel set ups. The newer variants of volk bronze finish began production in 2010 which for some odd reason, darkened the contrast of the bronze luster. Also, this was around the time frame where several replica wheels hit the market and Rays was forced to add stamps in between the spokes so that consumers could verify authenticity more easily. I tracked down a pair of 17x9.5 +28 original bronze finish te37 in immaculate condition, which was important. It's so easy for this finish to get ruined over the years being that they are sensitive to harsh cleaning chemicals and of course improper handling of them over their lifespan. About 2 years go by and there were some pairs of 16x8 +15 bronze te37 that I simply had to pass up due to poor condition. Alas, just last month I secured a pair of them in minty condition much too good to pass up. Unfortunately, the seller had them accompanied by a pair of 16x7.5 +30 also in immaculate condition, but would not split the pairs, so I was forced to buy the full set (the 7.5 pair is for sale btw). Here they are installed and ready for some driving:
I'm beyond content with this wheel set and can't wait to set up a proper photo-shoot real soon.
They look so amazing. OG bronze double concave TEs is really the holy grail set. Crazy you’re able to fit 8+15s up front with just camber (though I’m sure fenders are rolled). I have a long term ce28 project where the fronts will end up around 17x8”+30 or +31 and I’m stressing that they might not fit. I guess just more camber.
Thanks for the detail here. I often see wheel setups on Instagram that look good and want to ask, but people are so cagey about sharing specs.
Thanks for the detail here. I often see wheel setups on Instagram that look good and want to ask, but people are so cagey about sharing specs.
Dude hell yeah man, happy to hear about your ce28 venture! Feel free to DM me on ig so we can chat more about what you've got brewing
. When I first took ownership of the NSX there were so many invaluable individuals that assisted this mexi noobie haha so I am grateful to be able to now share with others the trials and errors I have gone through. Just about all of the things I've done on the car and specifications of mods are on this build thread almost in their entirety.
I will definitely take you up on that!
Amazing setup. This is inspiring. Not your traditional 17/18
Sounds great I look forward to it!
Thanks Larry! You got to post up some photos on the forum of you and Eric!
Thx Chris! Still waiting for your spacer and stud install video!
Thanks man. I think the 16/17 looks best on pop up! Thx for the kind words Professor.
Truth be told, every single set has looked amazing! I'm sure I'm biased, but my favorite are the ce28s.
Beautiful work and your patience goes far and beyond the average Mexi. Really beautiful car.
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