New to NSX community
- Thread starter zdorsen
- Start date
Welcome to the club! Good to see someone who wants to drive it and not just park and polish 
Brave to drive in Chicago winter though. How many miles?
Brave to drive in Chicago winter though. How many miles?
Welcome to NSX Prime! Respect for daily-driving your NSX. I dailied my 91 for almost 5 years, including winters! With good snow tires it's a fantastic car in the snow. And the bonus is the aluminum body doesn't rust! 
Here's my quick pointers for NSX winter use:
Keep in mind that even though it's a Honda, your NSX is old enough to be considered a classic car. That mean many of the original components are ageing out and will need to be repaired or replaced. Especially if it's a daily, you'll need to start addressing those things to prevent being stranded somewhere.
Here's my quick pointers for NSX winter use:- As noted above, use good snow/ice tires. I used Michelin X-ice 3. Make sure you pick diameters that don't mess up the TCS computer.
- Winter driving is the only time I recommend keeping the factory traction control system. It helps immensely, especially when starting from a stop at a light.
- Make sure your rear hatch defroster circuit is working and check the fuse periodically
- In temps below 32F, it's a good idea to shift gently and leave the car in 1st/2nd for the first couple of miles (assuming you're not on a main road lol). This will help circulate the cold transmission oil through the synchros and gears before you start running it through the gears as normal.
- Use a 0W full synth motor oil. 0W-30 or 0W-40 is fine. This will help with those initial cold 5 minutes and make sure oil is getting to the friction surfaces in the engine.
- Every week or so (or after a big storm), I would take the car to one of those self-wash places and really blast out the undercarriage areas and wheel wells.
Keep in mind that even though it's a Honda, your NSX is old enough to be considered a classic car. That mean many of the original components are ageing out and will need to be repaired or replaced. Especially if it's a daily, you'll need to start addressing those things to prevent being stranded somewhere.
Welcome to Prime; your NSX looks beautiful. 5k in a month! Red with black roof is still the best colour. It's too bad they dropped the black roofs when they went to the targa top. I'm just down the road from you in Ontario.
Chicago winter sounds brave. I can't handle leather seats without heaters any more myself. (Did they add heaters eventually? My '95 lacks them & your pic looks pre-1995.) We get a LOT more accidents here in the winter as well...
Aluminum body won't rust?!? Technically that's true since rust is iron oxide and aluminum does form a protective covering of clear aluminum oxide. But do they use road salt in the winter in Chicago? The salt they use here in Ontario Canada corrodes aluminum very well (and steel). Aluminum bike frames & components - toast. Out west, I understand they don't use salt since it's frequently to cold for it to work effectively so they use sand, so vehicles don't get so damaged (except for all the windshields...) Maybe @Oldguy can chime in with his winter experience.
But there are also LOTS of steel parts like radiator brackets, hood latch mechanism, ABS accumulator, a zillion bolts, brakes lines, and a whole pile of things in the engine bay. Amayama prices are reasonable for replacing all the rusted steel bolts & brackets, but shipping is a b****.
It took quite a while to clean up and repaint my steel brackets/headlight retractor mechanisms, and they had never seen road salt; I can only imagine what they would have looked like had they been as exposed, and I expect they're not cheap to replace.
My .02
Chicago winter sounds brave. I can't handle leather seats without heaters any more myself. (Did they add heaters eventually? My '95 lacks them & your pic looks pre-1995.) We get a LOT more accidents here in the winter as well...
Aluminum body won't rust?!? Technically that's true since rust is iron oxide and aluminum does form a protective covering of clear aluminum oxide. But do they use road salt in the winter in Chicago? The salt they use here in Ontario Canada corrodes aluminum very well (and steel). Aluminum bike frames & components - toast. Out west, I understand they don't use salt since it's frequently to cold for it to work effectively so they use sand, so vehicles don't get so damaged (except for all the windshields...) Maybe @Oldguy can chime in with his winter experience.
But there are also LOTS of steel parts like radiator brackets, hood latch mechanism, ABS accumulator, a zillion bolts, brakes lines, and a whole pile of things in the engine bay. Amayama prices are reasonable for replacing all the rusted steel bolts & brackets, but shipping is a b****.
It took quite a while to clean up and repaint my steel brackets/headlight retractor mechanisms, and they had never seen road salt; I can only imagine what they would have looked like had they been as exposed, and I expect they're not cheap to replace.
My .02
Last edited:
@Honcho Bumping this back up for snow tire advice =)Welcome to NSX Prime! Respect for daily-driving your NSX. I dailied my 91 for almost 5 years, including winters! With good snow tires it's a fantastic car in the snow. And the bonus is the aluminum body doesn't rust!
- As noted above, use good snow/ice tires. I used Michelin X-ice 3. Make sure you pick diameters that don't mess up the TCS computer.
- Winter driving is the only time I recommend keeping the factory traction control system. It helps immensely, especially when starting from a stop at a light.
- Make sure your rear hatch defroster circuit is working and check the fuse periodically
- In temps below 32F, it's a good idea to shift gently and leave the car in 1st/2nd for the first couple of miles (assuming you're not on a main road lol). This will help circulate the cold transmission oil through the synchros and gears before you start running it through the gears as normal.
- Use a 0W full synth motor oil. 0W-30 or 0W-40 is fine. This will help with those initial cold 5 minutes and make sure oil is getting to the friction surfaces in the engine.
- Every week or so (or after a big storm), I would take the car to one of those self-wash places and really blast out the undercarriage areas and wheel wells.
Keep in mind that even though it's a Honda, your NSX is old enough to be considered a classic car. That mean many of the original components are ageing out and will need to be repaired or replaced. Especially if it's a daily, you'll need to start addressing those things to prevent being stranded somewhere.
Just moved to Colorado and need the NSX for occasional round trips between Denver and the Arkansas River Valley area.
Should I still be looking at the Michelin X-ice 3, or are there better candidates out there now?
EDIT: Looks like the Michelin X-ice 3 isn't available in the stock sizes-if you happen to remember what size you were running that would be helpful as well!
Last edited:
Welcome to Colorado! I plan on having a much more active NSX scene in 2025 here, now that the car is done. The key for the winter tires is to use a 15/16 wheel setup. The X-Ice 3 tires I used were over 10 years ago. Michelin still makes the X-Ice tires in the 15/16 sizes and the current versions are called X-Ice Snow. They are Michelin's version of the Blizzak. I chose them because they had better ice traction than the Bridgestone and we have a lot of that in Colorado with our sun and variable temps.
I was not running stock tire sizes since the X-Ice don't have the short sidewalls like a performance tire. I bought a cheap set of 15/16 alloy wheels and sized the tires to not make the TCS system mad. I think it was 185/60/15 and 205/55/16. I can't remember, but they were much narrower than the stock tires. But, narrow is good for snow traction, so it worked in my favor.
However, with these undersized snow tires, keep in mind you'll lose a lot of the performance potential of the car. You have to drive easy on dry pavement, since the power of the car can shred the expensive soft ice compound and the car can easily spin with too much steering input due to the small contact patch. In the snow and ice, however, they were sublime. I could cruise at 60 mph and blow by 4x4 SUVs in the middle of a giant snowstorm. It was like dry pavement. Very confidence inspiring.
Very glad to be in Colorado =)
I did some research on TSC and started a new thread here incase snow tires on Fat Fives are of interest to anybody else in 2024 =)
I did some research on TSC and started a new thread here incase snow tires on Fat Fives are of interest to anybody else in 2024 =)
