NSX Blog
Monday 11 January
Apologies for the long awaited update! The NSX 300 completed
its first race in the closing round of the Britcar Production
Championship alongside our regularly contested Lotus Motorsport
Elise In November. With nothing to lose or gain, the race served
as an ideal shakedown for the car.
We were delighted to have TV presenter
Vicki
Butler-Henderson in the car together with my dad, David.
Meanwhile, I would be fighting it out in the Elise with our friend
James Barclay.
With qualifying being a chance to get to
know the NSX in race form, a few issues were raised. Without power
steering, the car was hard work for starters, whilst the seating
position was compromised where there was no sliding mechanism
installed. Nevertheless, the NSX achieved 3rd in class for the
grid. The Elise snatched pole by a mere 8 thousandths of a second!
With Vicki starting, the NSX initially lost
ground and was hit by a rather unfriendly Civic Type R. Vicki
battled her way back through the order, even managing a peak of
5th overall as she came in for the driver change!
Sadly, the roadgoing gearbox started to show
its displeasure for non-stop racing! Eventually it wouldn't move
out of 3rd. Despite getting up to a 1st in class, eventually the
slowed pace allowed a quick Integra Type R to slip by. Having said
that, 2nd in class was a good first show, and clearly the NSX will
be a force to be reckoned with next season.
The car will be racing again in March.
Before then, a few modifications will be made as well as the more
major addition of a Hewland sequential gearbox. This depends on
how quickly we can get a bell housing however, as Hewland requires
a batch of orders.
A full overview of modifications coming
soon!
Monday 30th October
The NSX has turned its first wheel in anger last week at
Snetterton race circuit. Driven by our friend James Barclay, he
carried out shakedown testing. The day revealed work was needed on
the brake servo, whilst the NSX-R radiator scoop looks nice, but
doesn't help cooling much at all.
We are due to drive the car next Friday in the test day before
its first race the next day (7th November) at Brands Hatch in
Kent. Please feel free to come along, more details are on the
Britcar website.
Monday 12th October
Unfortunately the NSX 300 car wasn't ready for the Britcar
Silverstone 500. However, it did make an appearance as a show car
for the weekend. Despite being in between a BMW M1 Procar and
McLaren F1 longtail, it was with great pride we saw people taking
particular interest in the immaculate satin black NSX.
About now, the engine will be dropped in by the guys at John
Danby Racing. It will be ready for the final Britcar round on
November 7th. I'm delighted to announce touring car driver James
Barclay and 5th Gear presenter Vicky Butler-Henderson will be
driving the car whilst myself and my dad continue in the Elise.
Please feel free to come along and support us!
Monday 1st September
The green NSX, now dubbed 'NSX 300,' is well underway
development wise, with parts coming from both America and Japan.
The car will be undergoing a facelift conversion because it will
mean better reliability, less weight and more room underneath for
when the car is substantially lower.
Engine wise, the car will remain stock in order to comply with
class power-to-weight regulations. However, it is being rebuilt by
Dave Wilde at DTW Engines to ensure reliability.
It's going to be a close call getting the car ready for the
Silverstone 500 race, but we're confident!
More information at:
http://www.silverstone.co.uk/php/rm_britCar.html
Meanwhile, the 'NSX 500' project isn't moving much at the
moment as it's non-stop with the other cars but we're pleased to
announce our first Britcar Production victory in the Elise at
Snetterton this weekend!
Monday 20th July
Well, we've got so impatient with the NSX that we've gone and
bought another! We recently took part in an unsuccessful endurance
race at Spa in the Motorsport Elise. We decided that we needed a
car that could handle longer races, leaving the Elise to do
shorter sprints in line with what it was originally designed for.
Another NSX seemed like a logical choice, we've been there
before, know it's reliable and it would be ideally suited to the
class below in the Britcar series we compete in. After looking at
a couple of cars, we decided on the 1995 Charlotte Green car you
will see below. This makes it a 3.0 with a 5 speed gearbox.
Over the next month or so the 'new' NSX will be race prepared
by the JDR team. It will prove a useful exercise for them as it
gives an idea of where bits go for the more extreme car.
Modifications will be fairly run of the mill, the biggest headache
will be finding a slick to fit the front wheels. We will probably
have to use 18" wheels which makes it hard to lower the car
significantly. The pop up lights may have to make way...
Meanwhile, the original black NSX is still in bits, but we have
had a meeting with the engine builder. We are aiming for 'near'
500bhp at almost 10,000rpm!
Tuesday 17th February
We're now firmly into 2009 but unfortunately not a huge amount
of physical activity has been done. However, we have been busy
planning and some progress has been made!
The engine now sits at DTW Engines in Essex where it has been
crack tested. Thankfully everything is in good shape, so we went
to see the engine builders to discuss the spec of the engine. To
save time, we will be looking to use a lot of Toda Parts, although
some investigation is needed for the dry sump assembly as it not
listed in their normal price lists.
Although Dave at DTW doesn't like to quote power figures, he
conservatively expects the engine to make over 400bhp whilst
remaining a 3.2. Stroking the engine has been ruled out for
reliability's sake. With DTW's experience in creating very high
powered naturally aspirated engines we're confident they will
deliver!
Meanwhile, our driver development coach Roberto Giordanelli has
agreed to take on the project management side of things. We have a
meeting with AP Racing coming up to sort out items like the
brakes, clutch and pedal box. The NSX's shell has also now
been taken right back to bare metal as you can see in the photo
below...
Tuesday 9th September
Some good news, the kit has arrived from Japan! This is key to
get the project really motoring but we have already hit
another stumbling block! Our aspirations of having a sequential
gearbox has proven troublesome as none exist which can handle the
power we're after. This is because all (that we have found)
transverse sequentials are for FWD touring car type cars, which
have relatively little power.
We haven't yet decided what to do with this problem, but it
looks like the car could have a longitudinal engine conversion.
This will prove to be a massively complicated modification,
although
will give us the best base car possible, not to mention something
very unique!
Currently the next things on the list are to sodium blast the
car's skeleton (opposed to acid dipping), beef up the roll cage
and order some remaining bits from Science of Speed. For now, some
teaser photos...
Wednesday 2nd July
Finally, some progress! We've received the tantalising pictures
of the boxed up bodykit and supposedly its on its way! I
personally will prevent myself from getting too excited until I
see the kit in the flesh however!
Meanwhile, Plans Motorsport are talking to Torque Developments
International (TDI) as they are an official Toda Racing
distributor. Toda used to make the NSX JGTC300 engines, with bits
including a 3.5 stroker kit and individual throttle body setups
available. Interestingly, TDI created the first (perhaps only)
turbocharged NSX in the UK. It would be nice to get something
sorted within our own country for a change...
Friday 6th June
Sadly no more progress on the NSX as we're still waiting
for the bodykit from Japan. What happened to the Japanese being hard
working and efficient?!
Our continued wait has allowed us to get in the Motorsport
Elise more however, notching up a couple of class wins. It now has
clip-on clams and is in the process of a a centre seat conversion,
like a McLaren F1! The M3 CSL hasn't been left out either thanks
to a big brake kit, similar to the NSX's setup.
We've always had the security of electronics in the NSX so it
is a good learning experience to be racing a car which leaves
everything down the to driver. Look out for us in the Britcar and
AMOC rounds this season! Despite this, we are
of course both itching to get
back in the Honda... will it happen this year?
Friday 25th April
Some progress at last. The manufacture of the body parts has
been fairly glacial, but the carbon boot lid is ready at least.
That took two months, but supposedly the kit is 'almost ready.'
Meanwhile, we did race at Snetterton in the Motorsport Elise,
coming 8th and 5th in the two races. It is a great car and it will
be interesting to see how the NSX will compare once complete. We
can't wait...
Tuesday 15th April
Not much progress with the NSX this month, really we are just
waiting for the body kit to arrive. Without the kit, a lot of
other things can't be done.
Impatience has gotten the better of myself and my dad, I now
have a BMW M3 CSL and he has a Lotus Motorsport Elise, just 1of
a few right hand drive versions. We are racing the Lotus this
weekend at Snetterton. It is a Britcar round, which will be an
interesting insight for when we race the NSX in the championship
next year.
Wednesday 5th March
The car is now stripped to a bare shell. It is being taken to
Pilbeam who will be providing a quotation for two options;
push-rod type suspension or a new wishbone arrangement to
accommodate the extra width of the body kit. Plans Motorsport have
also been talking to people who can make a new wiring loom.
Tuesday 26th February
We took the trip to Plans Motorsport on Tuesday to try finalise
a specification for the NSX. We have decided to give up on any
kind of Le Mans car replica despite Plans managing to find more
people involved with the project. Creating a replica will be
hugely expensive and time consuming. Then, after all that effort,
it will still be easily beaten by newer machines as to be eligible
it would have to confirm to 1995 spec.
So, the plan instead is to build a car that will be competitive
for endurance racing, such as in the Britcar 24 Hour at
Silverstone which is our 2009 objective. The focus is making a
reliable car that can go a long distance without needing to stop!
Andy at Plans managed to find a great photo of the GT2 Le Mans
car showing pushrod suspension. At the rear, there is a clever
cradle that holds the rockers and dampers behind the engine. We
may go down this route considering new wishbones, hubs and
everything else is being re-designed to accommodate centre lock
wheels and the wide body kit.
Speaking of the body kit, I can confirm the 'ZeroForce' is
ordered. It should arrive in 6 weeks. Can't wait!
The car is currently almost stripped to the bone. All the
wiring loom and ECUs will be replaced by a single MoTec unit
controlling the engine. The power steering and rack is being
replaced by a variable power assisted shorter rack. We will also
be installing variable traction control and ABS. This will make it
great for longer races where different drivers have differing
preferences.
I won't give too much else away, but we are aiming for 1100kg
and hopefully some throttle bodies will see us surpassing 350bhp,
so it should fly too! Below are some pictures of the NSX's current
state.
Tuesday 5th February
As an ex-Aston Martin owner my dad receives the AM Quarterly
magazine. He unexpectedly found a picture of our NSX following a
race we did last year.
The race was an Invitation Endurance. Click on the thumbnail
and you will see the varied amount of exotics cars that entered.
You may not think the old DB4s are fast, but weighing little over
a ton and with 380bhp they certainly shift! One was driven by BTCC
ace Phil
Bennett.
Tuesday 29th January
I've been emailing lots of people over the last couple of weeks
concerning body kits. The ideal candidate seemed to be the all
carbon fibre Cantrell Concepts kit sold through Science of Speed
being wider and lighter than the OEM panels. Soon after, my dad
phoned up Chris to find out more but we were disappointed to hear
that he was under the impression they weren't making the kit
anymore.
The words NSX and setbacks go hand in hand, so we did some
hunting around for another option. Thanks to help on NSX Prime, we
spoke to Ravi at Umbrella Auto Design who is a distributor of
Route KS.
Route KS do a number of options, we're after the ZeroForce kit
(pictured below). The kit has been priced up in glass fibre as
carbon seems to be unavailable. Ravi also showed his own
lexan rear hatch and snorkel combo which we will probably go for
too.
I won't make the mistake of getting too excited until the kit
is on the door mat, but I'm really hoping at last things will go
smoothly!
Tuesday 15th January
We visited Plans Motorsport today (they had 4 NSXs in!) to see the car and discuss
what were going to do to the NSX this season. Beside basic things
like the cam belt change, we have some big plans for it! These
include:
- Body kit with wider wings and rear spoiler
- Centre lock wheels
- Air jacks
- Dymag magnesium wheels
- Slicks
- Remove heating system
- Remove anything in interior not needed
- New carbon fibre seats
- Get the engine running on a single MoTec ECU
- Uprated clutch and flywheel
- Ohlins TTX dampers
- Suspension re-design
It's hard to say how long all this will take as it's never been
done before in the UK. Stay tuned! |
