My old Honda - NA1 NSX

[hkz286]

hello all,

(just incase you want to follow more live updates my instagram is @restomod_compulsion)

this is my first post on the site but I've been reading for years. Never really thought about doing a build thread as the attention isn't something I particularly relish, and most forums I've been on seem to have less than pleasant members. After reading over the build threads on here, even if people don't seem to agree on certain choices, they have a respect for the chap doing it. So In the end, I thought sod it. This is why I tend not to post on forums much, as a lot of my build decisions would just result in negativity, and whilst I don't really care, there seems little point in painting a target on your back.

anywhoo enough of my inane ramblings, here's the car as I first saw her:










she's a 1991 Honda NSX, and at the time, was currently residing in a little garage in the Okayama Prefecture of japan. Which is about 6000 miles from where I currently live.

Up until this point I had been searching for a few months, and missed out on some cars I had fell for by a day (sometimes a few hours). As most know, the feeling of missing out on the car you really wanted can be a really kick in the swingers. This gave me a little more urgency than was probably sensible.

Within a few hours of it been posted for sale, I had negotiated a deal, and a deposit was place. Again, some perspective is required here. It was essentially on the other side of the world. I couldn't look at it with my own eyes and was placing my trust completely in an agent used by my importer, with most of my adult savings. This actually only occurred to me a few weeks after it arrived at my house (some months later). As after I placed my deposit I was bouncing of the walls with excitement, due to the fact that I currently owned a car that I had been wanting since I was of single digit age.

Anyways, a deal was struck and it was sent to the nearest port for the long sea journey, to the not so sunny shores of the country I reside in. These were some of the pictures I was sent when it got to the Japanese port.








Now, again, a few things struck me, a while after they probably should have. Firstly, the paint had seen better days (to put it lightly). In reality it look liked it been washed using the dangerous end of a porcupine. The centre console was butchered to fit a double din, and looked to have been undertaken by a blind woodsman. It had the right height that most rock crawlers would envy and a steering wheel that looked at home in a harlequin golf. However, all this was blinded by the aforementioned wall bouncing excitement. Live and learn I suppose.

The steering wheel I'm assuming was fitted just to sell the car (the previous owner probably wanted to keep whichever was in there) and the ride height was to make loading and unloading the car a lot easier. Like I said though, I didn't really see any of that. Just that it was mine, and that it was on its way....

[hkz286]

So whilst I was waiting the millennia it took to arrive, and trying to understand why my savings account was a fair few zero's lighter than before, I was able to study the pictures and try to figure out what was fitted to the car.

Information was pretty light, all I got was "its mostly stock". Which was fine, I had assumed it would be, but being a particular sort of person I wanted to know about the few things that was fitted.

from what I could figure out it had the following:

Border Racing Lip kit
Work Emotion CR Kai 18" rear and 17" front.
work wheel nuts
Tein Coilovers
Some funky steering wheel (and presuming boss to go with it)
hkb/type r steering boss
Taitec GTLW exhaust

Again, some perspective is required here. Whilst that spec list doesn't seem impressive. Parts for this car are a bit more than what I was used to. For example the exhaust is the best part of $1600 before shipping etc so I was happy with what I got, to say the least.

After it traversed most of the worlds ocean, doing battle with legendary creatures such as the kraken, mothra and the british import and tax office, I got sent these pictures:



]




considering this car is 25 years old, to see the condition of the underneath, I knew I made the right decision. And of course, by "decision", I mean complete and under gamble with most of my life savings. But I digress.

It had clearly been looked after despite the questionable methods of stereo installation (see: blind woodsman comment above) and was modified enough (and worn enough) that I wouldn't feel guilty in chopping and changing things about.

yet more waiting occurred whilst the importer did his thing and fixing a few bits whilst he had it (a few stone chips on the front and a polish etc). At this point I had little else on the brain but the car and the logistics of retrieving it.

I'm somewhat cautious by nature, so driving it the 300 odd miles back from the importer to my house didn't seem sensible. I figured it had been laid up for a while and lack of use can really do some damage to a car. So I made the decision to get it trailered to my house. Which is where the fun began...

[hkz286]

As I was waiting for the importer to do his thing I got the occasional update on progress:

bumper removed for touch up:


engine bay detail:






As I said, the decision to get it trailered was an easy one. I didn't want my first experience of the car to be broken down on the side of a busy motorway, questioning certain life choices I made, and why I didn't take up knitting as a hobby instead.

What seemed like 5 or 6 lifetimes ( a week or so), I got a phone call to say the car had left and would be with me in a few hours.

After being on edge all day at work, waiting for a phone call so I could dash home, I was somewhat perplexed when it got to 7:00pm and I had no idea where my car was. I spoke to the importer who was equally apologetic and confused. I asked for the couriers numbers so I could sort it out (seemed little point at that stage to go through the importer, even though he said he would sort it, as it would just add complication to the process).

Well, the chap answered and seemed somewhat taken aback by my anxiety at the fact that I didn't know who he was, where my car was or why it didn't arrive when he said it would (the cheek of me eh?).

Apparently he hadn't been given a delivery address (bollocks) so just took it back to his unit instead. Why in gods name you would pick up a car you didn't know where to take, is beyond me. I'm no transportation expert but it seems a destination address would be one of the first things to ask for. Such is life.

There seemed zero point in getting worked up by this as it wouldn't change much. I made sure it was safe, made sure he had insurance (again he seemed insulted that I asked) and gave him the address to where I wanted the car delivered. I also gave him implicit instructions to phone me when he was half an hour away, so I could dash home to unload etc.

Again, the next day I was checking my phone every 4 minutes, waiting for the equivalent of santa claus to ring and say its Christmas morning. To say the day dragged on would be an understatement.

5:00pm rolled around and I'm getting increasingly nervous, with friends texting me every few hours too see if the car arrived. No car, no transporter, no 8 year olds 20 year old dream.

aAfew hours later I got a phone call. Apparently the low loader they use to transport "sports cars" (his words) was being used and as such, will be delivered tomorrow. Now, this is about the time I thought about calling his mother a hamster and telling him his father smelled like elderberries, but it wouldn't solve anything or get my car quicker. So more waiting.

The next day, on my lunch hour I got this view:



what sucks is, I had enough time to unload it, sign off the car wasn't damaged and put it in the garage before I had to get back to work. That was THE longest afternoon I can remember..

[hkz286]

so yeah, at work staring at these all afternoon:



At first I couldn't figure out why the remote was so big and why it didn't work (even after ew battery etc).

Turns out that It wasn't radio but infrared, and you have to point it at the sensor to get it to work, from about 3 inches away. The crazy Japanese :P (it took me weeks to figure this out)

Apparently it was only an option in 91 and soon got replaced by a standard central locking remote that wasn't hewn from granite.

So after a few days off getting to know the car, I figured out what needed doing and how soon.

first up was an oil and filter, obviously.



there are two types of oil filter for my car from Honda, the tall ones, and the short ones. Honda don't do tall ones anymore, and being that a larger filter area can hardly be a bad thing, I chose to use a MAHLE filter instead (oem to some big german companies). It arrived under MANN branding, bar a small sticker on the box and filter stating it was MAHLE. Add to that some Mobil 1 (which was a bit thick) but rather have thick oil, than old oil. Besides it was at the height of summer so wouldn't do any harm (a barmy 70f :P)



upon driving the car, the comically small steering wheel made it pretty bad experience (no power steering on early models) coupled with federal 595 rsr tyres (semi slicks) and my puny noodle arms couldn't move it. So in went a personal wheel:



actual in went a old nardi at first, but no pictures, so it didn't happen :P

I also had to do something about this mess (you can just see the nardi in this picture):

[hkz286]

The next thing was to lower it back to a normal height and get the alignment done. The roads around my area are pretty awful with speedbumps. So to ensure I didn't scrape, I went and measured the height of the largest speedbump I could find and set the height to clear that.

Also the stock suspension arms don't really allow enough alignment adjustment to allow for the car to go super low without some funky alignment settings.

So anyways, to make sure I was paying for alignment and not for un-seizing bolts, I went over everything to make sure nothing was stuck. I also took out all the bolts and gave them a good covering in surprisingly expensive mil spec silicone grease (I kid you not, mil spec grease :P)



much to my surprise, the front caster arms were not seized. If you know anything about the car, they pretty much seized solid a few days out of the factory, so to have them loose is really quite rare. Again, a testament to the previous owners treatment of the car (and climate presumably).



again they got a good greasing to prevent it happening in the future :P

so after all this it looked like this:



I know it could be lower, but I can literally drive it anywhere and know that my incredibly expensive lip will survive :P

[emanuelparedes]

Sweet baby Jesus, your car looks soooooo damn good. Subscribed!

[cblock406]

Great read so far! Sweet nsx!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[hkz286]

Sweet baby Jesus, your car looks soooooo damn good. Subscribed!

Great read so far! Sweet nsx!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

thanks chaps

there's loads to update but just need to sit down and sort through photos

so onto the centre console butchery:




There was a few options I could of done. By a new OEM one and stick with the OEM stereo. Not really my thing.

Buy a cheap aftermarket fibreglass one (I say cheap, they are like $300) however they warp and you have to cut out the hole for the stereo yourself.

Buy an expensive one, which is a direct bolt in, but its like $1000.

So I did the only sensible thing and fix the one I had. The previous owner even had to cut up the stock ashtray to fit the double din unit. So that was scrap. I could replace it, but considering this car would never see ash I didn't really see the point. The 12v socket is integrated into the ash tray though and they do come in useful occasionally so decided I need to retain something to charge my phone etc.

You can also see a little vent in the bottom left of that picture. This is for the aspirator fan, which is part of the air conditioning system. This fan mounts to the ash tray so will need to work out how to retain the fan and get rid of the ashtray. Now considering the average temperature of England is about 40f, air conditioning is not really needed. But for the 2 or 3 days we get of summer, I want it working dammit!

so started by cleaning up what I already had using a JCB :P.





then introducing some plastic to actually work with, I didn't want to fibreglass the entire thing as it tends to warp unless you use a lot. So some ABS plate was used along with the stereo surround of my Clarion Head unit:





marking up some of the stuff I wanted to fit:




cut out for the stereo and gauge controller:




more holes cut for gauges and filler primed:




the alarm LED needs to be relocated to the centre console (will explain later) and decided to countersink it to make it a bit neater:








now in primer:




mock up with gauges and base coat:


support plate for the gauge controller bent up and in primer:




with the 12v USB ports and 1 music usb port:







fitted the USB ports:




and fitted, this is finished in black texture coat. The stock console is painted in a metallic bronze which I didn't particularly like. I think if I painted it the OEM colour it would look too "aftermarket" if you get me? I think the black texture coat sort of dums down the fact I stuck a load of gauges in it :P



the keen eyed amongst you will see the blue light on the USB ports, the rest of the console gauges are green, so out it came...



and




I also put on an OEM Honda connector, I can connect it to the stock 12v wiring without having to cut anything up, here is a picture:



you have to be really careful before you decide to cut anything on the car as finding a replacement is not only a nightmare, but tends to cost a huge amount of money :S


wrapped all the edges in anti rattle foam:




and all together:






now all this looks simple in text, the reality however is that is took an insane amount of hours to complete. I stopped counting at 20 :P

I chopped and changed the head unit about, that's why its different in pictures. I had to make an adjustable bracket up to mount the headunit, that's why it looks a little "sunken" in the photos as its not in its final position yet.

[Nagah]

Oh, I always had a sweet spot for NSX and yours looks technichally mint (at least from below).

Also I understand the load of work needed to fabricate parts like your center console, however it looks still a bit DIY. I think a nice layer of alcantara would fix that. What do you think?

[nishy]

That's a beautiful car and a very nice fix on the center console, but I have one question... why censor your key?

[hkz286]

Oh, I always had a sweet spot for NSX and yours looks technichally mint (at least from below).

Also I understand the load of work needed to fabricate parts like your center console, however it looks still a bit DIY. I think a nice layer of alcantara would fix that. What do you think?

thanks bud to be fair in the photos it does look at bit that way in the light but in real life its a lot less "shiny" and matches the rest of the OEM black texture spot on

That's a beautiful car and a very nice fix on the center console, but I have one question... why censor your key?

thanks lol erm unreasonable paranoia? :P

[Nagah]

By the way! Bitch! I seriously was over that phase longing over an NSX because they already gotten pretty expensive in Germany.

And now what now? I got the hots for it again...

[hkz286]

By the way! Bitch! I seriously was over that phase longing over an NSX because they already gotten pretty expensive in Germany.

And now what now? I got the hots for it again...

lol well to help ease the pain, here was a shot taken shortly after the above work was done at a cars and coffee meet :P



Moving on I wanted to fit a few more gauges and without the real estate available i had to come up with something.

Most people tend the fit the optional sat nav pod, however its a bit big and cumbersome and doesnt really flow well with the dash:




There are a few japanese companies that produce gauge pods but it replaces your centre vents and are expensive when you factor in shipping, import duty, tax etc however if i lived in japan i would just buy one as they are relative cheap for what you get.

so i decided to make one.

This is what i started with, because the nsx dash is so flat, this lines up quite well.




However there are a few features that need changing. Mostly the duck bill type cover on the top.

bleugh.




That's better, all smooth and radiused.




Also, as with the centre console, i wanted to flush mount the gauges as i think it looks a bit nicer.

In order to do this i needed to thicknen up the front face of the gauge mount.

made up a few of these:




you see what im getting at:




and fitted:




details are somewhat sketch after this for some reason, maybe i forgot to bring my camera? anyways it ended up like this:



Right before you say it, i know the wire coming out the side is not ideal. But ill be damned if I'm going to drill a hole in my dash just for some aftermarket gauges. Its run out of site after the dash so there is only an inch or so showing, plus its installed with a grommet and techflex so it looks neat. Everything's a compromise right?

and here they are starting up

http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v311/6453/NSX/Gauges/20160506_200505_zpsyem1jzps.mp4

and some interior shots with the new wheel etc

[DeltaAlpha9]

When I read the title I was expecting an EG with the bumper hanging off but this is quite the surprise. Nice job on the center console. It really looks like it blends nicely with the rest of the interior.

[hkz286]

When I read the title I was expecting an EG with the bumper hanging off but this is quite the surprise. Nice job on the center console. It really looks like it blends nicely with the rest of the interior.

cheers bud

yeah lol thought it would attract less attention with the title. Most non Honda people wouldn't bother to look

anyways, a few details i sort of glossed over on the steering wheel.

like i said i replaced the Nardi with my new Personal Grinta steering wheel

I also had to replace the works bell boss with the shorter version (still works bell) because i also wanted to fit my NRG snap off boss.




I wanted to do something different with the fasteners, so i used some special aircraft fasteners (not strictly in the right application) that are made from titanium and have a flush front:





looks different, especially now they have been heat anodised