Today at Atelier Kaz - ex-Honda R&D, F1, Indy/CART engineer

that things just don’t go as planned.....



Whenever I work on the brake or inside the wheel arch, I normally
power wash the area before starting the service.
However, for this NSX, the paintwork, wheel, tyre and wheel arch looked
very clean even after the test driving session so decided not to wash it.

Bad idea.



I couldn't even see the base of brake hard line or the hex fitting.
There were lots and lots of sand, coating, etc.

After removing some of the dirty bits, finally managed to access the fitting
and this was when I took the photo.



Before opening it, had to clean the area thoroughly and finally,
managed to remove the brake hose.
One down, three more to go.... All these dirty bits on my garage floor....
As my background is F1, I can't stand the dirty workshop floor....





After draining the coolant from the radiator and centre pipes,
it was time to open the bleeder plugs at the cyl block.

Immediately, I felt that they were very tight.
It was so tight that both plugs started to rotate together with the
base fitting.
This means that I won’t be able to attach the drain tube before
the coolant starts draining but instead, it will just splash out.

Although I was prepared and had protection for my head and eyes,
still managed to splash the rusty (coolant like) fluid on my face...
Not nice....

Wet floor.... Not good.....

And I need new aluminium gaskets then....
Hope they are in stock....

Probably someone just tightened these without knowing the spec or
used the wrong torque figure.
After this, I had to use breaker bar in order to separate the two so
it was that tight.



Started to overhaul the brake caliper and the grease at one of the
caliper slider pin was already dried out and inside was rusty.
It was already showing some marking. Has to be replaced.
Forgot to take the photo so will do it later.



Once again, it seemed to be common for the low mileage NSX to have
cooling system, brake, etc issues.

Addition to these, petrol is an organic compound so it will decay and
you will be circulating it through the fuel system including the tank,
INJ, pump, etc and eventually entering the cyl, O2 sensor, CAT section.

Even you don’t drive regularly, you must replace the engine oil, coolant, etc
and carry out the overhaul on several areas around the car regularly.

Engine is not a closed system.
After stopping the engine, some of the exhaust valves are kept open.
Therefore, air, moisture, etc can enter the engine and this will circulate
when you start the engine next time and engine oil will trap these.

From cooling performance point of view, it’s better to use plain water than
50% coolant.
It has no protection against corrosion so the compromise is the coolant.

However, the corrosion inhibitor won’t last forever and topping up the coolant
with water will dilute it resulting in shorter maintenance interval.

The opposite is also not good at all.

Topping up with 100% coolant will increase the concentration resulting in
loss of thermal conductivity and could cause serious cooling issue.






For regular street driving, you should consider overhauling the
brake caliper every time when you replace the brake pad or every 3 years
whichever comes first.

If not using your NSX regularly, every 3 – 5 years would be a good idea.

And no need to mention the importance of brake fluid maintenance.


Once again, it was too late for the pistons on this NSX....
They were neglected for many years and despite the super low mileage,
I couldn’t push them back into the caliper body even for 0.5mm.
Just stuck where they were.


Apart from one of the piston, all of them were not possible to be re-used
due to rust pitting the surface.

The rust already entered the caliper bore and just stopping before the
edge of the piston seal.
I’ll clean as much as possible but next time, best to have these chemically
treated or replace them with the re-manufactured one.

Brake is one of the most important thing on any cars.


Time to take some rest and do shopping for some food.

Kaz