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

Started to work on another NSX from this week.
The service menu is to carry out the Eng Refresh and replace the LMA, install Bilstein damper, Cooling system refresh, etc.

I was hoping to take the Eng out of the car by now but unfortunately, due to my injury, couldn’t put full body weight on my left foot so had to be a slow progress.


On arrival of this NSX, noticed that the tyre looked at very low pressure and yes indeed, they were way too low for the street driving condition. They were like for the track day setting.




It was also using the aftermarket coolant header tank that one can’t check the coolant level with ease. In fact, when measured, it was way too low and quite worried about the air in the system and possible overheating situation when driven really hard especially after finding that the coolant was splashed out of the overflow tube as indicated by the yellow arrow.
The typical coolant leakage marking was observed on the starter motor body as well.


You don't want to use the jubilee clip style hose band on coolant hoses. The metal/plastic pipe, rubber hose, metal clip/band all have different sxpansion/contraction rate so it won't create good seal and eventually, the clip will chew into the rubber hose resulting in weak sealing.


For this reason, initially, I was planning to carry out the Eng Block test for head gasket health check but after confirming that there was very little air trapped at the heater core bleeder as well as at the upper tank of the radiator, I was happy to say there was very little chance of engine damage and just topped up the system with soft water.

The pressure setting of the tank cap is also bit higher than the OEM one. There is no benefit in doing so as OEM setting is already higher than ordinary production cars. You are just adding extra stress on the tank, coolant hoses, etc and shortening the life of the entire system.




In fact, from the state of the rubber seat, looks like it was tired and already not holding the pressure enough any way.....


Personally, I have never seen any aftermarket coolant tanks that were tested and designed better than the OEM one and thus, no point in using them.


Yes, OEM one is not perfect.
It will crack and turn into yellow custard cream like colour making it difficult to check the level but still, superior in chamber construction and air separation method so I always recommend using the OEM setup for this area.



With my left foot condition, couldn’t drive the car so no test driving for a few days and started with the Health Check service instead.




For some reason, the boot light didn’t work.
Haven’t tested the light bulb yet but I know some security devices are wired in a way causing this kind of phenomenon on several NSX so will look into this later.




This NSX is Targa model and the owner installed the meshed Eng bay cover.

The cover doesn’t sit properly against the bay frame due to thick spacer used at the hinge.
Unfortunately, it can’t be lowered as the cover is already hitting the bay frame even with the use of thick spacer. Needs to be like this on Targa model, I’m afraid.




Another example of more rust at the right side of the chassis…..