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

Eng Refresh Stage 1 + LMA 15

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by
Kaz-kzukNA1
, 07-09-2012 at 12:12 PM (3314 Views)



Super busy as usual and addition to other projects,
my boss is now in Japan until early November so
I need to look after the house as well which makes it even
harder to find my spare time….






Not much to report while replacing all of the coolant hoses……
Three hoses at the centre floor panel replaced.
New aluminium gaskets installed at the two draining plugs.
Another question mark on the build quality of NSX parts these days......

This time, the coolant hose at the lower radiator side had extra rubber moulded.

It didn’t cause any issues so I just used it but since the production of NSX stopped,
we started to see lots of quality issues with the NSX parts.

For example, the accuracy of some of the transmission parts, head light beam adjuster,
coolant hoses, latest ABS modulator, etc.






All of the hoses at the front compartment replaced.
Several pipe corrosion were observed but
not too bad compared to the ones at the engine bay.



So, all of the coolant hoses are now replaced.







As mentioned many times, radiator is a consumable.

This one is showing sign of slow leakage.

Should be fine for a while but at some point, please replace it.

Already several owners experienced sudden crack/leakage especially at the
right lower coolant hose neck at the radiator.
The heavily corroded CAT stud bolts.

As the flange section was also heavily corroded and even getting thin,
I was too scared to use excessive heat or punching them out as
I could bend or break the flange.

So, decided to cut them off using the metal cutting disc and slowly drilling them out.

One down, two to go.


Hope I can put the engine back in place over the weekend.

Kaz

Updated 24-09-2012 at 10:05 AM by Kaz-kzukNA1 (Revised blog category.)

Categories
Eng Refresh Stage 1 + LMA

Comments

  1. britlude's Avatar
    just to add to this, i'm one of those that suffered a sudden radiator failure.

    looking at the radiator picture, it's pretty much where mine split. the 'castellations' are where the aluminuim radiator core is crimped over the plastic end caps/tanks.

    in my case, the split was along the 'crease' in the plastic tank where the tank is moulded to form the flange the aluminium is crimped to. in effect the flange was breaking off.

    not scaremongering, just adding to the knowledge base!
  2. greenberet's Avatar
    If the quality of replacement parts is dropping, it’s a more difficult decision whether to carry out a wholesale replacement of parts on the car just because they’re old or whether it’s better to stick to the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

    Have you noticed that the quality of the seals is dropping as well? I was planning on replacing lots of seals in my NSX because they’re old, not because they’re leaking.
  3. Kaz-kzukNA1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by britlude
    just to add to this, i'm one of those that suffered a sudden radiator failure.

    looking at the radiator picture, it's pretty much where mine split. the 'castellations' are where the aluminuim radiator core is crimped over the plastic end caps/tanks.

    in my case, the split was along the 'crease' in the plastic tank where the tank is moulded to form the flange the aluminium is crimped to. in effect the flange was breaking off.

    not scaremongering, just adding to the knowledge base!
    Hi, britlude.

    Thank you for sharing your experience.

    Unlike the ordinary production cars, on our NSX, the hot coolant enters the radiator from the bottom side so the thermal shock will be always at the lower section and thus, it will almost likely to crack at the bottom side of the radiator.

    The OEM one is just a recycled aluminium with plastic pieces crimped at the top and bottom sections so sooner or later, it will crack or leak.

    If replacing and if you want OEM parts, always use the one for NA2 because it is compatible on NA1 and cheaper than the NA1 one.

    If going for the aftermarket, Koyo USA designed all aluminium one for NSX and very good quality.
    Koyo Japan radiator is very popular among the aftermarket parts world for OE quality and also several racing teams are using them for custom made radiator.

    Not sure about the reason but despite Koyo Japan manufactued multiple return radiator for some of the NSX specialists in Japan, they don't list the reasonably priced one designed by their USA office.....

    Next time when I am going to replace mine, I’ll probably go for the all aluminium Koyo one.

    Kaz
  4. Kaz-kzukNA1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by greenberet
    If the quality of replacement parts is dropping, it’s a more difficult decision whether to carry out a wholesale replacement of parts on the car just because they’re old or whether it’s better to stick to the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

    Have you noticed that the quality of the seals is dropping as well? I was planning on replacing lots of seals in my NSX because they’re old, not because they’re leaking.
    Hi, greenberet.

    Probably, it’s because of my background but on some of the parts, if they are known to fail, I’ll replace (fix) them before it fails (broke).
    You can’t win the race by replacing the parts but you could lose by not doing so.

    The build quality of some of the NSX parts or the ones for any cars no longer being in production is getting serious concern.

    I always check the ones that I heard previous problem immediately after the delivery but still, some of them won’t be noticed until at the time of installation or even worse, until after the whole package containing the defect parts mounted on the car.

    Not sure what kind of seals you are referring to but so far, I’m not aware of any engine/trans/brake seals quality issue.

    Kaz
    Updated 12-09-2012 at 11:47 PM by Kaz-kzukNA1 (typo)