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

Normally, I prefer not to drive the car after washing it before
the owner visits my place for collection.

At the same time, I don’t want to drive someone’s NSX in the traffic so
for this NSX, I had to wash it yesterday and then carry out the
test driving session this morning in order to check the ABS before
the owner visits me in the afternoon.







So, tried to start the engine and the cranking speed was way too slow even the
battery was fully charged overnight using the battery conditioner.

Now I understood why the cranking speed was bit slow at the petrol station when
I fired up the engine after refuelling this NSX.



It’s an internal battery failure so that the battery will take charge to its full capacity but
as soon as you apply the load, it can’t provide enough current and thus, the voltage will
drop significantly like below 9V.


I have seen this failure mode on other aftermarket batteries that you can buy from
your local car parts places but this is the first time for me to experience this on
Honda battery.

I thought it was manufactured by Yuasa but since it’s manufactured in France,
I don’t know which manufacture is making the battery for Honda European markets.


Any way, by coincidence, I replaced my battery at exactly the same
timing as this owner.
It was replaced in June 2011.


So, I decided to swap the battery between the two NSX.


The owner’s NSX fired up with ease as it should be and as I disconnected the
battery, once again, went through the ‘reset ECU’ procedure to re-learn all of
the fuel timer coefficient values.


To confirm the battery failure, connected the suspected battery on my NSX and
I had exactly the same issue.



I’m not 100% sure whether the issue on the owner’s NSX was just simply a
battery internal failure or not because there has to be a reason on why it failed.


Interesting thing is, because of the low fuel level, this NSX was not even driven on
the road since the owner left it at my place and only fired up the engine several times
before this issue immerged when I decided to drive to refuel the car.

Also, the owner experienced just one occasion of complete loss of battery power over
the last 15 months (may be a sign of failure but since then, covered so many miles???)
and other than that, no issues at all.



As Honda battery is covered by 3years warranty, contacted Honda but unfortunately,
their parts department was closed over the weekend so will get back to them on Monday.


As it was June 2011, I no longer have the receipt but I hope they can replace it
at free of charge and also fairly quickly as my NSX is going to sit inside the garage
without the battery for a while.

I have three used batteries in my garage that I use for jump starting purpose but
as they are all very old, I don’t fancy using it for driving the car.



I was planning to start working on the MX-5 from Monday but needs to be bit
careful about the timing if the replacement battery for my NSX is going to take
some time…..



As this is NSXCB site, I won’t post too much detail of MX5 engine refresh so
the Blog will be very quiet for a while….



Thank you for using my service and hope you will keep enjoying your NSX.


Kaz