NSX Health Check Service

[Kaz-kzukNA1]

Hi, all.

In March, I was in Japan for a while for business meetings and I brought back many parts with me for some of the owners as well as for my NSX.

This week, I decided to install the ABS upgrade kit and the aftermarket headers from KSP Engineering Japan.


1. ABS upgrade
It was a good timing as my brake fluid was about one year old and time to be replaced along with the ABS flushing.

During my visit to Japan, I was lucky enough to compare several different spec NSXs.

After comparing the old and new ABS on the same day at skid pad and down slope covered in snow, I can comfortably say that the latest ABS should be on all of the NSX.

This latest ABS module is nothing special compared to the ones on most of the modern production cars with ABS. You can find the same/similar ABS module on lots of them and it’s just the software setup being different.

This means that the old ABS is simply not up to the modern technology and in my personal opinion, there is a big design issue with the original ABS.

After the ABS was activated a few times, it will loose the stand-by pressure inside the accumulator and the ABS pump will kick in to restore the lost pressure.

If the ABS pump was triggered while the driver was applying the brake and locked the wheels, there is not enough pressure to kick back the brake pedal and thus, the tyres would be continuously locked unless the driver was able to manually lift the brake pedal for a while.

As you can imagine, most of the time, the ABS would be triggered under panic situation and it would be very difficult for most of the drivers to release the brake pedal under this condition.

If you have the opportunity to test the old and new ABS on a long-long down slope covered in snow or at the skid pad, you will find out the huge difference immediately.

During the test session with the old ABS, even it was well serviced and in perfect working order, the ABS pump kept operating for ages with the brake pedal to the floor with no kick back and the car was sliding down the slope with no steer as the tyres were all locked. You would need to release the brake pedal to act as a human ABS.

With the latest ABS, nothing like above happened and it was just so comfortable applying the brake under the same condition while turning the car through the down slope corner.


For me, the latest ABS is like the investment for the future. With the latest ABS, I may be able to stop my NSX before hitting something whereas with the old one, I will pray for the luck but probably end up with hitting the object.

So, started to work on my NSX…

The bulky and heavy original ABS system VS the new one.

Quite surprised with the weight of the old system when I tried to remove it out of the front compartment. The new ABS is very simple and light. The wiring is also very simple as the controller is now integrated into one package with the ABS modulator.


The most time consuming part is the removal and installation of the brake pipes. It's like dealing with lots of spaghetti.


With the new ABS, there is a Proportioning Valve for the Rear brake pressure.