Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Maybe I'll just ship you my car and have you do it all for me :cheers:

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

I don't think I could handle the stress of two NSXs lol. :P

Anyways, film installation is going slowly but smoothly. So far the trunk, spoiler, passenger quarterpanel, roof, B-pillars, door handles, and passenger fender are done but I might decide to redo the roof since it was the first piece I installed and has some really jacked up edges. I've gotten the hang of the installation but I'm getting a few dust specs under the film and it's not enough to redo anything but enough to make me think about ways to avoid it.

Also, horrible news. I was wetsanding some touch up and sanded through to the primer on the fender. I'm debating between moving to South America and starting a new life, paying a shop to respray the whole front end and driver side door to take care of the door dings and road rash, or suicide. Looking back I'm not even sure how I managed to screw up that badly, I normally use a tiny 1"x1" or pencil erase sized sanding block since I can make sure I don't really touch anything but the touch up spot, but at the time I was using a FULL SIZE SANDING BLOCK. For touch up. I know better. Paint chip touch up wetsanding is routine for me at this point, I've done it many times in the past with zero issues, I have no idea what the FUCK I was thinking. I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of it, I feel like I'm gonna puke every time I look at the car.

Before resigning myself to a front end respray though I decided to give myself one shot at a temporary repair myself so I can push that down the road a ways and not eat ramen 3 meals a day for the next 6 months, because if a respray is on the table there's really nothing I can do to make it worse at this point short of going at it with 80 grit sandpaper or paint stripper.

So, I went down to Hobby Lobby and bought their entry level airbrush intended for spraying model airplanes and such. I have some touch up paint from automotivetouchup.com so I marked off an area about 2"x4" around the primer spot with masking tape and lightly airbrushed the touch up paint on. In the retrospect, feathering the edges would result in a better final look but initially I wasn't planning on using a clear coat, and I'm not going to redo it because I promised myself I'm only attempting it once and redos on spot repairs generally result in an even bigger spot. Anyways, the touch up went on well and after the initial polishing I found that rubbing alcohol dissolves the touch up paint and it is entirely unsuitable for use without a clear coat except for in tiny paint chips.

So, after lightly sanding the touch up spot with 2000 grit again to remove the damage caused by the alcohol, I went out to the shed in my back yard where I still have 3/4 gallon of catalyzed automotive urethane clear coat leftover from when I resprayed the Integra and mixed up about an ounce of it to shoot over the touch up spot. (This is real clear coat, if anyone needs a tiny amount of it for whatever reason and you don't want to pay $80+ for a whole gallon, let me know and I'd be happy to help, mailing a little glass bottle of activator and clear shouldn't cost more than a few bucks.) I marked off a spot about 2" from the edge of the touch up spot for the clear coat and airbrushed on 3 wet coats with 15 minutes flash time between each. At this point I've smoothed the edges of the repair into the factory paint and have wetsanded up to 3000 grit, I'm holding off for a week or so on the final polishing stages to let the clear coat harden more.

Overall the repair looks good given I did it in my garage with a $25 airbrush and a bottle of touch up paint, but I still hate it because it's 100% my fault the repair was needed in the first place. It would, however, be a great way to repair bumper scrapes yourself if you want to hold off on a respray and are willing to put a few hours into it.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

I will throw in my 2 cents and reccomend AGAINST that synchromesh fluid. Its the wrong viscosity and will wear out your input shaft bearings making them noisy in as little as a few months time. Honda MTF all the way, in all situations.

And yes I also reccomend buying aftermarket stereo equipment. The OEM stereo is...a stock stereo, forget this is an NSX, its as standard as the steering wheel. The OEM stereo sucked, Trump's wife even said so :)

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

I ended up using Honda MTF when I changed the transmission fluid last December.

Most of the problems I was having with the stock stereo were due to static in the volume knob, spinning it back and forth with pressure on it fixed it. Most of my driving is done with the windows down so I can barely hear the stereo anyways, so for now I'm just going to leave it.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Time for a long overdue update!

As most of you have probably noticed, Photobucket has cut off all 3rd party hosting after allowing it for 14 years and literally billions of images, unless you're willing to pay $400/year, which is absolutely insane. So, I bit the bullet and did something I've been meaning to do for a while now and bought my own personal domain along with 100GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. In my industry (software) having it for git repositores, resumes, etc. is a good thing anyways so as long as I keep paying for my domain the images will stay up.

Anyways, about the car. I can barely stay awake right now so if I ramble, I apologize in advance.

I pulled the vents off to wrap them and while removing the inserts, noticed that the studs with the push nuts is just about the perfect size to thread an M3 die onto, so I did. Nobody will ever see this again but it makes me happy. :-)

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2079.jpg

Vent insert reinstalled with two M3 locknuts and washers instead of the crappy push nuts that work themselves loose and rattle a bit.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2086.jpg

You can see here that the weird oxidization or whatever it is on the front bumper came back despite being coated in synthetic wax and rarely exposed to the sun, so I wetsanded some more, polished, and wrapped it.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2083.jpg

I cleared out my living room to use it as an extension of the garage, one of the perks/downsides of living alone. In the process of prepping the side skirts for wrapping here, speaking of which, does anyone have any suggestions for replacing the adhesive used to keep the side step panels on?

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2092.jpg

And with everything put back together. At this point I just have the doors and the hood left before the car is completely wrapped in PPF.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2095.jpg

The edges of the rubber parts around the windows were tearing from old age, since I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to replace them just yet (though I probably will eventually) I instead just cut the frayed parts off. The unintended and unforeseen result of this is a bit of wind noise though, so I'm not sure if it was worth it. What I should have done was just cut the minimum off to get rid of the tears rather than trying to make it look as clean as possible, but it looks better now and I drive with the windows down 90% of the time so I can deal with it for now.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2128.jpg

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2129.jpg

I also finally got around to replacing this trim piece on top of the windshield. Cleaning out the groove it sits in was a royal pain in the butt since they use that awful dark grey adhesive that just doesn't come off unless you use powerful solvents that ruin the paint. After scraping it all out and installing the new trim pieces it turned out pretty well though.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2141.jpg

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2146.jpg

After doing some research on the fender liner clips I came across some threads talking about the Auveco parts that nearly perfectly match the OEM clips for a fraction of the price, and since most of my clips were falling apart from old age I bought two boxes of 25 (after ordering the wrong ones first...) and replaced all of them in one go.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2145.jpg

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2152.jpg

The little triangle piece where the door handle meats the door panel was lifting up on both doors, so I put a tiny dab of superglue underneath it and stuck it back down, working perfectly so far. (excuse the extremely dirty car)

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2155.jpg

I went to lunch with a very tall coworker and he put the seat back all the way and kept the switch held down until the motor stopped working. :-( To troubleshoot it, I checked the fuse which was good, checked for power at the seat connector which was good, checked for power at the recline switch was good, checked the recline switch to make sure it still worked, so after all that it had to be either the wires running to the motor or the recline motor itself. This sucks because the recline motor is inside the bolster and you have to remove almost everything to get to it. All those hours spent in electonics lab in college debugging circuit boards are finally paying off I guess.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2417.jpg

After testing the motor plug for power which was good, I removed the motor can and inspected the innards. Turns out that one of the brushes had gotten so hot that it stuck to the track it sits in, which caused it to lose contact with the commutator. Fortunately the plastic wasn't melted except for the tiny spot, so after tapping the brush free I greased the tracks with dielectric grease and reassembled the motor and all was good. I just have to make sure he doesn't sit in my car anymore.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2418.jpg

And finally, something interesting. After taking the car to a tire shop about the noisy front end, I was informed that the tires are cupping due to worn shocks. I didn't realize it until then because I hadn't spent enough time in other NSXs to know better, but after having it pointed out to me it made sense. The front end was a bit bouncy and would get squirrelly on uneven roads while cornering. So, I started looking into replacement shocks. I'm trying to keep the car mostly stock in terms of performance and feel so I started looking into stock and similar shocks, but I also wanted the car a bit lower since the wheel gap from the factory is ridiculous, and the Bilsteins offered both of those at a cheaper price point and with a better warranty than stock, so I ordered them up on TireRack.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2426.jpg

The only rust I've found anywhere on this car was at the very top of the shock absorber assembly where the lock nut holds the top hats on, the allen key stripped out within seconds of attempting to remove the bolt, so rather than try to cut it off I fired up the compressor and zipped it off with my impact gun. Worked extremely well, actually.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2443.jpg

I also went ahead and replaced the clips holding the cowl cover on, remember the wrong clips I ordered? They happened to be exactly the right ones for this.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2444.jpg

Anyways, some quick glamor shots of the new ride height.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2446.jpg

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2452.jpg

One last thing, warning to anyone using Bilstein shocks, DO NOT USE THE BRAKE LINE MOUNT ON THE FRONT SHOCK TUBE. With the steering wheel locked to each side they put tension on the brake lines which is a huge risk, just zip tie it to the shock body. This photo is with the brake line on the inside of the shock but with it on the outside you still have the same problem. I ended up using zip ties.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2432.jpg

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Man, i can't get over what a gorgeous car that is.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Great work man, seriously impressed with the attention to detail. Also, how is the ride with new shocks in comparison to the old blown ones?

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

When it comes to performance driving I'm absolutely terrible (although I have signed up for a performance driving school event next month at Texas World Speedway, so in a few years I might be able to answer that better lol) but I'll try to answer. With the original shocks (date stamp 1993 :thud:) the front end would be constantly bouncing a bit all the time, more of a shudder than a bounce I suppose as it was barely noticeable, and when cornering hard the front end didn't feel very stable on even slightly uneven roads. With the new shocks the ride feels a bit stiffer but all of the bounciness is gone, the front end doesn't feel like it's about to lose traction and understeer as much in corners, and overall it feels much better to drive.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Fair enough, I would suggest looking into the condition of all the ball joints and tie rod ends. If they are all original likely by installing fresh ball joints you will notice a huge difference even in the light styled driving you are describing.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Had the chance to take some pictures with a friends 1993 RX7 last weekend after helping out with some detailing, another one of the best looking cars to come out of the 1990s IMO.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2503.jpg

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2509.jpg

I also had new tires mounted on the front wheels which finally fixed that annoying noise coming from the front end, and then had it aligned by SoulSpeed Performance here in Austin so I think that combined with new shocks has finally solved my tire wear issue.

Also, I've recently noticed the brake pedal feel is pretty bad (when holding the brake pedal for long periods of time it will slowly go to the floor sometimes, but other times it's perfectly firm) and I think it might be due to the brake system not being flushed and bled properly at the dealership I bought the car from. It wouldn't surprise me, they haven't seemed very competent with anything else they did with this car. So, since the car is nearing 25, I decided to go ahead and refresh the whole brake system and replace the hoses with new OEM hoses, disassemble calipers and have them powder coated gloss black, and then rebuild them with new OEM seal kits. I had seen a few posts about having to buy the rear caliper seals separately since the kits are discontinued but I just ordered two rebuild kits on Amayama where they are still available. I'm planning on doing a full write up and/or video of the whole rebuild process if anyone is interested, there isn't really a single tutorial that has everything in good quality that I've found, and since these calipers are built almost identically to every other Honda caliper it should be helpful to everyone with a Civic/Integra/Prelude/whatever too.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2526.jpg

And I just bought a Pride V1 exhaust since one showed up in the marketplace on NSXPrime for a good price. Over the past month this has shifted from "OEM restoration" to "whatever I feel like doing", not that I'm complaining... I'll still hold onto the stock parts in case I ever have to sell, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, I like this car even more now than I did when I bought it.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Your master cylinder is about to go out. When your pedal starts to depress and fall to the floor the way you are describing it is your master brake cylinder.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

I just looked into it a bit and holy crap I think you're right, thank you for saying something!! If you're ever in Austin I'll buy you a beer, you might have just saved me from a potentially disastrous crash sometime down the road. :hugs:

Oh yeah and I checked out the ball joints and they're still nice and stiff, I think they should be fine for a while longer. I'm rather amazed at how long the Honda factory ball joints seem to last, the ball joints on the various 7th gen Civics we've had have lasted over 200,000 miles.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

i am loving the pics with the rx7!

i remember driving both of these cars (so to speak) on my computer playing the original need for speed back in like 7th grade or so lol

by the way, thanks for the new background on my computer at work!

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

No problem, when they go it sucks and an easy way to destroy a car. I mainly wanted to make sure you don't replace a bunch of brake stuff only to still have the same issue. The first time I had a failing master brake cylinder I went through the same process thinking bleeding the system, rebuilding calipers etc was what would fix it only to have to replace the cylinder and re-bleed. Keep this pictures coming!

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

That RX7 was sweet, the motor had been swapped for a basically new one recently so it only had a few thousand miles on it. My buddy let me drive it a bit and there's just nothing else like a turbo rotary screaming away at 8500rpm. The previous owner had neglected the paint pretty badly but shortly before these pictures were taken I had helped him do a paint correction on it and it looked like a whole different car. Prudz_lude knows this already after how well his Integra turned out (we need updates on that BTW ;) ) but it's really incredible/surprising what you can do with a DA buffer and some time.

I should have pictures of the redone brakes and an exhaust video in the next week or two, but after that I'm expecting it to be pretty slow. I've almost gotten the car to where I want it for the time being (short of new wheels but that is a long ways off at this point, I might get the stock ones refinished though) so I'm looking forward to just driving it without worry for a while.

Also, I moved all the images over to my own site and edited past posts so this thread is now 100% Photo(shit)bucket-free and the images should all be working again. Oh and if anyone isn't aware, there are browser extensions to get around photobuckets ban on hotlinking, I'm using one called "Photobucket Hotlink Fix" in Google chrome and it's working great, just make sure to clear out your browsing cache to make it take effect otherwise you'll see cached copies of the photobucket warning thing instead of the actual image.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Sorry if this has been asked previously, but, come come NSX doesnt have braided hoses on brakes? :P
I mean, how come you didn't changed them? Btw, nice car, really nice thread!
Subscribed!

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

I actually bought a set of braided Stoptech hoses, then changed my mind, sold them, and paid more for a set of OEM lines.

According to my research, the benefits of braided brake lines are dubious at best for a street car and they need to be replaced every few years, even the ones with a protective coating over the braid like the StopTechs I had. I also found that reports of failed SS brake hoses made by reputable manufacturers are fairly widespread while reported failures in OEM rubber hoses are almost nonexistent. It's pretty clear that OEM rubber brake lines are the way to go for reliability and to me, the marginal improvement in pedal feel offered by SS hoses simply isn't worth it.

Replacing SS lines every few years would likely be fine, but I'd rather install OEM lines and forget about them for another 20 years.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

After getting quotes from powder coating shops of $300 - $400 to coat the calipers glossy black, I decided to do it myself. So I went on down to Harbor Freight and picked up a media blaster, 25lbs of glass beads, and a powder coating machine, then I ordered a pound of gloss black and a pound of clear powder, and finally I dropped by target and picked up some long cleaning gloves and a plastic storage box. Grand total of about $175.

After some trial and error (there's a hole covered in packing tape on the other side of the box where I messed up) I ended up with this ghetto media blasting rig, I put the OEM car cover over the car during this ordeal so no blasting media dust can get on it. It actually works pretty well aside from being cramped, most of the blasting media settles at the bottom of the box and can be poured out and reused, but the shop vac keeps the box negatively pressurized so dust doesn't go everywhere and also makes it so the gaps don't spew dust.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2558.jpg

Prepping the caliper for blasting. I put the old seals back in so I can blast right up to them without worry, it doesn't matter if a bit of media gets in the calipers, I'll be cleaning them out before reassembly.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2560.jpg

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2561.jpg

Front calipers and brackets blasted and ready for coating.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2562.jpg

My powder hasn't been delivered yet, but when it does I'll post pictures of the final results. If it turns out well I might do a few sets for other people to get my money back for the blasting and coating equipment.

Oh and my exhaust showed up, but now I just have to look at it until my brake master cylinder shows up, and of course it's backordered in the US. :mad: At this rate it will probably be September before I actually get to drive the car again.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2556.jpg

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

I didn't have much time this weekend since I was in college station for a track driving school event, but I was able to finish up the powdercoating on the brackets and they turned out great! There are a few tiny imperfections if you look closely but none are visible from the front, and overall the process was much easier than I had expected. Now to start on the calipers themselves, I need to reblast them because I put them in the oven to outgas which caused them to build up some surface rust. When I put them in the oven they were dry, and when I checked on them a few minutes later the surface had little droplets of liquid all over it, so I guess it came from the caliper?

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2594.jpg

The rest of my brake parts are supposed to be here this week so hopefully the car will be back on the road sometime this weekend.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

subd to see pics later cant see them on this work pc ehh

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Damn those turned out nice.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

How long was the time period between blasting and PC?

At work when we have parts blasted we can wait a maximum of 48 hours before they'll need to be blasted again. Basically you're blasting down to raw metal (removal of any mill scale or other coatings preventing rust) so basically surface oxidation starts immediately. Another thing to note is that when you blast, you want to handle the product with latex gloves to protect the material from any oil and residue, even from your skin, which will prevent adhesion of paint/powdercoat. The material acts like a sponge and will absorb anything at that point. It's basically best to blast, clean/remove any blast residue and then PC/paint ASAP.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

Have you ever drove car with braided brake hoses? Btw, yes, it's true, there are few cases when they brake down, but only a few cases I know.

Anyway, i really like your OCD and commitment to NSX. Nice thread, and good luck.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

A couple days for some of the brackets, but hours for the calipers. If I have any issues I can just blast and recoat them.

​​​​​
I haven't, I'm sure pedal feel is better with them, and realistically I don't think I'd have any issues, but the marginal risk just isn't worth it for the marginal reward. I see lots of recommendations to replace them once a year or two and I'd rather just go with the OEM rubber lines and not worry about it for another 20 years. Also OEM parts tend to be better for retaining value.

Anyways, actual updates.

I'm pretty happy with the way the calipers came out, the 3 coat (2 black, 1 clear) process was a pain but worth it. The results look great and I've never seen them done this way on this car before.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2601.jpg

Also bolted up the exhaust, it's a bit uneven so I might end up getting the adjustable hangers at some point, but for the time being I'll just live with it.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2606.jpg

I made the mistake of taking apart the rear caliper piston when I should have just blasted it out with brake cleaner. It has a snap ring holding in a stiff spring, so after thinking about it for a while I bought a sacrificial socket at AutoZone and hacked it up until I could use it to compress the spring while still having room to maneuver the snap ring into place. The calipers are the same on Integras, Civics, etc. so just leave the rear pistons alone, there aren't any seals to replace and you'll save yourselves a few hours of headache.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2614.jpg

I was able to get them back together though, so here they are bolted up with the new hose.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2632.jpg

Master cylinder replaced, surprisingly easy, just undo the two flare nut fittings and remove the 2 bolts holding it to the firewall.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2637.jpg

Car reassembled, I really like the way they came out. Subtle but nice looking.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2641.jpg

Also replaced the cracked overflow tank.

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2647.jpg

http://johnwalterpowell.com/projects...x/IMG_2648.jpg

Here's a quick video of a 1-2 pull with the Pride V1 exhaust, it's a bit annoying just driving around town and downright obnoxious in parking garages but we all know that WOT at redline is all that really matters.

Re: 1994 NSX #41
 

oohhh i do enjoy that sound!