Welcome back to the blog, today we’re going to be looking at brakes, suspension and wheels for our lovely little NSX.
Progress is coming along swimmingly with our rental race car and now with the M4’s priority being maintenance we can stay focused on the task at hand. We can’t exactly sideline the rest of the work that needs doing but brakes and suspension is a huge thing to tick off the list.
You may or may not be aware that this NSX was once a race-car in its past life, seeing suspension and brake modification at one point or another. The car originally came on on Tein coilovers, an older style that probably more than suited the car in its past life. As well as this the car came on absolutely no brakes what-so-ever, which isn’t inconvenient as everything was going to be replaced anyway.
Once again the awesome guys at Yellow Speed Racing are dipping their toes in and helping us out with this project. Much like the M4 we’ll be harnessing their big brake kit on all four corners, on top of this we’ll be refreshing the suspension with some tailor made coilovers built to handle the toils of endurance racing.
Needless to say endurance really does test all the capabilities of a car, new or old, it can certainly make or break a build.
This hasn’t been without its issues though, but this is the trials and tribulations of any build. We addressed wheel quite a while back, if you aren’t aware we had a gorgeous set of Enkei RPF1’s. Usually these are great for clearance and in any other instance they would be, but this sadly hasn’t been the case for this car. In terms of fitting the bodywork of the car, clearing suspension and being the correct fitment these were initially fine. The straw that broke the camels back in this instance was the BBK calipers, we weren’t keen on running spacers so wheels has had to return to the to do list. This does mean we can run Pagid Racing RS29 endurance pads, which should make a huge difference on track.
Minor clearance issues have been found in the factory control arms, this is due to the new coilovers being of a piggy back reservoir design. With the M4 the design was pigtailed, meaning we has a line running from the shock to the main reservoir – this let us place the reservoir in the bay as there was little room. The advantage this time around is that each coilover is easily removable as one piece if the need arises, and be it minimal you could also see it as a weight-saving.
So to accommodate the new suspension some mild works been done on the front upper A-arms, then the coilovers when in no problem.
The whole set up is a far cry from what it used to be, but definitely in the right direction for the cars intended purpose. From Tein street suspension to Yellow Speed Racing motorsport suspension, and AP Racing 4 piston calipers to massive Yellow Speed Racing 6 pots.
In time, the car will be refitted with Yellow Speed Racing air-jacks. A very convenient modification that just eases the quality of life for the car in the pits or in the shop. A simple and effective solution to an issue that could cost you the lead, plus jacking cars up are a lot of effort.
While it’s back to the drawing board for now with some parts, we’re very happy with the progress made so far. Having suspension and brakes ticked off is a big portion of the work, we’re quite thankful that the process (minus the wheels) has been this easy. We’ll be showing off a huge step next time, CN Signs are coming down to wrap the NSX and then its off to the exhaust shop for a custom setup for the K-Series.
That wraps it up for the moment, thanks for reading and we’ll be sure to put out another one soon. It’s great that people a being so enthusiastic about the build, seeing an NSX these days is special enough – let alone one on track. A very special thanks to Yellow Speed Racing for their input here, it’s greatly appreciated. Lastly the usual gallery link is just below here if you want to Flickr (get it?) through the whole story.
