Rennlist - Porsche Discussion Forums - The OFFICIAL GT3 Touring owners pictures thread..

Quote:

Originally Posted by GT4 981 (Post 19102986)

would love to here what you think about the NSX. A touring and NSX is a very cool combo! well done!

@GT4 981 I must admit that my garage lineup currently is with the picture shown below as I sold my 91 NSX to a good friend of mine to make space for the 997. I'm happy to give you my thoughts on the NSX anyway.

Of the cars that I've driven (outside of the more extreme Ariel Atom) the NA1 NSX and 997 GT3 are the two very best driving cars that I've experienced. They both offer what I'm looking for when I want to connect with a car and experience pure driving pleasure.

Suspension:
The NSX suspension setup is really special as they designed the front pivot arm to give compliance over bumps while still maintaining stiffness under braking. The suspension geometry and forged control arms are gorgeous and looking under the car it's immediately obvious that a lot of care went into designing the suspension to give a lot of camber under load (double wishbones), but the stock suspension is setup too softly and has too much body roll. It really needs aftermarket coilovers and stiffer sway bars to come alive to bring agility to the chassis. The car's weight distribution although mid engined is still biased towards the rear (40F/60R) so it doesn't have quite as much inertial balance as the Cayman does, for example. Still, the car is well behaved and never did anything unpredictable.

Steering:
Perhaps my favorite part about the 91-94 NSX was that it didn't have power steering. The steering ratio was slowed down quite a bit to manage how heavy the steering was with the manual rack, but it lightens up at speed. Oddly enough I think that the 997 GT3 have more road feel with the hydraulic rack, but the NSX steering setup makes it so that it takes real effort and muscle to go through corners. It makes the drive a very physical driving experience and I love that about the car.

Engine:
Perhaps my least favorite thing about the car is the engine. At 270hp on a 3000lb car simply doesn't feel like a lot compared to more modern cars. Headers and exhaust can unlock about 25hp but even so the V6 engine doesn't really impress with its output. The engine sound does have a good deal of character, but it doesn't have a very distinctive cam profile crossover (VTEC) as other engines like the B18C5 in the Integra Type R. If the car came with 375hp it would have been so well balanced and more enjoyable.

Shifter/Transmission:
The shifter is notchy and the gates very close to each other. When it is in gear, there is very little slop in the mechanism which I appreciate but it takes effort to get into gear (not quite 997 GT3 effort) but you still need to be deliberate about a shift. The transmission is fine enough, but the stock flywheel is much too heavy (so makes the engine feel a bit sluggish) and the gearing is way too long in the USDM cars. A common mod is to change out to shorter gears/final drive from the NSX-R that came out in Japan. This livens up the car by a fair margin and in my opinion is a must do modification. Unfortunately, the NSX-R gear set is no longer available from Honda so they are extremely sought after and hard to come by.

Overall:
The NSX driving experience is very special and offers a real sense of occasion. In stock form, it's setup more of like a GT cruiser/comfortable car you can drive around town but to really experience why the car is beloved you'll want to change out the suspension, brakes, flywheel and shorten the gear ratios. After implementing these mods, the car really comes alive and transforms into a beautifully analog driving experience that is hard to match. I do wish that the car was a little bit lighter (or at least had a more special engine), but given that the car was designed in the late 80's it's hard to argue with where the Honda engineers landed on the car. It is one of my favorite driving cars that I've experienced and you can feel the passion that went into its engineering.

The only car that I've owned that has more driving fairy dust is the 997 GT3.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...77e710763e.jpg