It's been several months since you've heard about our Project NSX and Project Backmarker Civic Build Off. If you've read our 20th anniversary issue (Oct '08), you might have caught a glimpse of what we've been up to with the two cars and it doesn't have anything to do with making them faster. For some reason we ended up doing the cosmetic makeover first in the simultaneous build ups. Hope and Leh thought it would funny to drag me off to a car show once both cars were done and see what the showgoers thought. More hair-brained madness from above, but orders are orders.
We set the venue and decided on the car show during Nisei Week, an annual celebration of all things Japanese American, located in Little Tokyo in the heart of downtown L.A. Traditionally, this was the show to be at for the hard-core guys where then-rare Skyline GT-Rs, super-clean Silvias and old-school Hondas and Toyotas would come out of the woodwork. No neon lights, bondo'd widebodies or Lambo doors. It's a car show for the street guys and it would be my first.
Ironically, a night before a car show isn't very different from a night before going to the track. Instead of being up late changing fluids, checking alignments, bleeding brakes, and scrambling to find someone to mount tires at 2 a.m., you're up late vacuuming and polishing everything, including your shift knob. Waking up at the ass crack of dawn is about the same too since roll-in happens at about the same time as most morning drivers' meetings.
So with Project NSX freshly painted by Santini, made over with a Downforce NA2 Type-R conversion, some Recaro seats, and new SSR wheels, Hope and I were off to the Nisei Showoff or, in our case, the Honda project car showoff.
Understandably, I wasn't thrilled about going. Bragging about my car just isn't my cup of tea. I probably would have had more fun bringing Project Corolla to see the confused looks on peoples' faces. Throw in a sleepless night and yet another work weekend and you have someone who's really unhappy about sitting around all day under the sun watching passer-bys check out their car.
Hope, on the other hand, was having a blast. He had the right show mentality by bringing spare bling seats for his Civic, dumping his borrowed Mugen N1 suspension onto its bumpstops, so the mudflaps are asphalt scrapers, and having his side markers painted the appropriate shade of JDM orange. And the showgoers loved it, from the immaculate mirror black paint, hand-rolled and shaped fenders, to the super-rare JDM wheels and all the stories that go with building a car like Project Backmarker Civic.
The attention trend was obvious. Guys in general gravitated to the Civic and avoided the NSX parked next to it like the plague. Stories were told, business cards exchanged, and everyone walked away happy. Project NSX on the other hand seemed to only attract ditsy pre-pubescent girls who had to be dragged away by their similarly pre-pubescent boyfriends, and wannabe Internet porn stars trying to crush the aluminum fenders under their girth. They couldn't be dragged away at all. The occasional guy would peek in the interior the same way sport compact guys look at a Ferrari, with disdainful penis envy.
When the car show judges came by, I looked on as Hope made his spiel for the 10th time. Everyone was busy scribbling down details and circling points scored for each part. Never mind that the seats were unmounted, the old-school era-appropriate exhaust made no power, and that the suspension only had enough travel to clear a piece of plywood. It was all about what parts were on the car.
Come time for the NSX's scrutiny, I took the logical engineering approach explaining why I chose the FIA certified seats, stock brake bias, all the calculations gone into the proper tire selection, the weight savings and distribution strategy, and why the ride height was a little wonky since the aftermarket suspension stroke was a little off. The judging panel quickly dispersed to go poke around elsewhere and not listen to my logic. But their eyes did light up at the mention of a titanium exhaust and Mugen oil cap. So that scored me some points, as did the headers that no one could see but took my word for.
Did the NSX win the car show? Of course, not. Maybe my Championship White didn't match Federal Standard conventions. Maybe I should have put the carbon-fiber decked center caps on the wheels to cover the hub crown nuts. Maybe I needed 32 rebound damping adjustment clicks instead of just 16.
So that makes it Backmarker, 1: NSX, 0. Is all this sarcasm just from the sour grapes for losing? Not at all. I was going to drive out of the gates the instant they opened while Hope had to bolt his Hawaiian covered seats back in and crawl underneath the car to raise the suspension on each corner so that he could drive home.