cambelt change?

[w17led]

Just a quickie,

I spoke to Plans Motorsport and have been advised that it would cost around £1000.00 incl water pump.

Is this a rough guide to get it done?

Can i use a local garage who are technically minded, they have quoted me £250.00 if i buy the cambelt kit?

Any advice would be good

Thanks

[Lankstarr]

Personally I would only get a major job like this done at a NSX approved Honda dealer... and of these I would only take it to Norton Way.

I know Plans are "NSX specialists" but I'd rather have the stamp in the book for a £30k car as any money you save will be more than lost from your resale value.

If you want to save money then buy the kit from Dali including the water pump and take the parts to the Honda stealer after agreeing a fixed price for the job. Most will give you a discount and I believe Norton Way off 10 or 15% for NSXCB club members.

Luke

[eclipse1501]

The way the market is for mid-prestige cars in Europe (with or without Honda service history) I don't think it will hinder your ability to get a fair resale price (the way things are you would be lucky to get one anyway) and Iam sure if you have a trusted garage that you have used before and see other regular prestige "traffic" passing through that's got to be a good enough reason to opt out of the Honda loop. Ive bought off Dali previously (cam kit with water pump etc) and had plenty of non Honda dealer work done. I also once arranged a cheap kidney transplant for myself in India.

[Papalazarou]

It depends on what is included in the service.

The cambelt part of the service on its own is around £425.00 (remember that in terms of labour cost, the water pump part only take .5/.75 longer than doing the cambelt, so it's false economy to do them separately). Cambelt from memory is around 4 hours.

The water pump is around £125.00 from Dali....

and a routine oil and filter change by a franchise isn't much, especially if you supply your own oil etc....
I don't see any difference in going to an 'NSX approved' dealer other than it will cost you more.

The only other added costs are if you need the tappet clearance, spark plugs and or brake fluid.
plugs are £18.00 each through Honda and around £8-£9.00 if bought online.

Ian (SILVERBULLET) and I had an oil and filter change, fuel filter, brake fluid and tappets for around £345.00 each.


Hope that wasn't too confusing;-)



Cheers,

James.

[BabyG]

I've supplied the parts to a Honda dealer (Norton Way) and I think it's the best way. I genuinely think it would be a false economy to give it to anyone who didn't know the NSX - both in case they do something wrong, or fail to diagnose something else that needs doing and would be better to pre-empt.

While the NSX isn't a difficult car to maintain/service, it can get expensive quickly if things do go wrong and it's worth going that bit extra to stop that happening.

[w17led]

Thanks for the advice guys,

I take it, that the belt change is straight forward like any other car, but as long as a mechanic checks for other things it should be ok?

The only reason i ask is that i have a friend who works for my local Honda, and to be honest there are better mechanics in my town than him, so i would be more comfortable in using someone else than Honda

Thanks again

[w17led]

Thanks for the advice guys,

I take it, that the belt change is straight forward like any other car, but as long as a mechanic checks for other things it should be ok?

The only reason i ask is that i have a friend who works for my local Honda, and to be honest there are better mechanics in my town than him, so i would be more comfortable in using someone else than Honda

Thanks again

[eclipse1501]

Thanks for the advice guys,

I take it, that the belt change is straight forward like any other car, but as long as a mechanic checks for other things it should be ok?

The only reason i ask is that i have a friend who works for my local Honda, and to be honest there are better mechanics in my town than him, so i would be more comfortable in using someone else than Honda

Thanks again

My point exactly. The idea a maindealer provides either better technical expertise or backup/security/peaceofmind is a generalisation at best and a falasy at worst - service is down to people not places. I worked at a main dealer in Leeds for a few years when i was in the UK and the personnel were largely ok but seriously under trained and over worked with targets to achieve etc, this is a problem often found industry wide. A good friend of mine was a Honda maindealer and his car was serviced by a friend. His dealership was also an appointed NSX dealer - say no more. My advice is as a car owner (of any sort) is you need to find/build/follow trust not follow advertising.

[goldnsx]

We just did the TB on my car last weekend and as we don't trust any dealer out there we did it ourselves with pulling the engine (it was already the second time but not the same car).

While servicing an NSX is not spectacious dealing with the TB certainly IS. So be sure to find anybody who did this before. For the TB I'd go to the stealer (with you own parts if they accept that) for sure. You can save plenty of money doing the other work on the car.

AND: A TB job needs perfect preparation: Replace the WP an tensioner baring for sure. My waterpump was bad as my stealer didn't replace it 7 years ago as promissed. Also have a look at the LMA and the cam gaskets while you're there. We did replace both on my engine as the first ones were noisy and the last ones sweated a little bit oil. Also there is a crank gasket behind the harmonic balancer pulley ($11).

Just my 0.02

[mutley]

When I spoke to Honda in Milton Keynes a few months ago, they quoted me just under £500 inc parts and labour to do cam belt.

HTH
Jim

[simonprelude]

When I spoke to Honda in Milton Keynes a few months ago, they quoted me just under £500 inc parts and labour to do cam belt.

HTH
Jim

That wouldn't be including a water pump or cam belt tensioner if required :(

[mutley]

That wouldn't be including a water pump or cam belt tensioner if required :(

Wouldn't it?? Ahh well then I guess i'd probably source the parts from the US (another trip there next month hopefully) and just get them to fit.

I would do it myself but at this base I don't have the facilites that I used to have so feel a bit helpless and have to now bend towards dealerships!.


Jim

[Kaz-kzukNA1]

Based on your other post, I believe you own the NSX but not sure about the model year. After carrying out the Timing Belt (TB) job on several NSX including mine and looking at many NSX with TB job done at the garages including the Honda dealer, followings are my advice for you.

1. Honda or non-Honda
The best advice is to find a garage where they carried out the TB job on NSX many times in the past. Even at the Honda garage in Japan, I saw a few NSX with cam alignment off by 1 tooth. Under this condition, the idling is quite smooth and compression/dyno test will show small drop which will be difficult to distinguish between normal wear and alignment issue unless you have several previous record on these tests. As the standard procedure for replacing TB won’t require the engine to be taken out, it is not easy to check the alignment of the cam on the rear bank.

In summary, the procedure itself is not difficult but easy to make mistake without noticing it so best to book your NSX into the 'NSX experienced' garage.

2. The process
As James stated, the labour for just TB is 4.0hrs. Majority of the time is spent for the preparation process such as removing the TB cover and lots of bolts with some of them being hidden.

3. Additional tasks
As other members recommended, if you are going to do the TB job, there are several tasks that worth considering to be done at the same time. This will save some of the labour and provide you with peace of mind.

* Water pump & all 23 (22+1) coolant (water) hoses, thermostat, header tank, header tank cap
As you are going to drain the coolant and replace the water pump, it would be a good idea to replace all coolant related parts at the same time. If you have already replaced them recently, then just replace the water pump.

* Oil Pump: I know lots of people won’t replace this at the time of TB job. However, if you run your engine close to the rev limit regularly or your engine is of very early model, I recommend replacing this. The manufacturing process of this part was changed after the original batch.

* Valve clearance adjustment, Camshaft Oil Seal & Cap,
It will be a very good idea to adjust the valve clearance and replace cam oil seal and the cap. The official part name is as follows; [Oil Seal, 29x43x8] and [Rubber Comp, Head Cover Seal]
Adjusting the valve clearance requires lots of time and patience if it is carried out while the engine is still on the car.

* Lost Motion Assy (LMA)
As goldnsx stated, if you are doing the cam oil seal and cap, it would make sense to go a little further to replace the LMA at the same time. The LMA design was changed around 1999 and in Japan, you can no longer obtain the original LMA from Honda even for the pre ’99 model. The length of latest LMA is shorter than the original one. There was some question marks raised against this but Honda reported that it was fine to use latest design even for the pre ’99 model… There are people (including myself) don’t agree with this so if you have pre ’99 and be able to get hold of original LMA from UK, Europe or US, then it’s much better to use that.

Regards,
Kaz

[TheSebringOne]

Is the LMA part of the service schedules?

[Lankstarr]

The only reason i ask is that i have a friend who works for my local Honda, and to be honest there are better mechanics in my town than him, so i would be more comfortable in using someone else than Honda

Thanks again

I agree ref the quality of mechanics but if something were to go wrong afte rthe service you have backing from Honda and hopefully it will get put right. Is your local one man band garage going to be able to fork out £10k for a new engine if it goes pop 20 miles after ytour service?

No matter how good a mechanic is they're only human and for peace of mind on a £30k car I'd be taking it to Honda. Any money saved will probably be lost due to the "wrong" stamp being in the book anyway.

Luke

[goldnsx]

* Lost Motion Assy (LMA)
As goldnsx stated, if you are doing the cam oil seal and cap, it would make sense to go a little further to replace the LMA at the same time. The LMA design was changed around 1999 and in Japan, you can no longer obtain the original LMA from Honda even for the pre ’99 model. The length of latest LMA is shorter than the original one. There was some question marks raised against this but Honda reported that it was fine to use latest design even for the pre ’99 model… There are people (including myself) don’t agree with this so if you have pre ’99 and be able to get hold of original LMA from UK, Europe or US, then it’s much better to use that.

That's true but you can buy the SOS kit, it offers 2.24 mm thick shims which raises the length to the old LMA range. The springs are Honda parts just combined with the shims. Have a look here:http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2312727