We know pretty much all there is to know about the 2016 Acura NSX sports car—well, save for carnal knowledge of how it drives. At the 2015 SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) World Congress in Detroit, however, we were able to glean a few new nuggets of information. While we still don’t know what the NSX’s final output looks like (so far, it’s “north of 550 horsepower”), we do know what Acura plans to charge for its supercar redux, as well as how its powertrain transfers power from three electric motors and a twin-turbocharged V-6 engine to the pavement.
--Sport Hybrid SH-AWD + Special V-6
-Like many modern Acuras, the NSX will come with “Super-Handling All-Wheel Drive.” Unlike every other iteration of SH-AWD, the NSX’s unit features a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 and three electric motors. Two motors act on the front axle—each motor drives a planetary gearset and one front wheel—while in back, we’ve confirmed that the largest electric motor is sandwiched between the engine and the nine-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission and acts directly on the engine’s crankshaft. An engineer also told us that, in order to compensate for the balancing-shaft-free V-6 engine’s unique 75-degree V angle (most V-6s use a 60-degree bank, wherein the cylinder-firing forces are evenly balanced), Acura turned to a split-pin crankshaft in order to keep an even firing order for the cylinders. We’re told there’s no effect on durability, as we might expect. Fun fact: The 2016 NSX will utilize a limited-slip rear differential.
-Acura also elaborated on the sheer number of heat exchangers it slapped into the NSX: 10. The V-6 utilizes three front-mounted radiators and two side-mounted intercoolers, while two exchangers handle heat dissipation duties for the transmission. The two front electric motors are cooled via direct air flow and a dedicated heat exchanger, while the condenser and power drive unit coolers are fitted ahead of the central front-mounted engine radiator.
-Able to Ablate!
-We’ve finally learned what special casting technology Acura will use on certain NSX bits and has been keeping a secret up until now. It’s called “ablation” casting, and according to Acura, it “combines traditional casting methods with rapid cooling techniques to offer the design flexibility and rigidity of casting with the ductility and energy absorption characteristics of extruded material.” So what does that mean? Traditional castings can be brittle, but ablation methods seem to reduce this. Molten metal (in this case, aluminum) is poured into a cast made of a water-soluble material, which is promptly ablated (washed) away with water jets, which rapidly cools the metal. Acura’s reason for using the method is simple: Traditional sand castings weren’t capable of producing the sort of large-yet-hollow cast-aluminum structural nodes that also absorb crash energy that Acura needed, so it turned to ablation.
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- Hai Performance: A Visual History of Japan’s Hottest Sports Cars
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- Return of the Acura NSX Type R? Burlier Version of New Supercar May Be on the Way
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- Acura NSX Research: Everything You Need to Know About the Much-Anticipated Supercar
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Finally, we were told by an Acura representative that the NSX’s base price will in fact come in right around $150,000. Previously, we had estimated this figure, but now we’ve gotten it straight from someone who knows. As for on-sale timing? That’s still vaguely pegged at sometime this year.
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