Since its introduction in 1990, the Acura NSX continues to be the only true supercar to hail from Japan. But despite its meticulously engineered quality and sterling reliability, automotive critics have questioned whether the supercar title is deserving, citing its stock 3.2-liter, 290 hp engine as the number one drawback-a statistic that largely and surprisingly remained unchanged throughout its history.
More to the point, if you're going to spend close to six figures on a car and hope to take on the likes of Ferrari and Porsche, how can you compete on good looks and smart handling alone? Ergo, what's your logic in acquiring one of these rare birds?
None of this stopped sports car enthusiasts from lapping up the Japanese handcrafted exotic. To date, over 7,500 have been sold in the U.S. alone. Stateside NSX owners embraced what descended from Honda heaven as divine design, a set of engine specs not to be tampered with. And so a breed of NSX purists sprouted and grew.
Over time, getting outgunned at the drag strip and on the track by its exotic peers began to take a toll on some members of this elite crowd. Their faith started to waver. What's more, as the price of late model NSXs began to drop in value due to depreciation and the passage of time, the tuner demographic began to see their dream car become an affordable reality. The need for much greater speed among this younger generation, however, was a foregone conclusion.
With these two trends at play, attempts were made to meet the demand for boost. Donning superchargers and turbo kits, a handful of commercial contenders took turns at promising 40 to 50 percent horsepower gains over stock. Comptech USA led the pack with a highly reliable supercharger kit and excellent support post install. NSX mechanic Mark Basch developed "Basch Boost," a supercharger that was well received by the NSX community, but its rise fizzled after countless reliability and customer service issues. On the turbo front, Gerry Johnson produced the Gerry Johnson Turbo Kit while Factor X tried to peel into the market as well. To date, only a handful of turbo kits can be found on the market, with poor reliability and support, once again, as the main inhibiting culprits to mass adoption.
With nothing on the market to safely satisfy the hunger for power and speed pushing 500-plus hp, the fringe purists and up-and-comer young guns ironically surrendered to the mindset of the age-old critic: "If the NSX looks and handles like a supercar, why doesn't it drive like one?"
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