Mike Escanlar is a not just an automobile aficionado. He is Corolla-crazed, mad for Mercs, an NSX nut, and a Ferrari fanatic. This resident of Torrance, Calif. has cars coming out of every orifice and he stores three NSXs at his office. That's right, besides owning two other Acuras, he also has a Lamborghini Diablo SV, Ferrari 355 F1, a Dodge Viper and two Toyota Corolla GTs among a slew of other vehicles, most of them high-performance machines.
Of the two Corollas, one is turboed and used specifically for drifting, a fad quickly catching on in the States. The 1991 NSX you see here, though driven regularly (when Mike had his license that is) is in prime show condition inside and out. To find out more about the rest of Mike's 16 cars in his stable, you'll have to wait for the release of our next mag-"Cars and Motorcycles That Belong To Mike," but for now let's get to know this force-inducted Ferrari-fighter.
If the sex in NSX is meant to subliminally arouse, then this Acura is an in-your-face exotic dancer strutting its stuff. Mike belongs International All Stars, a car club with exceedingly high standards. Finding an NSX as extensively tricked out as Mike's is rare. This Acura is so tidy you could floss with the plug wires and eat ice cream off the manifold-if it wasn't blocked by the burly Gruppe M supercharger.
The supercharger kit is manufactured and sold by Mr. Ogesa in Japan.
AV Motorsports imported the roots-type blower, which is good for an extra 80 horses. Once stateside, Mike took the kit to NSX Modified, where Larry Garcia performed the install. Larry said the installation should take about eight hours. Mike's Acura took a bit longer; they ExtrudeHoned and polished the intake manifold, alternator and the brackets that come with the supercharger.
With most installs, the decklid is scrapped to make room for the charger, but of course Mike "my toys are better than yours" Escanlar had to have a custom decklid made.
Larger injectors from Gruppe M replace the stock ones while a piggyback computer, supplied with the kit, works with the ECU to address fuel enrichment. The Japanese made kit also comes with a regulator valve and a Toyota MAP sensor that tricks the computer into reading .5 volts. That way, no engine codes are generated.
"For the NOS, we tapped the fogger on the bottom of the plenum," says Garcia. "This allows better distribution of the nitrous in the intake manifold. If you put it at the throttle body like many people do, it would create too much heat for a force-inducted engine like this."
NSX Modified also used P7 plugs, which run a bit hotter than the P6s supplied with the kit. Other mods to the potent powerplant include a Japanese K&N intake system, Comptech headers and a Vortex fuel pressure regulator. The V6 now thumps with quite a bit more authority and has been dynoed at 350 hp and 330 lbs-ft of torque, at the wheels.
The interior looks like it could have been created by the Lord himself (or possibly the Prince of Darkness with that red and black color scheme). The custom two-tone suede covers the stock interior better than Reagan covered up the Iran-Contra affair. The custom interior was executed by Car Craft Custom Interior, a shop across the street from Mike's Racing Design Concept, which is responsible for the rear wing. If you look close at the custom speedo and tach, you can see they're also from RDC.
About the time Mike's privilege to drive got dropped like a bald girlfriend, so did the suspension. Tein adjustable coil-overs provide up to a 3 inches of drop and fix the squat appearance some NSXs experience in their mid-life crisis years. Custom front and rear sway bars stiffen the ride while resisting g-forces when the cars is throttled through a corner.
The pneumatics are BFGoodrich G-Force sized 265/35-18 in the rear and 225/40-18 up front. These fingernail-high profiles wrap custom three-piece aluminum rims from Kinesis. The rears are massive 18x10s while the fronts measure in at 18x8.5.
The tires may not tuck, but they fill out the arches nicely. Keep in mind, Mike does like to hit track days with the NSX club. And when owners of stock NSXs get passed by Mike, they may not notice the custom one-off front bumper, or the carbon-fiber bonnet, or the Mugen clear corner-lens covers. They may though, catch a glimpse of the custom side skirts or the carbon-fiber side-ducts before they get a clear view of the three-tiered GT rear-wing disappearing into the next apex.
Supercharged NSXs are the high-mark of performance for most NSX owners, but Mike hopes to raise the bar next spring. When the flowers start blooming in 2002, Mike plans to unleash his latest burst of Japanese venom, a gold-flaked, '93 wide-bodied, twin-turbocharged NSX. Let's just hope he can keep his license that long.