New York City – Acura finally showed the world its full-on, track-equipped 2017 Acura NSX GT3 race car. The most prominent distinctions separating the race version from the street model are the custom bodywork and aero components, a large read deck-wing spoiler, enlarged front splitter, underbody diffuser and massive hood vents for added engine cooling.
Additionally, this NSX features a slightly different powerplant from the one you get in the road going NSX. The NSX GT3 will be powered by the same 3.5-liter, twin turbocharged V-6 as the production 2017 Acura NSX, including the block, heads, valvetrain, crankshaft, pistons and dry sump lubrication system. However, the engine will be paired with a 6-speed, sequential gearbox, delivering power exclusively to the rear wheels.
Subsequently, the GT3 will use the production car’s ultra-rigid and lightweight aluminum body space frame. This frame is produced at the Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio alongside the NSX’s twin-turbocharged V-6 engine. The Ohio plant being the exclusive manufacturing home for the new Acura NSX. Initial testing and development of the NSX GT3 was conducted by Acura’s Japan race engineering division on race circuits in Europe and Japan. Additional development and final homologation to FIA GT3 global racing specifications is currently being completed by the North American race engineering group, Honda Performance Development (HPD), in Santa Clarita, California.
According to Art St. Cyr, president of Honda Performance Development, “The NSX was designed as a pinnacle expression of Acura Precision Crafted Performance, and we’re looking forward to proving out its ultimate performance capabilities in GT3 racing,”. He went on to say that, “We’ll be working with the NSX engineering teams in Ohio and Japan to bring our dream of a truly world-class new Acura NSX racecar to fruition.” Some people, including Autoblog, believe that a similarly spec’d Type R could follow the news of the GT3, bringing a ‘purified’ version of the road going NSX to the streets.
Unfortunately, we likely won’t be able to see the NSX GT3 at Le Mans this year, where it would face some very interesting competitors including the Ford GT. But regardless of where it competes, the NSX GT3 will pick up where a rich legacy of Acura sports car racing campaigns left off. Among this list is the 1991, 1992 and 1993 IMSA Camel Lights manufacturer and driver championships and the 2009 American LeMans manufacturer, driver and team championships in both the LMP1 and LMP2 classes. Acura currently campaigns a pair of TLX GT cars with Real Time Racing in the Pirelli World Challenge.
The 2016 Acura NSX is the official pace car of the 2015 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. In this exclusive TFLcar video, we get up close and personal with the new 2016 Acura NSX.
