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Hennessey wants to make the new Honda NSX even more potent

The boys and girls at Hennessey want to give owners of the new NSX some tuning options that will make the supercar even more, well, super.

The Texan tuning company said it will offer a range of tuning upgrades for the hybrid NSX, which is known as the Acura NSX in the US and has been available to pre-order since 2014.

Speaking to Top Gear, founder John Hennessey said: “When I first started out 25 years ago I modified a Mitsubishi, and soon after guys with the original NSX came asked for their car to be tuned. We must have modified at least 200 of them.

“So we’ve followed the story of the new NSX, and we really want to modify it when it arrives. Customers we served with the old one want us to do the new one, too. They don’t want to be kicked in the butt by friends with 675LTs and 488 GTBs.”

Anyone familiar with the new NSX will know it has a twin-turbo V6 engine that plays nice with four electric motors, making it more tricky to work with. No wonder, then, Hennessey says it will only focus on the combustion side of things.

He continued: “It’ll be about improving efficiencies ─ exhaust back pressures, intercoolers, that sort of thing. It won’t be anything radical like a 1,000bhp NSX, but 50 to 100bhp? I think that’s what our clients will want.”

The new Honda NSX costs around £130,000, features a nine-speed automatic DCT and has more than 550bhp. Performance figures are still unclear but those who have driven it have said it’s suitably fast.

There are numerous ways to make an engine faster, including making the turbos bigger and increasing displacement to name a couple, but the NSX is a complicated beast. It will be a challenge for Hennessey to up the power without affecting things like torque vectoring.

Knowing Hennessey has made its Venom GT reach 270mph and its successor is gunning for 290mph, perhaps we should worry less about whether it can do the job and worry more about how much these upgrades will cost.

At least there’s plenty of time to save up as the NSX is yet to go on sale ─ and Hennessey will need some time getting to grips with it before the upgrades become available.

Or you could wait for the rumoured official Type R version

Video: Hennessey Venom GT 265.6mph speed run

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