Honda C27 / C30A / C32 / C35
V6 · naturally aspirated · petrol · 1986–present
Also known as: c27a, c30a, c32a, c32b, c35a, c27, c30, c32, c35, nsx engine, c-series honda, c27a4, c32a5
Honda's V6 of the 1980s and 1990s — the C27, C30A, C32 and C35 — in the Legend, Accord and Vigor, and as the C30A and C32B, in the NSX.
The NSX engines are the reason to know the family, and they are genuinely different: an all-aluminium block, titanium connecting rods on the C30A, and VTEC on both banks. Legend material does not describe them, and NSX material does not describe a Legend.
It is belt-driven and it is an interference design, and on every member the belt is a transverse-V6 job — the rear bank is against the bulkhead, which is what makes it expensive rather than difficult.
Its recurring items are ignition and oil leaks: distributor failures with heat, and the valve cover and cam seals on engines that are now thirty years old.
The J-series V6 replaced it and has its own pages here; nothing about the two transfers, including the belt interval.
Cars fitted with this engine
4 generations, across 2 makes. From the authored catalogue — an absent car means the catalogue has not reached it, not that the engine was never fitted.
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
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