For the 2003 Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC) season, Honda race engineers made big improvements to the NSX that waged war in the hotly contested GT500 class. Facing revised regulations for 2003, they went from a transverse to a longitudinal engine mount and attached the transmission to the front of the engine rather than the back. Engine power traveled through the transmission and then along a propeller shaft running around the side of the cylinder block to arrive at the differential gear on the rear axle behind the engine.