Acura 3.2L (195 cu in) firing order — diagram & guide

Acura’s 3.2-liter engine is perhaps one of the most iconic JDM powertrains of the past few decades, and it doesn’t take being an expert to know this. However, figuring out the Acura 3.2L (195 cu in) firing order is often more challenging than it seems because there were two such engines used in production.

Don’t worry though, since our team will give you all the pieces of information you may need to apply the accordant firing order. We’ll discuss both these engines and their firing order specs, along with the cylinder configuration for easier understanding.

Acura 3.2L firing order

As mentioned, there are two basic versions of the Acura 3.2-liter engine. The first one was the “C” engine used from 1995 to 2005 in the first-gen Acura NXS, while the other one was a bit less “exclusive” so it came in regular production cars.

The NSX was often considered a supercar so the new “J” type engine used in the Acura TL came as a separate edition after the “C” engine.

Nevertheless, the Acura 3.2L firing order is 1-4-2-5-3-6 for both the C32 and the J32 engines. Although they used a different camshaft design, the engine block, capacity, and cylinder configuration remained the same.

The “J” engine only came after the “C” one used in the NSX so it’s understandable that drivers often confuse these two as completely separate engines with a different firing order.

Acura 3.2L cylinder diagram

Besides the same design and firing order, these two engines also share the same cylinder configuration. That makes it easier for you to use the firing order to check the cylinders of these engines since you can’t make a mistake because of their matching layout.

The first three cylinders can be found on the left-side bank of these V6 engines, while the cylinders 4, 5, and 6 are on the right side. Cylinders 1 and 4 are the closest ones to the engine’s front end in their respective cylinder banks, so that will help you navigate through the cylinder layout and inspect each of them in their firing order.

Acura 3.2L vehicle applications

Finally, we just need to ensure that you get a list of all the vehicle models using Acura’s 3.2-liter V6 engine. This way you won’t make the mistake of using a firing order of a different V6 engine, and we already said that the C32 engine was used exclusively in the NSX, so here’s a list of cars fitted with a J32 engine:

• Acura TL
• Acura CL

The same engine was also used in the Honda Inspire Type S model so these all share the same firing order as the original NSX engine.

Our take

After going through the firing order of this engine, we are hoping that you can use the listed pieces of information to properly maintain your car’s engine. It’s not an easy task, but when you have a powertrain as reliable as the Acura 3.2-liter V6, using the right firing order does half of the job already.