Acura RSX Type-S & Other Auto News - Spin Out

In Progress
Do you have a Civic rotting away in your garage while you wait for that final killer part to come in from Uzbekistan? Have you been wrenching on a Mitsubishi Starion since the days when anyone cared about Starions? Or maybe you're conjuring up the most wicked turbo system since the invention of air. We want photos of your in-progress project with a brief description what will emerge some day from the garage. It's probably better if you clear the chickens and unused exercise equipment off the car before you shoot the photos, but once you do, you can submit them to us as digital attachments to SCC@mcmullenargus.com or send them to In Progress, Sport Compact Car Magazine, 774 So. Placentia, Placentia, CA 92870. We offer only fame as compensation.

RSX Fever
When Acura replaced the Integra with the RSX, it was inevitable the aftermarket would respond with pieces, parts and full-blown race machines based on the new car. Now the first items in the RSX buffet are starting to appear.

Aside from these two cars, there are also RSXs under development at AEM, Wings West, Skunk2 Racing and probably a dozen others.

HKS' blue RSX Type-S is brimming with new products, including a Super Mega Flow intake, Hiper exhaust and, by far the tastiest tidbit of all, a turbo system incorporating the company's GT2835 ball-bearing turbo and all the engine management electronics for which it's famous. Those are 18-inch Racing Hart wheels and 225/40ZR-18 Toyos the car's sitting on. The interior is trimmed with titanium as well.

R.J. DeVera's RO_JA Racing is putting together not one, but two RSXs to showcase its ambition-one a show car (below) and one a flat-out, tube-frame racecar.

The show car is in the process of having its interior gutted and rebuilt, while the exterior is being restyled using components under development by Versus Motorsports. AEBS and HKS will supply most of the performance components for the show car, so who knows what will wind up powering the car.

The racecar is one scary RSX. The tubular space frame has been built by R.J. Simrock and retains the original front-engine/front-drive layout of the RSX. Covering this frame is a carbon-fiber replica of the RSX's body whose "design and configuration...were completed using fluent computational fluid dynamics, facilitated by BAR Aerospace." Golly.

R.J. DeVera is coy about the exact configuration of the powerplant, though he does promise it'll be based upon the RSX Type-S i-VTEC 2.0-liter four and will be force-fed its fuel and air. DeVera hopes to have the RSX racing by April and expects to compete in most NIRA and some NHRA events.

King Motorsports, which is responsible for all the Mugen parts that make it into this country legally, has been thrashing on a street-bound RSX of its own (and will race two RSX Type-S' during 2002 in the Grand-Am Cup Series).