Project TSXThe stock Acura TSX is such a sweet-natured machine that doing anything to it risks detonating that delicate balance. But this magazine isn't about leaving cars alone. We screw with them. The trick is to screw without screwing up.
First a review of the TSX itself: It's the JDM/Euro Honda Accord slightly redecorated and re-engineered for U.S. duty. That means it has a real double-wishbone Honda chassis beneath and the slickest-shifting six-speed Honda transmission outside of the CBR600F4i. And it's really a family car, which, unlike the CBR600F4i, means it's comfortable for four. In other words, it's a perfectly respectable go-to-church car that we're now consistently feeding fistfuls of aftermarket crack.
Compared to an unmolested TSX, Project TSX has almost infinitely greater rear roll stiffness. Having a stiff ass end is almost always a virtue (unless you're in a Turkish prison), but what's satisfying about Project TSX's ass is that it doesn't come at the price of all the ride comfort.
The credit goes to the Skunk2 coil-over adjustable shocks. Of course, the ride isn't as velvety as stock, but it's still plush, and diving into corners the rear end now rotates in a predictable arc. This TSX wants to turn. It would have been even better on test day if it had wanted to swim.
Just as impressive is how the front end remains stable instead of burrowing into the pavement like a gopher and bouncing around like a porpoise with diaper rash. The front and rear now work together to produce an almost neutral front-driver. You'll find understeer at the limit, but the limit has moved-in the right direction this time.
It's relatively easy to isolate the effect of the Skunk2 shocks; it's tougher to distinguish the performance of the brakes and the wheels and tires from one another. The brakes feel great, but the BFG g-Force KD tires do the real friction work.
Because of their luscious looks alone, it's almost a shame to operate the Brembo Gran Turismo stoppers in this weather. These are really good brakes: throw a 40-pound rock at the brake pedal and the car stops like it hit a block of granite. Side step the pedal and speed dribbles off in manageable droplets so the front end can bite into a corner (or at least the puddle where the corner should be). Acura offers Brembos on the TL, and it ought to offer them on the TSX as well.
Finally the Skunk2 short shifter actually feels better than stock. That's like someone adding a few brush strokes to the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre and actually making it better. It's baffling.
At this stage, the Project TSX remains unscrewed up. It's more capable and a bit louder, but pleasant enough to putter around Presbyterian style. But the engine still remains relatively mild. Today, the TSX shows its size and its weight-something only an infusion of M3-like power will fix.John Pearley Huffman
Project Miata Gen. I"Go-kart-like handling" is one of those annoyingly meaningless clichs batted about by the unknowing morons that constitute most of the human race. After punching them in the face, ask anybody who uses this phrase if they've ever driven a real kart. If they say anything about Malibu Grand Prix, punch them again.
A real kart is a violent thing. The acceleration hurts your neck. The wind tries to rip the helmet from your head. The steering is nervously responsive, the brakes grabby and difficult to modulate and the cornering forces are so violent, they can literally break your ribs.
Project Miata drives like a go-kart.
Folding my 6-foot-2-inch frame into a Miata results in the same fetal driving position as a kart. Turning the wheel with 225mm-wide Avon slicks results in the same instant yaw, and just like in a kart, my hands collide with my knees halfway to the first apex.
This car is exactly wrong in every way. It's a convertible and it's raining. It's a small, simple roadster intended to be nimble and lively without any power, but it's overpowered and over-tired and decidedly overnimble. Oh, and that brilliant suspension? Completely ruined by a set of blown GABs and some too low, too soft springs.
Miatas normally feel darty and overly playful on the track, but add a turbo, blown shocks, fat slicks and rain and it should be a recipe for disaster. But it isn't really.
Sure, you can't really use full throttle in first or second, and yes, the boost response is so good you have to gently roll onto the throttle in each gear, but when you do push over the limit and the tail startles toward the edge of the track like a cat in a thunderstorm, the instant responsiveness means you can catch it. Not gracefully, but you can catch it.
Driving Project Miata in the rain teaches you only one thing: if you see anything shiny, aim straight across it. If you're going straight, no problem, but if the shiny stuff appears midcorner, you have to tighten your line, square off the corner, and make a little mini-straight across the glossy part.
You only have to cross one of them to figure out the shiny patches are where the water is deep enough to cover the texture of the asphalt, and with slicks, that means exactly the hydroplaning terror they teach you about in driver's ed. Only without the death and dismemberment.
So far.
Project Miata is only showing a glimmering suggestion of its potential today. The engine is amazingly responsive and pretty quick right now, but it's running low boost and is tuned with fuel and timing maps that are far from refined. Finishing the tuning will unleash a lot.
Ironically, the suspension only worked as well as it did today because of the rain. The suspension is too low, too soft, and the shocks victims of too many meetings with the bump stops. The grip of dry pavement would have had us pogo-ing off the stops all around the track. KW coil-overs with extra bump travel, external reservoirs and all kinds of fancy adjustments are on their way soon.
Give us a few more months and it will drive like a 125cc shifter kart. And yes, I know what that's like. - Dave Coleman
Project Scion TCThe stock Scion tC is one of those cars that has me vexed. When I drive one I either think it's a solid and engaging successor to Toyota's Celica, or a gussied up rerun of the unlovable Paseo. The goal for Project tC has to be to minimize its grim Paseo-ness and maximize the potential for beyond-Celica performance. So far, Project tC is heading in the right direction.
The tC does have value on its side. The $15,950 base price gets a car about the size of a non-Type-S RSX (which starts at $20,275) with the 160-hp, 2AZ-FE four ripped from the Camry in its nose. It's decently quiet, decently ordinary in its reflexes and decently good-looking. And there isn't a car out there whose manufacturer is pushing it harder as a platform for personalized modification.
So far, all that's been done to this tC is the addition of Progress coil-over shocks, a set of Hotchkis anti-roll bars and rear camber links and a fresh set of 17x7-inch 5Zigen FNO1R-C cast wheels we sourced from Wheels Next nestled inside 225/45-17 Kumho Ecsta MX doughnuts.
The coil-overs stiffen the handling without shattering the driver's coccyx, the anti-roll bars add the roll stiffness that's missing on the stock tC and the aggressive Kumhos (only slightly larger than the stock 215/45-17s) adhere to the road like an indictment to Enron's CFO.
Despite the tires' modest size, there's a noticeable increase in Project tC's steering effort and that's not necessarily a bad thing. At speed, the car sets into corners much more aggressively and the tail rotates with some suddenness-though that breakaway likely would have been tamer if I'd been towing a water skier.
The brakes faded after a few laps at Willow Springs even though they were cooled by spray off the wet track, but the engine is willing despite its unaltered condition and the Kumhos are wholly capable in the wet.
It would be nice if there was an exhaust note to accompany the engine's character, but this thing is going to be hanging around our plush editorial offices for a while yet and there's plenty of time left to whack on the mechanicals.
The tC is still so new that it's tough to evaluate its potential as a track machine. The engine is a solid piece of work, but it has been stuck in the workaday Camry so long that no one really knows what can be made of it. The chassis is ordinary, but the solid start Progress and Hotchkis have made indicates there's something there. The car needs a better shifter, and there will be one available by the time you read this.
Stock, the tC doesn't have the vivid personality that Toyota likes to pretend the whole Scion line possesses. But goosing it up with some additional ability and performance is getting it closer. Right now it's not far from ordinary, but it's not plain anymore, either.John Pearley Huffman
Project Sentra SE-RI immediately feel at home. That's how it is with a first-generation Sentra SE-R. And with the exception of impressing the ladies, the original is very competent at just about everything-better than the sum of its parts, as the saying goes.
It is this comfortable, capable character that endears the SE-R to legions of fiercely loyal geeks. And after 13 years and two attempts, Nissan still hasn't been able to make a better Sentra than this.
Naturally, part of the appeal of the classic, as it has become known, is that it's very mod-friendly. Classics respond well to relatively cheap upgrades, and for very little money or effort, it's easy to produce a car capable of embarrassing much more expensive metal at half the price. Project SE-R is no exception.
Settling in, the driving position is assuring, the pedals are placed for easy heel and toe work and you sit upright with good visibility. The steering wheel and shifter fall easily to hand. And the controls are well placed, even to my disproportionate short-armed Asian physique.
On the track, thanks to aggressive cams and free-flowing exhaust, the SR20 is willing to rev and oh-so-easy to drive. Progress Group's suspension is perhaps the biggest contributor.
If the classic has a fault anywhere, it's in the old chassis' suspension. In stock form, the B13 has little travel and horrible geometry, so the changes are welcome. Far lower than stock, but retaining significant compression travel, Project SE-R still behaves itself well enough. Its big adjustable anti-roll bars make themselves apparent with every input. Even in the wet, this is a brilliant machine.
With balance as close to neutral as any front-driver I've experienced, it's as easy to control as a lightswitch. Oversteer is only a lift of the throttle or drag of the brakes away, so rotating the car is simple. A bit of countersteer and booting the throttle immediately resettles the chassis. Even the brakes are comfortable in these conditions.
None of this brilliance keeps me on the track, however. Three laps in, I'm coaxed into an overconfident red-misting haze and slide off Turn Three. Still, Project SE-R winds up locked in a near three-way tie with Project SRT-4 and Project STi-both of which have at least 100 more hp. Better than the sum of its parts. - Mike Kojima