The Vanity of an Ancient King

This project turned out to be *MUCH* more annoying than I thought it would be. Installing the rear sway bar was no problem. The biggest hurdle there was getting the jack to lift the entire rear end high enough. That required me to put down a couple of very long 2x4s to use as a "ramp" (gas jacks move forward as they raise the car). The jack stands went on, and the procedure took about 90 minutes. Someone with more experience would have done it in about 30 minutes, but I'm a punter.

The big problem was the intake. Jeebus was that a giant bitch. Even though the TSX is a cousin of the Honda Accord (it uses the "narrow accord" platform used in the european accords), it is *VERY* different from my prior accord (now the Pagermobile). There is an almost entirely inaccessible bolt that took me over 2 hours to get out, one click of the ratchet at a time. I also had to take the battery out entirely, as there were bolts that needed to come out under it. I didn't want to take off the entire front bumper, but that may have sped things up. The thought of removing all those bolts, *and* clips was just something I didn't want to tackle, so I removed the wheel, removed the splashguard and did it that way. It took 5 hours.

Oh, and did I mention that I had to translate the directions from Japanese? Even after translating, they were *awful*. "Take the airbox off" is not sufficient. How many bolts? Where are they located? I *really* need my shop manual.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. My across the street neighbour decided to tell me that "the mechanic thing really isn't part of our community". He moved in about 2 weeks ago, and I believe he is renting the house. I may have to make his life more difficult. I told him if he knew what was good for him, he'd mind his own. Classist bullshit. Over the summer we had a mid-day blackout. One of the elderly women from down the street came up to me and politely asked if I could open her garage door, so she could get her car out. I kindly obliged. Later that week, I found out that she was responsible for the official complaint I received about my car being left in my driveway. It's good to know when my neighbours want something they're all bright and cheery on the surface, but backstabbing cunts when your back is turned. At least this bloke spoke to me directly.

Classist, racist douchebags. All of them.

Comptech *finally* made available their supercharger kit for the 06 TSX


Hell yeah!

But first things first: suspension.

So I've had the car for less than a week, and there are a lot of things I love about this car, however there are a few things I dislike. I'll make this short and sweet. If you have any questions about something, let me know, and I'll elaborate.

The Good

Good amount of power for a FWD car. I've driven the TL, and it cries out to be 4WD, or RWD

The seats. They hug you. Larger (wider) folk will be very uncomfortable. To me, they're perfect

Gears. All 6 of them put down some good power

The view: lots of glass, and nothing in the way. Contrast with the TL's *gigantic* A-pillar, which makes seeing in the corners impossible.

Brakes. We like to stop

DBW Throttle. I was ready to hate this, and replace it with a physical cable. As it turns out, it's very responsive, although I'd still like a real cable.

Voice activated everything. It's not just a gimmick, and for the most part, it understands me. I'm still learning what it expects to hear for a given command.

Bluetooth Integration is amazing. Caller ID appears in my front instrument cluster, and everything is operated via the steering wheel. I believe it also boots the antenna signal, as I have more bars shown on the car, than what I normally see on the phone, given the same location.

The Bad

Door lock rocker switch. It's counter intuitive. Forward (would be "up" if mounted vertically) should *unlock*, and it doesn't.

VSA has to be manually turned off every time you turn on the car. The VSA is the vehicle stabilising control. It will apply the brakes/throttle if you lose traction. I'm not into cars thinking for me, and I'm *really* not into UIs not remembering their state.

The suspension sucks compared to what I'm used to. Chances are pretty good you reading this will *LOVE* it. If I don't feel every grain of grit on the road, I am not happy. It's not as bad as a mercedes suspension, but I know Honda/Acura can do better

Car Navi Nag Screen.

Difficult to step back form a navi sequence. If you hit the "back" button, you often go to the default screen, rather than 1 screen backward.

Voice Activation delay. There is too much of a delay in me saying the command, it interpreting it, then doing it. Cut to the chase, and do it while you're reciting my command, as there is no interrupt for a bad interpretation (you can't cancel a command, you have to tell it to do something else to fix it)

The Ugly

The rims. Dayum. Can't wait to get rid of them.

I took some pics of the new car. Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmh/tags/tsx/

I take possession of the new car on Thursday.

I am so excited, I'm twitching!

I'll have it a full week prior to my PTown trip.

Now I need to get my insurance company to draught a new Connecticut ID card, and send it to them.

::happydance::

So, does anyone want a 97 Honda Accord w/ Leather interior that's been heavily modified? It needs some work, but it'll get you to the train station *FAST*.

No, not *that*. I'm talking about wheels. My TSX was born yesterday, and it's slowly swimming from Japan.

The new K series engines have a 3-axis (3D) ECU, and as such, are a "learning type" ECU, rather than a static map. This means that there is a break-in period that goes a tad beyond a normal 500 mile break-in period, to about 3k miles, so I am not going to add any engine mods until after about 5k.

This leaves me with suspension mods, my personal favourite! I know I'm going to go with the Koni Yellow/Eiback Pro Kit combo as I have on my Accord, but I've *got* to ditch the stock rollers. the car is *heavy*, so any weight I can take off (without too much sacrifice), I will. However, aesthetics weighs in heavily as well. I'm down to these two rims:

The OZ Racing Superturismo GT, weighing in at 20.7lbs


Or,

The OZ Racing Ultraleggera, weighing in at 17.6 lbs.


I'd probably go with a 17", as an 18" rim would weigh more, and there would be more rotational mass. I am however, going to go with 235R45 rubber, which is going to add a bit to the overall weight, but should improve traction, keeping the power on the road.

The stock rims are 25lbs each, so both choices offer serious weight savings, however, I am concerned that the Ultraleggera may be *too* light to deal with the ass-tastic roads we have in CT. Bent rims suck.

I'm also looking at wind resistance. Aerodynamically, the TSX is one of the best non-exotic production cars on the road. Wheels are a factor in that. I believe the Superturismo GTs may be better in that regard, although I am not sure I'll be going so fast for long periods of time for it to matter. I do Solo 1 and Solo 2 stuff mostly, and I don't usually go above 60mph. "Real" track days, however, I can easily go over 100mph, and that may start having an effect.

So what do you think?

I just found out my car will be born on July 17th. It will then make its way to the US from Japan.

My car will be 1 of 10 in the world with my specific model year, trim, colour, and options level.

I'm gonna be a dad!

Pics of the car are here:

http://pics.livejournal.com/theoctothorpe/gallery/000013tp

Well, I just dropped the dime on a new 2006 Acura TSX.

6spd Manual Tansmission w/ Navi

Because these cars don't actually exist in New England, they're ordering it for me. I should take possession of the car in 2-6 weeks.

I'll drive it bone-stock for 5k miles. That should shake out any potential problems. I've never heard of an Acura having a lemon problem, but there is always a first time.

Oddly enough, I think my first modification will be a proper rear light cluster with *amber* turn indicators courtesy of danthered.

Then I get new wheels. I can't even think of riding on 17" rims with a 50% sidewall.
Shortly thereafter I nuke the drive-by-wire system, and send in the brain to Hondata for adjustment.


Yay!!

Does anyone have experience with CarsDirect.com?

As I've hinted, I'm going to drop a dime on a new Acura TSX (6 spd w/ navi). They seem to have a really great rate (not far above dealer invoice, and well below MSRP), but I've not used them, so I don't quite know how it all works.

I've already test-driven the car, so really, the purchase shouldn't be any different than buying a $30k book from Amazon. However, *shouldn't* is often different than *isn't*.

Does the car come FedEx Air or UPS Ground? ;-)

I own what used to be a 1997 Honda Accord. I've had this car for just under 10 years (it'll be 10 in November), but with all the work I've done to it, and all the stress I've put it through, it's getting a bit long in the tooth. I say it "used to be" a Honda Accord, as I've altered it quite a bit. It started out as a black 4 door EX-L (that's with leather…would you expect anything else??) 5spd manual transmission. Then I got to working on it.

About 2 years after I took possession, I decided to add new wheels. Out when the heavy 15" steel rims, and giant marshmallow tyres, and on went the OZ Racing forged aluminium 17" rims with low-profile Yokohamas. They weren't lightweight rims, but they were lighter than the stocks, so I saved about 14 lbs in unsprung weight.

Of course, now that I had new wheels, I really needed to change the suspension. I needed it for two reasons: 1) the fender gap looked *really* silly with the new wheels. Technically they were the same total diameter, but the larger rim and smaller sidewall gave the illusion of more space between the fender and the wheel. The second reason was the stock struts and springs *sucked* in relation to The Gothmobile (my prior black BMW 325e 2dr). The Gothmobile was on rails. I wanted that feeling back. I didn't want to invest in some ungodly sum for real coil-overs, and I also knew that this car would be my daily driver, so I decided on going the next-best route. Eibach springs matched to Koni Yellows. I also added a strut tower brace for the front and rear. I could now push *serious* Gs on the skidpad. I may not outrace most cars in a straight line, but I can *KILL* them in the curves.

With the suspension in place, I decided to help my baby breathe. First up was to ditch the stock airbox, and replace it with a cold-air intake. There is more oxygen in colder air, so if you can suck air form outside the engine bay, you can make more power. The AEM CAI system worked like a charm. The header on the EX was actually pretty good, so I left it stock. The exhaust however, needed to go. In popped the Thermodynamics cat-back exhaust. I had this system for awhile, but I wanted more.

"More" came in the form of a Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) H22B engine and transmission from a Japanese Prelude. For those that don't know, the Prelude and Accord share the same platform. This makes swapping major things like the engine possible without gigantic amounts of custom work. I was able to score the engine from a dealer that specialises in such things, and it was crated and shipped to my installer (it was the only thing I didn't install myself). Two days later, I was back on the air. On the outside, the car looks pretty normal. On the inside, I make about 210HP at the wheels, about 60HP more than stock. Sure, there are countless faster cars, but this one is mine!

With this car, I've been able to enter many races. I'd win a few, lose many more (the car is a heavy beast, and can't keep up with the smaller civics with B18As transplanted in them), but I had a hell of a good time with it. Now it is time to move on.

So I say goodbye to the Accord (no, it never had a name, unlike The Gothmobile, so dubbed by my friend Evan). It's been a good companion all these years, but now I must say "hello" to my future, the Acura TSX.

I'm going to get a 2006 Acura TSX (actually, it's an Accord in Europe –the US Accord is now *much* larger). It comes with a 6spd manual, navigation system, and 205HP from a 2.4L engine (30MPG). I'm getting it in Carbon Grey Perl, with a Quartz leather interior. This will be my first non-black car. I'm totally freaking out.

So, knowing what you now know about what I do to cars, what should I do first? I'm looking at a lot of things:

Wheels: 18" OZ Racing O.Z. Superturismo GT
Suspension: This time, I've got to do coil-overs. I have to do research.
Intake: I have to kill that stock airbox and go CAI again.
Exhaust: I'll keep it as-is for now.
Chip: Hell Yes! Now engine management can be tuned through a freaking GAME BOY! Hondata has to have something by now.

Anyone out there who wants to chime in? Cheer me on? What would *you* do?