Specialty File
The Acura TSX hugged the esses right into our hearts the day the first one rolled up the driveway in the spring of 2003. It had the looks, the moves, the comforts, and the charms to make it onto our 2004 10Best list and has held the position every year since.
The word is getting around, albeit slowly. Acura sold 34,856 TSXs in 2005, the luxury maker's third-bestselling vehicle after the larger TL sedan and MDX sport-utility. The styling is tweaked slightly for 2006, and power rises five horses to 205. Do the deal on a base six-speed for just $28,505. If you're joining the ever-expanding owner body, Scott Zellner would like a word with you about the car pictured here.
Zellner is president of King Motorsports Unlimited in New Berlin, Wisconsin. Regular readers will recognize King as the creator of several fast, reliable Honda-based racing steeds for Car and Driver , most recently our Acura RSX project car that took first in the factory-sponsored RSX Challenge (Sport, February 2006). King maintains a close relationship with Honda, a company that is notoriously stingy about close relationships, and is also the North American distributor for Mugen, Honda's not-quite-in-house tuning shop.
What's it all mean for the TSX owner? King is an important player among a small group of aftermarket suppliers selling performance parts for the car. This King TSX is the demonstrator, a 2004 model built for the Specialty Equipment Market Association's annual fall pooh-bah in Las Vegas. (We used the 2004 price in our specification panel. King has pieces coming for the 2006 model.) It's loaded with many of the items on Zellner's buffet, a full $10,308 worth, in fact, plus $1440 in labor if you pay King to install it.
We eyed King's blue bespoil-ered dagger with skepticism — the complete body kit, by the way, is $2793. A car that was hatched so perfectly formed usually has nowhere to go but down in the hands of a tuner. Perhaps sensing this, Zellner's team went mild on the modifications, with just some intake and exhaust work, a suspension kit, and a lot of carbon-fiber-'n'-billet dress-up parts.
"People who own these cars generally want bolt-on stuff," Zellner says. "They don't want to crack open the motor and possibly affect its reliability."
So the engine gets the least attention — just $1773 worth of parts, including an $895 Mugen titanium and stainless-steel cat-back exhaust and a $569 box-of-snakes header. Those bits, plus a $169 carbon-fiber cold-air box, have proven to be worth 20 horsepower on a dyno, Zellner says.
We couldn't verify the power increase in testing, but the car ran to 60 mph in 7.7 seconds, which is a couple of 10ths slower than the last 2004-spec stocker we drove. We figured the larger 18-inch wheels and correspondingly heavier tires might have damp-ened its scat somewhat, but Zellner figures we left a few 10ths on the table based on the results of other magazine tests. California gas, perhaps.
The suspension, the wheels, and the tires get the most ministrations ($5594 worth, including a Mugen five-way-adjustable shock-and-spring set, StopTech brakes, four Mugen mirror-finish 7.5-by-18-inch wheels, and Bridgestone 225/40R-18 Potenza RE050A summer rubber). There, our improve-o-meter buried the needle. The King TSX pulled 0.90 g on the skidpad versus 0.80 for the last stocker we tested ("Everyday Heroes," February 2006) and clipped the stopping distance by seven feet, down to 170. Slithering up mountains the King TSX showed its familiar willingness in turns — but with tighter body motions and higher cornering grip. We were expecting a worse ride trade-off than we got: The King TSX proved livable if just a bit more lively on bucking freeway surfaces.
Zellner knows that few owners will buy the whole package (throw in "a couple hundred bucks" if you want the graphics as well) but would rather choose a $49 billet shift knob here or the $1795 StopTech Big Brake kit there. Just choosing a TSX is proof of good judgment, in our opinion. Anything you do at King will be gravy.
King Motorsports Unlimited, 2385 South 179th Street, Suite C, New Berlin, Wisconsin 53146; 262-786-8360;www.kingmotorsports.com
