2005 Acura RSX

What began in the July issue as experimentation has encouraged us to tinker further with our street RSX Type-S. After last time, we still needed to swap the stabilizer bars with the ones that come in the Progress lowering kit, but in the interim we learned that for more aggressive driving, the stock Acura shocks don't provide the stability and adjustability we're looking for.

With this revelation, our project goals became clearer. Yes, we like the lowered stance, but we really wanted the flexibility to dial in something more capable of handling those few days at the track, or even for those more common canyon outings or freeway floggings.

The paragon of handling is a neutral vehicle, and to make a vehicle neutral you need to adjust, among other things, the vehicle's slip angle. Tweaking spring rates, anti-roll bar rates, ride height, and tire sizing and pressures all affect weight transfer, tire loading and slip angle. For the S, we have a slew of mods that will address these elements and more.

Finally, if you've skipped ahead, you probably noticed the Progress springs are now gone, as well as the stock shock absorbers, and in their place is a set of Tein Super Street coil-overs, recommended by Tein for our purposes.

We also faced some challenges in making the mishmash of equipment work together. For the record, Progress also now has a set of coil-overs, but when we wrote the story, they weren't ready for production.