2004 Acura RSX DC5

The idea of starting over, reversing time and being handed a blank canvas to sully up once again, makes the lives of forward-thinking tuners much easier. It allows for a retooling of what didn't work and a total redemption for what was altogether wrong. Remember the ubiquitous Altezza lights that were installed on seemingly every other car but the IS300? How about the large exhaust tips that whistled, making Bubb Rubb and Kid Sister instant Internet sensations? (See: YouTube) Perhaps the windshield wiper nozzles with the not-so-handy and utterly useless LED lights are more memorable? If any of those products touched your car, the idea of starting over was probably never so prevalent. Getting the chance to press the "reset" button in the first place, though, is the hard part. If money and time aren't the main issues, then it's most likely choosing the next car to fill your garage or picking the perfect body kit to enhance your car's look that plagues the brain.

For people like Joshua Roman, however, starting over transcended the automotive lifestyle that he's been ingrained into since he was a little kid. Starting over meant moving his entire family to a different city and buying a new car, this '04 Acura RSX Type-S DC5, before changing his entire approach on how to properly modify. This gave him the ability to redeem himself in front of his peers, and show up the entire country from the little city he moved into: Lincoln, Nebraska. Let's just say that Lincoln now has more to offer than just Cornhusker football.

Heading to the plains of Nebraska by way of Orlando, Florida, Joshua regretted his first foray into automotive tuning. A victim of the mainstream force feeding machine, Joshua once installed the Altezza lights, LED windshield wiper nozzles, and hasn't fully admitted to running the whistling exhaust tips. He did admit to being a bit foolish with his first car. "I did attempt to modify the '93 Honda Accord but I wasn't knowledgeable about quality parts or how to build a car," he explains, "I looked at the DC5 as my chance at a blank canvas-to do things right this time around." Harkening the gods of JDM, the powerful resource that is this magazine, and making sure not one specialty exhaust tip went near the car, Joshua went from "not" to "hot" in five years.

He began with a simple set-up the minute he purchased the RSX off the lot in 2003. The stock suspension was the first to hit the floor of his garage. Getting the right stance provides a good foundation for a well balanced project, so Josh opted for the HKS Hipermax coilovers; the ones that make the chassis stiff and help the wheels spin happily. They're also the suspension setup that anyone with a JDM sense of mind can fully appreciate. He coupled the Hipermax coilovers with a J's Racing rear strut bar and lower tie bar, and a Beatrush front strut bar and C-pillar bar. This, of course, is all for the sake of making tight turns, and rubbing fender to wall at time attack events and Super Lap Battles around the Midwest. He would've already made moves at these events earlier in the year except new additions to the family, two boys named Christian and Bastian, hampered his racing schedule, making this feature a sort of debut party.