When you think about it, isn't it kind of foolish to try and turn our cars into some kind of light-weight high-reving drifting hard-core racer?

Our car was introduced into the market as a luxury sports coupe . . . so when modding it wouldn't it make sense to enhance those qualities not to try and turn into something it's not.

In my opinion, the pinnacle of true luxury sports coupes are the Mercedes CL and CLK series (particularly the AMG). So if you were trying to replicate those cars, what mods would you make to your CL? This is my list . . .


Paint Job & Exterior pieces: Wings West lip, Custom Retro-fit of Accord WW side skirts and rear bumper lip. Gunmetal Metallic Grey paint job. Top quality, no blemishes. (i.e. cool, sleek, understated, and not screaming for attention, the way a true baller should behave) $5500

Engine: I was thinking custom turbo but honestly, there's a reason that most of the forced induced AMG cars have superchargers and not turbos, Turbo-lag!!!! (even the turbo MB car is twin-turbos to avoid the turbo lag) Last thing you want to do in your fine automobile is to have to rev that engine has some damn Blow-off valve whistling just to make an aggressive manuever.
So I'm taking the supercharger route, and luckly Comptech already makes a super-charger that will fit our 3.0's without much tinkering. We'll also make sure that we get the optional high-boost pulley for our Comptech supercharger. The only reason that Comptech is so conservative with the boost levels on their J30 supercharger is because of the weak trannies present on the Honda family V6's, but . . . $6000 (installation included)

Transmission: Dr. Evil Transmission. This bad boy comes with a limited slip differential and is made to handle more power then we're even trying to make. $5500 (installation included)

Other Performance: OBX headers retrofit and custom Exhaust with a nice mellow Magnaflow universal at the end of it. $1000 (installation included)

Suspension: Koni Red Shocks with Eibach pro-kit should give the comfort and lower look needed of a car of this calibur. $1000

Wheels: 4 to 5 lug conversion and the 18 inch wheels from the Acura TL A-spec package should give this car an impressive yet stock look. $1500

Brakes: Nothing too crazy. Cross-drilled rotors, steel-braided brakes, good pair of brakes pads (the brake calipers were painted the same color as the car during the paint job). $1000

ICE: This is not the kind of car you want to put in dual 15's with a box that eats half the trunk. Simply not classy enough. An In-dash Navigation all-one-type HU is definitely a must. Besides that, a solid pair of components up front, we can leave the rear 6x9's in place. A good quality 10 inch sub that doesn't require a lot of foot space can be tucked into the corner of thet trunk. A proper amp is in order of course. We could do such more in this category but this alone should put us above the majority of stock systems on most luxury autos. $4000

Interior: Two-tone black/grey leather upholstry (autoleathers.com), wood-trim kit. Custom Door Sills. $1600.

Others: HID's. Tints. Black-out Headlights. $850


Sure that's a whole lot of money, but this is an expensive hobby we live, and when you think about . . . . This car is going to put down more power to the wheels then the 300 HP acura RL, is going to have navigation, a brand new paint job, a brand new leather interior, and best of all you can have the pride to know that no one has a car just like this one on the planet.

 

hrmm PM ronnie0738 about it

 

even with a twin turbo setup there is still the possiblitly of turbo lag. a good twin turbo has one small turbo and one big one. the small one spools up quicker and will provide power in the lower RPM range while the big one needs more time to gain momentum but will carry power throught the rest of the RPMs. now if you have a turbo that is VERY small and one that is VERY big there will be a "gap" or lag in between the two turbos effective powerbands.

and speakin on 4-5 lug conversions, why not just make it a hybrid with say a new CL.

if im not mistaken we already have limited slip diffs. and in case you didnt know, the differential is NOT part of the transmission.

 

oh dear god... not another "create your own cl type r" thread...

 

really i mean shit if i was gonna spend that much money to make a car "like" a merc AMG, id buy something better than that, a Lotus Elise. 38 grand to go 0-60 in under 5 seconds. mmm crispy brown!

 

In all honesty though, isn't your "main point" the general idea of building a fully customized project car? "It's foolish to build a car into something it's not?" I think that's bullshit. That defeats the whole purpose of automotive building/tuning.

 

dang.. if i had the money... ill get

300HP RL ENGINE SWAP
6SPD TRANNY CONVERSION
SUPERCHARGER
ALL THE HANDLING ENHANCMENTS
STAGE I,II,III WEIGHT REDUCTION
ROLL CAGE
CUSTOM HELMETS.. haha
RACING 17.5" RIMS
NOS UP THE BUTT!!

AND

MORE NOS!!

or...

ill just buy a Lancer Evo VIII MR

 

If I had that kind of money for upgrades I would sell my CL and buy a used BMW M3 or Benz. Just my

 

yea..i'd just buy a new car...

 

i'd buy an AMG

 

You guys suck, can't ever play along

BTW, my most hated comment on these boards . . . .

"For that much money, I'd just buy something better"

WTF is the point of our very expensive hobby? To personalize our cars and make them better and unique. Not to save up money to buy newer better cars.

 

let them buy new cars.

you're the better person if you can say that you had fully built/customized your own car.

 

Well considering that luxury sports coupes and Lotus Elise are on opposite spectrums of the automotive world, a sane person would not be cross-shopping them.

 

I see your point, it was just another perspective on what would be the most full-filling tuning route to take with our CL's. Maybe I'd prefer my CL to be an all out luxury cruiser with the ability to make objects in my rear-view mirror get real small, real quick when I get on the throttle, but of course if my CL was an awesome all out lightweight racer, I wouldn't be complaining abou that either. (i.e. I was the one that started the create your type-R version of the CL thread too)

 

What will 25+ thousand put into a CL get you?

Magazine Articles, possible Magazine covers, sponsorships. Car Show victories. Instant Recognition at shows, meets, import events, and on the street by import fans.

What will 35+ thousand used to buy a CLK55 (or someother AMG car) get you?
aww . . . you get to be an every-day regular poster like you are now, except you get to do it on mbworld.org. Congratulations. Now you can help AMG newbies find out what size rims they should get and which intake is the best.

 

Can anybody clarify this, cuz I never heard that before. I really dout we have limited-slip differentials, those are usually reserved for cars with serious performance intentions.

Also, don't know about the differential being part of the transmission but it is supposedly included in the Dr. Evil tranny package and guys on V6performance.net seem to make a big deal about it being included.

 

meh, that's your hobby, not mine. Can't different types of CL owners share these boards? I plan on putting a bit of money into my car to make it look nicer (wheels, etc.), but I don't have that much $$$ as it is at the momment. If I did, I would chose to buy my dreamcar, not upgrade the ack to compensate. I only spent $4000 on my car, and I find it to be a good purchase for what it is (more/less my daily driver/winter beater in the long run).

I mean....our cars are more/less 2 door accords. I find spending ridiculous amounts of money to turn them into 2 door accords that can compete with a real car sort of silly. In fact, I don't see any front wheel drive car as high performance...my "other car" is an 84 supra, and that was way better on the road than this thing...at least for handling, feel, etc... Again, just my Magazines, sponserships, car shows.......yeah, but for being a ricer with too much money. There, I said it.

Maybe I should just leave these forums to the dumb rich kids and move my ass back over to celicasupra.com

But to play along, if I had a bit more money to invest, I would just focus on the interior, because I'd feel like an idiot if I tried to race my CL. I'd probably just get nicer speakers than stock, get an in dash DVD player/navigation system, and maybe some AMG wheels and a mercedes benz hood ornament. Don't mean to sound like I'm not proud of my Acura....I just take cars for what they are, and what they're supposed to be.

 

im not cross-shopping. youre missing my point all-together. what i AM saying is, for the amount of money you are planning on putting into the CL i would buy a lotus. and then eventually tweak that. im also saying that you could buy something better to START on. my

 

basically a nice way of saying what I was trying to say

 

LOL. funniest shit i ever heard. but really im joking. im pretty sure we have open diffs not LS. youll mostly find LSD's on cars that need to keep both wheels spinning at the same speed for some reason or another(mostly 4WD or other trucks).

and i never said the diff wasnt included in the package. i just said that the differential is not part of the actual transmission housing. it is the final drive gear but if you were to include the diff in the transmission category, you would have to include the driveshaft and axle as well. but like that other guy said we dont have AMG's or anything close to it. we have luxury coupes, and you shouldnt try to make it something that IMO it can never be. do you know how much stress a turbo will put on a block that isnt tuned to handle the increased compression, heat, and power output. you really dont know what you are getting yourself into do you?

 

i would go jack a AMG badge from a MB and call it good

 

it's fun to think about it and also interesting to see how it would be if done..but when it comes to shedding out the $$$ thats another story..probably not worth it in the long-run, but to all it's own! if i had the $$$ i'll do it..oh yeah trust me!

 

if ihad the money id buy something better and keep the CL as a beater while i was modding my new starter car. that seems IMO the best way to go in such matters if you have that kind of money.

 

oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you were rich.

Why is that whenever someone proposes something expensive to do to our cars, alot of you are like damn that's too much money (as if money was scarce commodity) and then go on and say I'd just buy something even better and then mod that. ummm . . . . In case you didn't realize, that's even more expense. Think about it? Put 20 g's into your cl, or take 30 g's to buy a used M3, or NSX or whatever, and then you have to spend even more money afterwards.

Oh, and btw unless you guys haven't noticed parts for cars get more expensive as the price of the car goes up. For example the Radenergie Titanium Exhuast system for an M3 cost $2,700!!!

 

I know what you mean, Zerostatic.


Like I had said before, let them ramble and buy new cars. Their comments mean nothing anyway because they obviously hadn't put a good ammount of effort into their cars.

It's good that you have love for your CL, and quite frankly that's what I'd like to see around here- proud CL owners and true enthusiasts. This board has too much bitter whiners complaining how their CL isn't worth it to them. My advice to them? Leave, and buy a new car.

 

Guys, it's all about priorities. The tuning hobby is very expensive, and the only reward you can get out of it is the pride & joy of owning and perhaps racing a customized ride, weather it's flashy from 100 miles, or a subtle sleeper.

Some people will waste ridiculous amounts of money to make their piece of shit cars faster than exotics. And then there's others out there, mainly the older ones with real life responsabilities (i.e. mortgage, family, career, etc.) that just can't see the point of spending so much money on a depreciating asset.

I had a 1988 CRX Si back in the day that I bought for under 2K and spent over 17K in mods. It was a road-course ready car (needed a roll cage though). I got sick of it after a few months and sold it - and lost half my money. Would I do it again? Yeah, if I was 19. I'm not that much older now, but my priorities have changed.

So you see, it's all about priorities. Just keep in mind that cars are depreciating assets - and in 99.99% of cases, not an investment.

 

No doubt.

 

Lets put it this way, if I had an M3, I wouldn't go putting tons of money into it. I'd be like "ok, now I have a badassed car" and keep it at that.

But really, it comes down to taste, and priorities. Don't tell me to leave and get a new car, because I like my CL, and will probably dress it up within reason (no more than $2000 in aftermarket over a span of time)...I have a right to like these cars for what they are and take pride in mine.

The tuning world seems very unnecessary to me. All I want is a stylish car that handles well, has a decenet amount of hp, a smooth shifting 5-6 speed, and one that's practical (I need back seats or a trunk more than I need 15 subwoofers). The Acura doesn't fit into any of those categories for me, so I choose not to invest in it. Will I keep this car for a long time as a daily? hell yeah. But it's not my cup of tea tuning wise.

I really shouldn't talk shit about you guys because I know, that if I had that kind of money to soak into a car, I'd get an MKII supra in better body shape than mine, and give it a 2JZ swap with all the other goodies instead of just buying an MKIV supra. I guess I know how it is, I just personally don't find a FWD honda worthy of that sort of attention. I own both and can speak from experience, RWD owns FWD any day, for driving pleasure anyways. In fact, if it wasn't for the problems my ailing MKII started to get last year, I would still be driving it instead of the Acura...even though it looks like shit, it's just more fun.

But if you'd be happy driving an AMG-wannabe honda with tremendous understeer, then go for it. I'm not hear to stop you, I'm just hear to VOICE my OPINION.

 

Dont forget to post pics

 

That's how I feel as well. I like my car a lot, but it leaves so much to be desired. If I was going to spend thousands of dollars into modding, I'd get something with more potential. What I don't want to do is take a perfectly good car and make it worthless.

I don't see why you guys just don't play along. AMG's style is to put a big ass engine into their cars. Subtle but aggreaive moulded body kits. Big wheels, sport suspension....So to accomplish that, we'd have to put a V8 in there. Since there is none, it would have to be the highest output/displacement V6 honda makes. The Current RL engine is out since it's AWD. Maybe the Current TL engine. Stroke it to 3.5litres and supercharge it. You'd probably end up with close to 400 HP with other mods. Do the suspension, etc. and you're set. But in all reality the 1st gen CL is not a good platform for that. Maybe the 2nd gen, but you really should only do it on a RWD car.

 

The only way you would make your car worthless is by adding worthless parts onto your car.

 

If you don't do things right and you have problems whether it be electrical or mechanical, it's not going to be worth as much as a stock car. And if nobody wants to buy your engine swaped car, it will be worthless. Don't get me wrong though I'm all for swaps. I've already told myself that I'm keeping this car forever and I'm not going to worry about re-sale value, so as soon as money comes in, i'm going to swap.

 

Trust me, if I had planned on selling this car, I would've left it as stock as possible. My car is being built strictly for race with street-ability purposes.

 

I'm not going to buid it up like that, but I do want it to be a lot faster. H22 and turbo and a 5mt conversion...or maybe a built auto.

 

Exactly what happened to me. I had to face the fact that to make the cl what i wanted i would have to dump way too much more into. I already dumped A LOT into it as it was. I realized it was time to let her go so i jumped ship to subaru which surprisingly many other members have done. i really miss the individuality i had from my cl, but with very little amount of money i'll have everything i want when if i stayed with the cl i would have prob had to dump another 10k into it. i still miss my cl though until the turbo spools! but after the whiplash i still miss it.

 

This thread is utter crap.

Are you joking? You think that the best way to decide how to spend 35k is how you'll be responded to on an online message board? I'd buy the AMG too. Michelangelo didn't sculpt out of play doh when he could have marble.

I think you suck.

You idiot, if you look at your list of mods, they're all in an attempt to make the CL as "cool" as an AMG. Someone who spends there money on an AMG won't need to "spend even more money afterwards" in an effort to make their car have an excellent suspension, supercharger, nice interior etc.

I appreciate your efforts to stand up for his foolish ideas, and I understand where you're coming from in that you support people modding their CL's, but to spend 30k on a car that cost someone between lets say $5-8000 is silly. Just because some people don't have the level of committment to the CL that you do doesn't mean they should leave the board.


You roll up to me in your 9 year old 3.0 CL with your list of mods, and I'll be right there next to you with my C32 AMG or M3, just as happy with a better car.

 

Zerostatic, Insyone, You guys keep fighting the good fight.

One reads this forum could almost be of the opinion that the rest of you who have responded to this thread hate your cars. I know we have some transmission issues, but all-in-all, the CL is a great automive platform on which to sound your individuality. The reason for this is the lack of aftermarket support forces a certain amount of enginuity and creativity.

If I really wanted a BMW or a Merc., I would have found a used one like I did my CL, $7,450. I just like Acuras. They have Euro-trash appeal without the cost and reliability issues (minus the crappy transmission with which I have already dispatched, $2,000).

Anyway, If you don't like the original question, why bloody respond? Just let the dreamers dream and read another thread.

 

I am making something out of my CL. I can see where spending tens of thousands of dollars on their cars wouldn't be as reasonable as a buying another car that is worth the money. Honestly, it is a waste of money if you spend large ammounts of money into a car that you don't appreciate. The reason why I am spending thousands of dollars into my CL is because it is my project. On top of that, it's the car I had chosen to drive. If I wanted a "performance" type car, I would've gotten one a long time ago. You see building a car isn't necessarily just to show off the hard work that has been put into it. However, it's the knowledge you gain from all the work done, that makes a difference. And that is what a enthusiast/tuner is. I could've bought an M3 or an FD a long time ago, but I have always had a passion for Honda/Acura tuning. Thus that is the reason why I picked one up. I don't care if they're not true sports cars, because they aren't, and that's the reason why I love it. I find it nice to see heavily modified sport compacts competing with true sports cars out there. The people who build those machines are hardcore enthusiasts that share one common goal altogether, and that is to put their projects to it's maximum potential. Trust me, just because they're tuning a 4cyl powerplant, that doesn't restrict them to only 4cyl motors. They build it because they want to see what a 4cyl can do. People build cars because they want to see their cars perform/look to their maximum potential.

 

That's why I bought my CL 2 years ago, because there wasn't much of an aftermarket, aside from accord parts (which I knew were interchangeable thanks to this site) I liked the challenge, and the fact that it was a good project car, and could be done tastefully, and uniquely. I for one am glad there's not a huge aftermarket for our cars, because then all the little civic kids would buy them, put aluminum wings and clear tail lights on them, and rice the shit out of them. The CL is a luxury car, and should not go the same route as civics. It's all about CLass

 

couldn't have said it better myself.