Cap'n Carl

If I were buying a car, it would be either the IS or the CL. Today I test drove both.

I drove the Acura first. I drove an auto type S about 1 year ago, and liked it, but the 6spd was even better. The clutch is perfect, and I like the very short (front to rear) throws of the shifter. I agree with others on this board, however, that the side-to-side distances are too short. I'm sure I'd get used to it, though. Great seats. Not quite enough headroom in back. The exhaust sounds great when I gunned it, but it's too noisy for me most of the time. I like the new silver trim inside. Overall, a great car made better.

Then I went to Lexus right next door. There are things I think the IS is better about, and some that are worse.
Better: The seating position/view is better--it puts you more upright. Also, there's more headroom in back, as I'd expect in a 4 door. The engine just sounds like music and feels awesome. Lots of low end torque. Quiet exhaust. Turns on a dime.
Worse: The seats don't hold you like the Acura's do. It doesn't feel as roomy up front. Less storage areas, too. Less trunk. While the engine sounds and feels great, you can tell it just doesn't make the power that the type S has.

I own a Solara, so if anything, I was a little biased towards the IS, but the CL is definitely the better car, in my opinion. More power, more room, and I don't think the rwd Lexus handles any better. Since they are priced about the same, I think the CL-S is easily the better buy.

As if I'd have to convince anyone here.

4thGSi

Nice review...

DtEW

Not a criticism but more of an addenum, pushing the handling envelope of a RWD car is very different than pushing that of a FWD or even AWD car. Heck, it took me about a year to learn to fully contain and exploit RWD coming from 5 years in a tweaked 2nd-gen Integra.

Especially for LSD-equipped RWD cars such as the IS300, maximum cornering isn't achieved until you can predictably access a tiny bit of braking oversteer and transition into a similarly tiny bit of power oversteer in small and mid-radius corners. Power oversteer is something one doesn't have in a FWD or AWD car, so it feels very foreign and out-of-control to people coming from FWD or AWD. Hence they instinctively avoid it, not knowing that it's the only way to extract more than just 85% out of this configuration.

typeR

acctually with the 6MT's LSD i think you can achieve alittle oversteer and pull your self through a deep corner...im sure it feels much like when i had my nitto555R's on the front and 450's on the rear the best explination i could give is remebering when i was a child and playing on the merry-go-round...we would get it flying as fast as we could then you would jump on at first you were ok but then as it dragged you around you feel the G's trying to trow you back off....

vuduvida

That was a nice review. I remember meeting you at the AZ Mills Mall meet last year (I was the first guy there, had the black CL-S...). Is your Solara's supercharger compatible with the IS300's 3.0? If it was it was, that would definitely be the way to go, IMO.

DtEW

Well, I've bummed rides in a competitor's ITR, and the oversteer isn't the same thing. You don't countersteer nor does more power point the car deeper into the curve.

I mean, I haven't seen the 6-speed really ripping it up at some venue where that's done, so there's no judgement on my part on its handling prowess as of yet. But I'm just kinda doubtful that it'll jump up 3 whole classes without the serious reduction in mass that comes from a "Type R" spec.

You gotta remember that the highest classification that any FWD car has achieved is the ITR, which is classified with us to run in D-Stock. But that's a 2400lb car with 195hp (12.4lb per hp) rolling on 195-width tires (12.4lb per mm tire width).

tinman, few things for the Solara would be compatible with the IS300 because the Solara is a FWD car with a transversely-mounted V6. The IS300 is a RWD car with a longitudinally-mounted I6. There are two aftermaket supercharger kits and two turbo kits out, however.

gavriil

I dont know DTEW. When I test drove that IS 300 a year and a half ago, I remember that car understeering more than any other FWD car I have ever driven.

Plus, as I understand it, that is the tendency. They are now tuning RWD cars to understeer more than ever.

So, what is the use of RWD unless if it is a roadster or a 911-like car.

JZ

I don't understand all of this talk about the "side-to-side" distances of the shifter being too short.

Firstly, I drove this car and the shifter is great.

Secondly, on a good manual car there should be absolutely no need whatsoever for you to put any side to side motion into the shifter when shifting. This isn't a Ford Mustang where you have to try and find the gears--in the CL the gears are there--just pull or push straight and the shifter will go where it is supposed to!

mdaniel

So if I'm going from 2 to 3 or 4 to 5 I just should just push straight up? I don't think so. The adjustment comes from those of us who are used to older Honda 5 speeds. In the case of my last stick, 3/4 lined up with neutral as in the CL. 1/2 were a good inch or two to the left, 5/R were a good inch or two to the right. In the CL, 5th is not all the way to the right. In fact, the lateral distance from 2 to 5 in the CL is just about the same as from 2 to 3 in my Integra. I'm not saying this is bad. Its just much narrower that I was used to. Once I realized my mistake I quickly adjusted. Of course that was after a couple of 2-5 shifts. :o But the gear ratios in the CL are so close and the engine has so much torque, a 2-5 shift in the CL isn't as bad as it would have been in the Integra.

DtEW

You are right, gavriil. The IS300 is certainly not neutral, perhaps only slightly more so than the most neutral front-drivers and certainly less than the 3-series. But that's why it's absolutely necessary to to conjure up a slight degree of oversteer in order to drive the thing smartly at all. What was surprising to me originally and probably unintuitive to people used to trying to tune their cars for more neutralilty is that cornering in full grip at complete neutrality isn't necessarily the fastest way to travel on street tires. If you're a fan of F1, even in that completely different world the top drivers are just beginning to display tail-out cornering behaviour as they're finally coming to terms with the switch to grooved-tires.

If you've autocrossed or road raced, you know that it's very different from canyon running in that you have to adjust from the street driving "approach the corner at a speed you feel comfortable containing" paradigm to the "floor it as fast as possible and keep it there regardless of how fast you don't feel like going, but then brake as fast as possible without losing control" paradigm. Anyways, the IS300 is driven like this by every decent competitor I've seen:

1) Come into a corner almost as hot as as you would with a FWD car.

2) Snuff out 80% of excess entry speed. If the wheel is at all turned, you're going sideways.

3) If you're not already sideways, use the remaining 20% to get yourself slightly sideways.

4) Roll onto the accelerator and hold the tail. If you're not countersteering and the tail-out attitude is steady with throttle balancing alone, then you've hit the sweet spot. Mind you that this is pre-apex. If you have to countersteer to balance it, then you've overcooked it.

5) The corner is apexed in this slightly tail-out mode. I guess it's possible to go into oversteer with a feint motion, but we're racing, not show-drifting.

6) Fully roll onto the accelerator as quickly as possible to exit.

This is what's necessary to get the most out of this particular balance. Regardless of what Nissan is saying about their innovative FM platform , I believe that the advantage is to be able to come into a corner hotter (slightly less of a tendency to trade ends) and to exit a corner more aggressively (less tail kick-out for the same amount of throttle). You might say that it's the combination of being able to brake and accelerate out of a corner with FF's aggression, but with FR's better mass balance mid-corner (if you know how to access it) and weight transfer that works with you. As you might see in last year's Topeka Nationals results and the just-concluded 12 hours of Sebring, this particular balance of IS300 is doing considerably better than the more-neutral 3-series.

This is probably the justification for this balance in high-performance models, but undoubtedly for mainstream coupes and sedans the original intent was to keep the less-than-competent drivers out of trouble. But I can live with its seredipitous "side effect" to small and mid-radius corner racing performance. :P

I'd personally show anyone in the SoCal area when the next autocross practice comes up, and showing someone who is as dedicated as a car fan as you are, gavriil, would be a pleasure. But you gotta be here. Want a ride April 6th, EricL?

EricL

Perhaps -- where you gunna be?

One thing about the CLS, I do occasionally long for the Fangio-esque throttle-controlled counter-steering hairpins in my long gone RWD

Cap'n Carl

Hi, Tinman, how've you been? I asked the Lexus dealer if there were some TRD-type Lexus parts to get more power from the IS300. He said just cosmetic stuff and a cat back exhaust. I think the CL-S has a better choice of mods to choose from than the IS. Have you checked out the 6mt? If not, go to Scottsdale Acura, they were really nice; no pressure at all. They are a little stingy, though; they wouldn't let me borrow an NSX for a weekend, the cheap bastards.

DtEW

Norton AFB in San Bernadino.

Ah, kin!

vuduvida

Yeah, Scottsdale Acura's where I bought my car. They were very low-pressure and nice with me also. That tactic must work well for them cause I originally just went in for a test drive of the CL-S and ended buying it that same day. I don't want to get near the six-speed for that reason. Seriously though, I haven't gone in yet for a test drive. They wouldn't let you borrow a NSX? Damn fascists!!

DtEW got me straightened out about the differences between your car and the IS in a post above (thanks, btw) and he also mentioned a few aftermarket parts (supercharger, turbo) for the IS that apparently the dealer you spoke with wasn't aware of. Might be worth looking into. Keep us posted on what you decide on.

JRock

I'd love to have a kitted-out IS300 with a single-turbo 2JZ-GTE under the hood.

GOOSE

DtEW: I'm in SoCal and I would love to see and experience what you are talking about firsthand. You also mentioned an autocross. Could you provide a little more info please? Thanks.

DtEW

Sure thing, GOOSE. I'd love to introduce an enthusiast to this. Here's a primer.

While there are many ways of exploring the overall performance characteristics/limits of an automobile, the one that is amongst the most accessible, technique-intensive, safest and legal is the autocross, which may be known elsewhere as the gymkhana, or under the SCCA (Sports Car Association of America) proprietary moniker of Solo II.

An autocross is basically a miniaturized road course that is set up in a giant-sized parking lot (think Disneyland-scale), airport, or some other very large uninterrupted parcel of tarmac and/or concrete. The course is delineated for the drivers with chalk and traffic cones and generally mimick the kind of small and medium-radius curves that can be found on the average 2-lane mountain road. Drivers run individually against the clock from a start line to a separate finish line. Each run lasts on average from 60 to 90 seconds, but it is an extremely intense 60-90 seconds where I guarantee your heart rate will at least double, perhaps triple.

Being that the entire course is on a flat, obstructionless surface, loss-of-control only means plowing/spinning the car off the course and knocking over a few cones, a much better outcome than anything that could result from a misjudgement during a canyon run or even the controlled-environment of an open track. Drivers therefore become free to explore the ragged edge of a car's handling envelope, allowing them to learn precisely where it is and how to exploit it. In-fact, Solo II participation is one of the ways you can obtain a real-life racing license from the SCCA for the kind of bumper-to-bumper racing depicted in the ubiquitous Gran Turismo videogames.

Like I depicted in a previous post, this is all-out racing, meaning full-acceleration to full-deceleration to edge-of-grip and repeat. All aspects of automotive performance are taken to their limits. What one usually finds is while maximal performance acceleration (drag racing), deceleration (emergency braking), and cornering (mountain running) are all pretty easy on their own, putting them together and transitioning from one to another at race-pace is what separates a bona-fide high-performance driver from, well... somebody else. :P It is most likely another world of aggression relative to anything that you have done on the streets/roads.

There is more that I'll post tomorrow night. Might as well give you guys a bit of time to digest this.

(But without keeping you on-edge, I definitely invite you to come with me to Norton AFB on April 6th to see and ride with me. There I'll also explain how you can participate in this yourself with your own car. Like I said, completely accessible and totally easy. This invitation extends to all of you who might be interested in this too. Details later.)

gavriil

DTEW, thanks for the good words. I would love to get with you and explore all the experience you've gained from racing, etc (as mine is very limited), unofortunately, I am very busy with work. I do visit San Fran often though. Are you close to there at all?

Caddy©

Fangio-esque throttle-controlled counter-steering hairpins

KavexTrax

!!!

DtEW

Check it out! My racing adventures as the top headline of granturismo.com!

http://www.granturismo.com/

Photos and two small videos!

DtEW

(continued from last night)

As a competition venue, autocrossing focuses on the driver and not on the machine. For example, Driver A trailers-in his imported and fully-race-prepped Lancer Evo VII RS to an event. Driver B drives his wife's commuter Civic EX to the same event. Driver A will not prevail just because he has a much high performance car. There are two ways these drivers can compete. They can simply race within their vehicle class (more on that in a moment), which means Driver A's results will only count against other comparably race-prepped cars and Driver B's results will only count against other similarly-stock economy cars. Winners of each class will be recognized separately. Alternatively, they can race against each other, but their raw results will be adjusted via an index calculated by the SCCA from the results of champion drivers in each car class. Nevermind the raw results, in which Driver A's racecar annihilate Driver B's economy car, as expected. If Driver B's performance approaches 99% of the performance that champions can extract out of economy cars, while Driver A's performance only approaches 90% of the performance that champions can extract out of race cars, Driver B wins.

A comprehensive car classification system has been drawn up by the SCCA. The classifications are not concept-based (i.e. FWD vs FWD, RWD vs. RWD), but are based solely on racing results of high-level competitors across the country. Thus you get classes such as D-Stock, where these popular cars face off against each other:

Integra Type R
RSX-S
Celica GT-S
Prelude (VTEC models)
Eclipse/Talon Turbo
IS300
3-series (6-cyl, non-M3)
WRX
S4
(...and more)

Notice that neither cost, number of passengers, number of doors, horsepower, drive configuration, etc. are shared. These cars are classed together based by the SCCA only on simularity-of-performance in SCCS autocrosses and road racing. What this does is that it makes for even racing, with competitors that you'll always have the possibility of beating, and vice versa.

A matrix of "stock" vehicle classifications can be found here:

http://www.moutons.org/sccasolo/Lists/2002/stockc.html

There are other levels of categorization depending on the degree of modification that you have done to your car. You don't need to worry about them until you've become familiar with autocrossing and wish to compete in a regional points series. (From regional points series there is the Nationals, in which winning means you go into SCCA history as a class champion of the United States! )

This is a lot of detail, but the point of this is to show that no matter what you drive, you will always have a competitive car. You will not be nuked and left by the wayside while the sports cars romp and have their day.

If you just want to have fun and develop yourself into a better driver, you're completely free to ignore the competition aspect altogether. You can still run!

Red Rider

dtew, thanks for the great and detailed info. Makes me want to join up and go racing What type of cars do CL-Ss match up with ?

DtEW

Well, in H-Stock, (which is where V6 CL's of both generations are classified at), here are some popular and more recognizeable competitors:

Acura Legend
Acura RSX (non-type S)
Audi A4 (V6 and I4 turbo)
Jaguar X-type
Nissan Altima ('02+, including the 3.5L one)
Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS
VW (all FWD VR6 models, and some of the current 1.8t models)

and more...

The complete listing can be found here:

http://www.moutons.org/sccasolo/Lists/2002/stockc.html

You just gotta scroll down to "H Stock".

I expect the new LSD-equipped 6-speed to go up a class or two (or three, up to the ITR but I kinda doubt it), since LSD does a lot for making a car quicker in transitioning back on the power. And it the degree of improvement is higher for FWD than RWD.

But you, Red Rider, have a lot of stuff on your car. Unless you remove them (I doubt you'd want to), you can't really compete as an H-Stock competitor. I think in your state of tune, you're pretty well prepared for STX. All you need would be to trade up to some borderline (but higher than 140 treadwear) race compound tires such as the Falken Azenis RS's to be truly competive in terms of equipment.

But you don't have to worry about that unless you plan on seriously competing, as opposed to casual comparison of results with friends and against other vehicles in other states of tune.

GOOSE

DtEW: Thanks for the great information. It is appreciated. As for the event on April 6, is this an autocross? Can I attend and also race on the same day? or is there some sort of registration. Whatever the case, if you could provide some details about that particular event, I'd really appreciate it, cause I'm really interested in going. Again, thanks a lot.

DtEW

The event on April 6th is a "practice." This is a day where 40-80 participants get about 10-12 runs each, none of which are counted toward anything. Hence "practice."

The event on April 7th is a "championship". This is the actual race day, and racers get only 3 runs. The best time out of the three runs determines your placing.

Although it's rather obvious to anybody that a beginner should have their first try at autocrossing at a "practice," recent developments within the organizing body and its constituent clubs (and there's a whole backstory to that) have made it very difficult for anybody who is not affiliated with a club to register for the limited slots of a "practice". This being the situation, I've stopped trying to steer newbies toward having their first autocross at a "practice". Aside from the number of runs and actually getting a result registered, the "championship" is pretty much the same thing.

This is to say that I can chat about what it is to autocross and give demonstration rides on Saturday (6th), and if you were still interested you can run your car on Sunday (7th), and I'll be there too. But on race day I'll probably be too busy worrying about memorizing the course, tire pressures, tire temperatures, etc. to do much good as an guide. And I certainly can't give anybody rides if I've only got three runs and the results count! :P

In case you're wondering how I got myself one of the coveted "practice" slots, the situation basically forced me to both become affiliated with a club and obtain a racing number (that's what the CSCC #333 is about). If after your first autocross event of some sort you decide that this is indeed something you see yourself doing on at least a semi-regular basis, then you should consider joing a club. And I'll explain how that works at the event.

See these links for detailed info on the April 6th and April 7th events:

http://www.solo2.com/practice.htm

http://www.solo2.com/championship.htm

To answer your original question, you have to pre-register for the "practice." And they screen the registrants for club membership. Even if you were a member, this "practice" has long been filled.

In contrast, you can just show up on race-day and register on-the-spot for the "championship."

EricL

"Hey, man, the Acura tech who does my gears is the same dude who does my teeth..."

Tom2

Who needs real world experience when you have the MOTHER of all magazine collections??

tankmonkey

fwiw, these cars (as well as cl v6's) are g stock, not h stock....

DtEW

Doh, you're right. How the hell was I reading?