I saw a car show featuring the 1987 Buick GNx. It has more cubic inches than the RL but less HP... I'm guessing more torque as well.

At any rate, they could smoke the tires off the line. Does the VSA/AWD prevent the RL from squeaking the rubber?

 

Even with the VSA off, I would imagine that the AWD and DBW would prevent it from chirping off the line unless it were very cold or very wet. Also, I would highly suggest that you do not do this. Honda's differentials are known to be very weak in general and I can't imagine the repair costs on the special magnetic rear diff of the RL.

 

Also, the GNX is a RWD (2WD) vehicle. You could theoretically spin the tires in any 2WD car. AWD cars on the other hand are a bit more difficult, especially in automatic.

 

At over $200 a tire, why would you want to do this?

My college roomate had a 1979 Ford Fiesta. Maybe 100 hp... but if you redlined the engine and dropped the clutch in first gear, you could light the tires up. Why? Because they were skinny little 13 inch econo box tires and the car weighed nothing....

Anyway, the Buick GN could light up the tires because (a) it came with crappy mid-80's rubber, (b) it's geared low (high diff ratio and low 1st gear) so that muscleheads can do this, (c) you could, with front discs and rear drums, do a burnout by holding the brakes just hard enough to keep the car in place while you revved the car in gear and (d) it had no weight in the back.

With the RL, you have several factors which prevent you from doing this: (a) sticky, wide tires with a heavy car (b) AWD (c) VSA/anti-skid, which will apply throttle/brakes to deny wheelspin, (d) drive-by-wire throttle, which has a smoother "roll on" than a regular throttle (e) an engine that's got a torque peak in the 3500-RPM range.

I suppose you could redline the engine in N and drop the tranny into D, but I imagine that'd turn the transfer case into a metalflake slushie....

 

I've done it by accident in my RL by trying to give it gas before it was fully engaged in drive after backing out of the garage and it barked the tires pretty loudly. I wouldn't do it on purpose and I doubt the car would either if it were already in gear and popping it into drive from reverse while giving it gas breaks stuff.