I am at 5280 so I see around a second loss in the 1/4 mile. I am very happy with my TL-S, but the damned car has no torque! I floor the gas and it takes almost .5 of a second or more to downshift! I hate this! It feels like a Mercury Grand Marquis (only lots less torque)! It is much faster than my previous 96 Avalon, but at least the Avalon would move instantly when you stepped on the gas. I guess the TL-S feels a lot peppier at/near sea level. Anyone else feel this way about the TL-S?

I will be getting headers, cold air intake and anything else I can get my hand ons (that is safe to bolt-on).

 

I live at 20' above sea level so I'm pretty good in that respect, but my trans still takes forever to downshift too and I hate it. I am looking into the AEM computer ($1,400-1,600) to see if it does anything with shift firmness.

 

you may wanna check your acctuator,and you do have SS right...you could always downshift your self

 

honda=little torque!

 

FWIW - torque has nothing to do with the downshift. That is purely a function of the "soft" tranny we have.

If you really want to change the feel you'll need to find someone who makes a shift kit for our tranny.

And BTW - manual shifting is what I do 90+ percent of the time because of the slow and soft down shifts.

RUF

 

Why not use SportShift?

 

because sportshift sucks and still shifts really slow and won't go into 1st unless you almost comw to a complete stop.

 

don't ya know honda engines have no torque?

not even close to my old buick 3.8...right off the idle...

 

upgrade your torque Convertor, it may help

 

I'm not that experienced w/ cars, but isn't torque the power you feel when you slam the pedal and the car launches forward? I know in my Jeep, it must have a lot of torque, cuz when I hit the pedal to the floor from a dead stop, it launches my back into the seat. I checked the HP/Torque ratings for my Jeep and the TL-S. Surprising......

Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited
Horsepower: 195@4600
Torque: 230@3000

Acura TL-S
Horsepower: 260@6100
Torque: 232@3500

The TL and Jeep's torque ratings are similar at similar RPMs. Am I getting this all wrong or what? I hope my back hits the seat hard when I mash the TL-S's pedal when I get it in June!

 

well, thats more like throttle response.

as for the Jeep, there is also things like suspension setup, causes this "launches my back into the seat" , like a G-Force.

I think it has to do with the Torque Convertor we have.......

There is almost like 2seconds delay from "You" stepping the pedal
and let the engine knows, you want to go WOT.

This problem happens alot in Automatic cars.

To solve this, upgrade your Torque Convertor, companies like Level-Tens does this....... it won't increase your hps, but it will certainly help with the 1/4miles launch and stuff like instant WOT.

 

newbie here, what is WOT?

 

WOT = Wide-Open Throttle

 

Dang, double posted!

 

how new is your car, it might be that you havent broken your car in yet

 

For me, it's not an issue of trottle response or slow downshift, but our ridiculously tall 4th gear. Classic situation is when you're on the highway going about 60, and want to pass. You step on the gas, and it downshift to 4th, and the car feels like it does not want to accelerate. So you step on the gas harder, and it then goes down to 3rd. Not only does this make the car feel sluggish, but it's very annoying that you have to drop down 2 gears to accelerate.

 

My TL-S is about two months old and has 2000 miles on it. I am at 5280 in Denver, CO and I babied the car (still do) for the first 1000 miles. I still havne't had the oil changed yet though. I am just a little bit disappointed at the throttle response (lack of) and the slow downshifting tranny. What good is 260 ft. lbs. of torque and 260 HP if it takes .5 of a second to downshift when you want to get on the highway or pass some joker holding up traffic? If you can't empoly it then it is usless. Some guy in a freakin Dodge Straus got the jump on me the other day by almost a full car length froma stand still! Granted I reeled him in by 25 - 30 mph and had a full length on on him by 40 or so, but this is sorry! I should have driven the car for a whole day before I bought it. If I would have done that though, I may be on the Mazima fourm now with a new 2002 SE (auto though, I don't need to pretnet that these near-luxury family sedans are race cars like some try to do since I already have a 91' Stealth that is a mid 12's car that has handed many a Corvette its butt...). I guess I'll have to go the 'mods' route and void the warranty just to get some performance.

 

I thought honda engines produces more torque/per liter than most other engines from other car companies. Honda engines simply lack the displacement to create the monster torque that can only be had from a V8 or through forced induction.

 

well...ur Jeep is a 4.0 liter OHV V6 engine, it has very generous torque at low rpm becoz of the OHV design...

it may have...say...at least 200lb of torque rite at 1200-1500rpm and the torque curve stays very flat until it hits the peak at 3000rpm...besides, ur Grand Cherokee is just 3600lb of weight, and the TL is 3600lb of weight too!! so it might have similar stats...but it has more torque at the low rpm

lack of torque is one of honda engine's traditions...not that they don't have enough maximum torque, it is that they don't have enough torque at low rpm like toyota and others do...that's the difference...

 

yah simply Honda 's problem on low end torque.......

you can test drive Nissan Altima or even the SE-R, it has more low end torque than any Honda Cars.

 

Well now you know that you have to drive cars back to back and do more research than just jumping into a purchase. BTW the TLS has 232 ft lbs of tourque. Also enjoy you car man, if you are starting you relationship like this already, you will hate the car. It's quick but its not a sports car. I agree with you on the downshift and throttle response, but some days it feels bad and some days it feels good. For some reason cars have bad and good days like people. All all depends on the weather. Enjoy your car its a great one, and the Max is so ugly why would you want one. Speed and power isnt shlt if your car is ugly as hell. Just look at the Altima, i wouldnt be caught driving something that looks like it came from my a$$.

 

What??? There must be something wrong there.

I can get my TLS to downshift into 1st at 30MPH by manually down shifting.

RUF

 

its all the trannys fault
if u look at the dyno charts, we get a lot of torque at start and the curve is pretty flat also torque stays falt in wide part of the powerband, so its not a flaw in engineering, i think

 

Yeah I can manually drop it into "1" at 30, but sportshift won't do it, so I don't use sportsh!t unless I'm on the highway.

 

the trans may just not be responsive enough, they may need to reprogram/recalibrate the ecu to read the throttle velocity to predict driver intent. or if they do already, set a more lenient theshold for kickdown. any car, including the camaro in 6th gear will feel sluggish, in top gear at the wrong rpm.

 

Gee I'm sorry your car is such a big disappointment. Maybe you should have gotten another car? and a manual tranny?

Ever hear the words "test drive", smart guy?

 

WTF Man? Why are you flaming him so bad, chill out.

 

No torque??? I guess 232 lb-ft just isnt enough.

This is a SOHC 3.2 Liter NA V-6. 260hp and 232 lb-ft is damn good for an engine like this. What other engine similar to this produces those kinds of numbers???? You guys who are compaining about the lack of torque did do a little reserach and test drove the car before buying right??

 

at what rpms do peak hp and torq come on?

 

Were not towing boats with out TLS

Torque = Feels Fast
HP = IS fast

 

**** you jbrown. The 'no torque thing' took weeks to get on my case unlike you which took seconds.

I think that the TL-S tranny needs a 'power' and 'economy' setting like my Avalon did. In the Avalon with the 'power' setting engaged, the tranny would downshift with a lot less throttle response than when it was on the 'economy' setting. I think that functionality would have been a huge bonus for a 'near-luxury' sedan like ours that is very, very sporty. And as far as the SS goes, it is worthless IMO.

If I wanted a 'near-luxury' sedan then why would I personaly want a manual tranny? It defeats the purpose of 'luxury' IMO if you have to shift. As I have said before, I don't pretend that the TL-S is a sports car. I would only get a manual trany if I were going to own a sports car (like my 1991 Dodge Stealth RT/TT that is all modded).

 

sorry jbrown. It was suppossed to be **** you 'my2senseless'.

 

.

 

wow.. thats clever. how's that working out for you?