leo200617

Hi guys! My lease with my old black 2012 TSX base model (with cloth interior) ended at the end of last year and I was thinking of choosing the new RDX as my new car. But at my surprise, I noticed this VBP TSX A-Spec on the back lot of the dealership and after I looked at it, I decided to finance it! With these bigger A-Spec wheels, the ride remains sophisticated and the steering is much more alive/precise (the Special Edition rims also came with the car, I put new winter tires on them). The black headliner makes the interior feel more luxurious (or sporty?). Being a non-leased car, I decided to do some small mods on it.

I first started to put dynamat in the doors (inner and outer), trunk and under the back seat (makes a lot of difference, the mids are louder and exterior noise is reduced by 8dBa). Changed the fog lights to HID. I also ran wires to the rear doors to put speakers in the empty holes (I wired that in parallel with rear speakers). I also installed tweeters on the parcel shelf. I also wired a speaker in the centre dash (which was empty). I plastidipped the front fog covers to black. I also plastidipped the front bumper and side mirrors (transparent) for the winter (to protect it from winter salt rock chips). I also installed electromagnetic rear parking sensors wired to the rear reversing light (works like a charm except when it's snowing or raining, it beeps non-stop). I put on a thick layer of roof cement in the wheel wells to reduce wheel noise and ''rock'' noise (it really works). Tinted the windows 20% rear and 70% front. At last, I installed LED lights almost everywhere. In the interior, all the LED strips are plugged into the footwell circuit, I also ran wires into each door to rewire all the lights and connect them to the footwell circuit (so that the light in the doors dims after being closed). Finally, I ran wires to the rear bumper's reflectors to put some LEDs (wired to the parking lights and brake lights with 2 diodes and a resistor) and also the large horizontal ''vent'' in between (I put the LED right under the metal shield).

After all these small little mods, the car feels much more luxurious and silent, just the way I wanted it to be! The sound system sounds really great after the mods, especially the stereo imaging is almost perfect from every seat! I really like this car, and it looks awesome, that's why I decided to finance it.

Here are some pics I took since I got the car on November 2013. Tell me what you guys think!

iCrap

lookin good. do you have a link to the product you put in the wheel wells? i want to reduce some noise on mine..
I already dynamatted but I don't think it made a big difference.

leo200617

http://www.rona.ca/en/cement---dry-and-wet-roof-cement
Thats the link for the roof cement I used for the wheel wells. I actually put 2 layers of dynamat in the inner door and 2 more on the outer door (4 layers per door total, ya I know it's overkill). I also put 2 layers on the trunk floor, sides and the trunk itself. Oh yeah, 2 layers below the rear bench. I also removed the b pillars and c pillars to cover up the holes. Removed the parcel shelf to cover all the holes between the interior and the trunk. I used a soft black tape to tape everything so that it doesn't vibrate. All those small details + wheel liner coating will help reduce road noise.

xtcnrice

Nice ride! Where do you live? I wish I had gotten the A-Spec model... I'm from Toronto, Canada.

Welcome

leo200617

Hi there! I'm from Montreal, QC.

terdonal

Very nice.

SlickxAc

first time ive ever seen a vbp se.

zup2sky

Looking very good sir

Honda_boy83

Looks good! Keep up the modding!

ssjoeboe9

I'm kinda diggin the white light coming from the "vent" on your rear bumper!

liquidtsx

Ahh...I wish the US had the Vortex Blue SE. That was my first color choice until I found out the SEs only came in 4 colors here. Grr...Oh well.

What is the size of the A-Specs? I am liking those wheels more and more.

leo200617

I believe the A-Spec wheels are 18'' and 7.5'' wide. The factory tires with these are Yokohama Advan Sport 225/45ZR18 93Y if I remember well. The grip is unbelievably better than the stock Michelin tires with the 17''. I can go at least 15% faster in turns before understeering compared to the Michelin's.

When I asked the dealer, they said there were only 50 VBP TSX A-Spec in Canada, 10 of them are manual. There are 200 TSX A-Spec in Canada total, 50 for each colour (red, white, black and blue). In Montreal, I have not seen an A-Spec yet, it is quite rare over here.

leo200617

I let my dad use the car and he managed to hit a huge pothole..
It's really unfortunate, the pothole was deeper than the tire's height it seems.



It's soo frustrating!!!
I tried sanding it down, it's better than nothing. I might fix it completely this summer.
I used rubber cement glue to stick the thing back onto the tire.
At least there's no wheel vibration, so no hidden dent on the rim!

Morrissey25

iTrader: (4)

The fix looks good but I wouldn't trust it...

iCrap

Looks fine... that's such minor damage anyway, it's safe to drive on.

VR1

I wish the US had the VBP SE. That was actually the combo I wanted. How does your guys' interior look? You guys have Red Suede and stitching like us?

BaoZZeR

Your paragraph was too long for me read but I like your LED strip footwell!.

leo200617

Yeah Canada's A-Spec is USA's Special Edition with 2 sets of wheels (A-Spec wheels + Special edition ones) and an A-Spec badge on the sides instead of the Special Edition badge on the trunk. It's almost the same as a SE but not the price.. The MSRP was 39 900 and the full price with Québec's 15% taxes and 3% interest is just a tad more than 50 000. I believe the US TSX SE is way more cheaper than that..

leo200617

More pics of the interior:
(By the way, all of these lights turn off when the doors are shut, they would blind me when driving at night if I leave them on all the time!)

VR1

50k?! I paid $32k (before taxes) for my SE. I heard cars in Canada were expensive, but I didn't know that expensive.

SlickxAc

goddam thats expensive, i only paid 31,000 after taxes for my 2010 tech.

rawger

Damn they do you up the butt in Canada, eh?

Nice ride though! SE VBP

zup2sky

That fix looks pretty good. May I ask, how you managed to fix that rim damage? I have some curb marks on my a-spec wheels that I'd love to fix.

Thanks!

leo200617

Hey zup2sky, I first taped around the damage using painter's tape, and sanded down the damage using a 400 grit sandpaper, and then a 2000 grit to make it smooth. After that, I polished that part using a rotary machine and polishing compound.

TSX1981

Hi i'm new here but i cant see your pics??