What do you guys think of what's going on under the hood?

With new RDX being only a 4-cylinder SUV I was surprised to find so little available space. E.g. accessory belt almost rubbing against the frame, and the alternator sitting so far-far behind the engine. I can't imagine the pain to replace it, if needed. 4-cylinder TLX was quite the opposite, IIRC.

 

Actually, I was surprised as how much room there is under my RDX's hood compared to the 1.5T in my '17 Civic and the 2.0T in my '18 Accord. I haven't seen an "easy to work in" engine bay since the 1970's before emission control devices and plumbing took over. In the 1980's when most vehicles became front-wheel drive, that's when engine bays became really packed.

 

 

Yup - that's because the engine bay had to be large enough to accommodate a V6. The 10th Accord uses only I4's.

When I saw how much more room there was in my RDX compared to my Accord, I immediately suspected a turbo V6 might appear in there at some point.

 

Acura's engineers went to a lot of trouble to drop the engine and transmission low in the engine bay, in order to lower the center of gravity. It's part of what makes 3rd-gen RDX handle so well.

OTOH I currently have a large collection of scrapes on my knuckles from working on another Acura SUV, and I had lots of choice words for the guys who decided how much clearance was "enough". And that was just to install a darn ATF cooler.