2006 Acura Tsx Base Sedan 4-door 2.4l on 2040-cars

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2020 Acura NSX Suspension Deep Dive

The Acura NSX has been a special car as long as I’ve been in the business. The first one came out in 1990, the same year I started my career in automotive engineering. I vividly remember driving one briefly back then when we brought one in for benchmarking. I'd drive it again 22 years later when my previous employer bought a used 1991 example for a long-term test. Reader interest was sky-high and the car was still gorgeous, but the march of time and automotive engineering had clearly left it behind. Then, in 2016, a second-generation NSX emerged, and it was packed with bleeding-edge thinking. It has a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6, but this new NSX is a hybrid with an electric motor-generator sandwiched between the engine and its nine-speed DCT transmission. Two more electric motors – one for each wheel – power the front axle. There they can add traction, regenerate electricity under braking and dole out hyper-accurate levels of torque vectoring. The carÂ’s tire package was changed from Continental SportContact 5 to SportContact 6 tires in 2019, and numerous suspension re-tuning tweaks came along with them. The result is a lively and well-balanced car that is relentless when driven hard and a pussycat around town. LetÂ’s see what theyÂ’ve got going on under there.   At first glance the 2020 Acura NSX appears to have dual wishbone front suspension. But we canÂ’t tell for sure because that big two-piece brake rotor is in the way. The coil-over shock looks obvious, but a few odd details are apparent even from here.   This view also seems to indicate double wishbone suspension. But the pivot axis (green arrow) between the upper and lower ball joints looks wrong – itÂ’s far too vertical. WeÂ’re missing something. But I would be remiss if I failed to point out a few other things before we moved on. For one, the front drive axle confirms this to be an all-wheel-drive machine. Second, the forged aluminum damper mounting fork (yellow) that envelops the axle is mounted to the lower arm about 75% out from the armÂ’s inner pivot. The spring and damper motion ratio would be 0.75-to-1 relative to wheel movement, with a tiny reduction due to its lean angle. Lastly, just look at the huge cast aluminum upright (white). Beautiful. Normally these are called hub carriers or steering knuckles, and I use the terms interchangeably. But the motorsports-derived term upright is normally applied when the piece is tall and, well, upright like this one.   This explains everything.

Hands-on with Acura's novel touchpad infotainment interface

After Acura's Precision Cockpit was unveiled here in LA, I sat in the, uh, driver's seat of the wheel-less interior mockup to get a feel for how this new touchscreen-free touch interface works. There are a lot of good ideas inside. Here are 11 things you should know. It's less like a trackpad and more like a remote-control tablet. So instead of letting you move a cursor relative to its last location like the trackpad on a laptop, each point on Acura's trackpad is mapped to a corresponding point on the center display. If you want what's in the upper right corner of the display, you touch and click in the upper right corner of the trackpad. Simple. I figured it out in two minutes. Maybe less. The whole thing is surprisingly intuitive. The ease of use is helped by the fact that the targets on the screen are pretty big – no tiny "buttons" to fiddle with. The clicks are real. The trackpad actually moves when you press down, so no need for simulated haptic feedback. In their research, Acura engineers found that accidental touches and presses are a real issue. We could have told them that – hit a bump while using a finicky remote interface like Lexus's all-but-abandoned joystick thing, and you select an item half-way across the screen from the one you intended. The placement of the trackpad in this concept interior also helps avoid unintentional inputs – it's not in the middle of the center console where it might get brushed or bumped, but instead in its own little cave at the base of the center-stack waterfall. (Acura's low-profile button-based transmission selector suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.) View 13 Photos Lots of cues cut down on distraction. You hover over the option you want before positively confirming the selection with a hard press. There's no cursor to find and reposition like in the Lexus trackpad system The red highlight gives the necessary visual cue that you put your finger in the right place. The pad is slightly dished to give you a tactile cue of where the center and edges are. It allows you to build up muscle memory, sort of like how you know generally where the "keys" are on your smartphone or tablet's virtual keyboard by now. Or at least I do on mine. You look at the screen, not what you're touching. The problem with touch screens is that they have to be low down in the car so you can reach them. That means you have to look down from the road to stab at what you want.

The 2024 Acura Integra Type S will have 320 horsepower

The 2024 Acura Integra Type S is launching this summer, but the teaser and information drip campaign is officially in full swing.  Acura just let on that the Integra Type S will produce 320 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque from its 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. For reference, that’s 5 horsepower more than what the Honda Civic Type R makes — its 310 pound-feet of torque figure is the same as the Type R. We make such a comparison, as all the information Acura has dribbled out so far about the Integra Type S has us thinking that itÂ’s going to be very similar to the Type R. The second bit of information Acura revealed today is an approximate reveal window. The final car and all the specs we want are expected to drop at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The race takes place over the April 14-16 weekend, and while we donÂ’t know exactly what day the Type S will be revealed yet, our bet would be for Friday or earlier that week, so Acura can show off the car in person to race fans all weekend long. The teaser photos and teaser video (see directly above) give us a little design and sound preview for the Type S. Just like the camouflaged car, the undisguised version is rocking massive fender flares in both front and rear. These will allow Acura to fit the big 265-section-width tires it has in store for the Type S in addition to giving it a super-aggressive look. The photos also show off a carbon fiber rear lip spoiler, carbon mirror caps, a glimpse at the large rear diffuser and a prominent Type S badge on the front fender.  As for the sound preview, the Integra Type S breathes through a triple-outlet exhaust and sounds far more menacing than the Civic Type R does from the factory. There are even some loud pops and bangs on the overrun that you can hear. For those going frame-by-frame on the video, youÂ’ll also notice the car is painted in AcuraÂ’s Tiger Eye Pearl paint. WeÂ’ve seen this shade on both the TLX Type S and MDX Type S, so it looks like the trend is continuing for Type S models. Look out for more teasers as we approach the final reveal for the Integra Type S, but you wonÂ’t have to wait long because the reveal is well under a month away now. Related video: