Quite some time ago I began writing about my road travels (which are quite extensive) and anything to do with the love of cars. This is a small part of a chapter that I wrote on performance cars. It is written with the reader as someone who may not know much about cars. I was going over the chapters this morning and it occured to me that this small portion may interest the good people at the Prime. That I have recently acquired an NSX fits into this true story rather nicely as well.
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THE RACE
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A true car enthusiast loves a car for it’s performance. The acceleration, the handling, the braking, it’s quarter mile time, it’s time to sixtry, to a hundred, it’s top speed and the way it feels doing all this. Does it communicate to the driver through the seat of the pants, the steering wheel and the way the chassis behaves under different driving conditions. Is the torque and horsepower enough to propel the car from rest and substantial enough to get it to top speed easily, is the gearing conducive to this effort and are the brakes strong enough to reign in the velocity quickly when needed.
And inside every enthusiast beats the heart of a race car driver. Almost from the time we learn that a car is a fun thing to drive, we desire to be able to drive a fine car fast, as fast as possible. When we purchase a sports car it is of course because we love the way it looks, the way it sits low to the ground, the way the wide tires impart a sense of power and strength, the way the face stares down the “competition”! But it is also because we want to drive this beast the way it was meant to be driven, we want to see “what she’ll do”, we want to satisfy that urge that we have always had, the urge to go fast.
Evidence of this urge is seen every day on our streets and there is not any one type of person that engages in this activity. It is fun if done safely without endangering others, it is deadly if done recklessly.
I have over the years driven numerous different types of vehicles and have enjoyed driving each one of those vehicles in their own capacity. The Toyota Landcruiser is heavy and feels capable of venturing anywhere in any terrain, a fact I found true by personal experience; the Mazda Miata’s sole purpose in being is to provide as much fun for the driver as possible- in the way it looks, the sound of it’s exhaust, the quick precise shifts of it’s short gear stick. One car that I bought some years ago was the very powerful Toyota Supra Twin Turbo. White in color with a black leather interior and a Targa top it was bought new in 1994 from a dealer in North Houston and was a race car just made civilized enough to run on the road. It had very firm suspension setting, wide tires, quick and decisive gear throws and more than enough power to propel it to it’s electronically limited top speed of 155 miles per hour, although more than one person removed this artificial limiter to discover the top speed to be in the range of 175 miles an hour or so. The Turbo charged and intercooled, three liter, DOHC, 4 valve/cylinder, fuel injected engine was rated at a whopping 320 hp and many felt this to be a conservative estimate. The phenomenal torque of 320 ft/lb propelled this beast to 60 mph in no more than five seconds, in the right hands. The Twin Turbo setting was such that the smaller low inertia turbo came on first at lower engine speeds and the big fella poured on all it was worth at higher rpm’s. This setup almost completely eliminated any turbo lag and if the revs were kept in the 3000 range even at low speeds, the throttle response was absolutely instantaneous.
I can say without any hesitation that while cruising at 70 mph in the top 6th gear, I could handily beat 95% of the competition without downshifting at all. The monstrous torque made the engine flexible enough that it could crawl at 10mph in traffic in third gear and yet accelerate to 120 mph in the same gear without a hiccup!
Not only did this car have the performance of a true sports car but it was also as reliable and trouble free as any Toyota. I routinely changed oil and filter every three thousand miles even though I only used synthetic motor oil.
It was in this marvelous machine that I raced many a car and came out ahead. I made it a point never to endanger the lives of any passenger and never to drive in a way that would endanger the other drivers on the road. That meant that I limited the number of encounters to the few that were in a safe environment and where the opposition had enough power to be considered a worthy contender. I never had an accident and no one was ever injured in any way in any of the encounters.
One such encounter is still very fresh in my mind and I shall recount it here. I had always wanted to “take on” the very highly regarded Acura NSX and when it had initially come on the scene in 1990 it was offered for what now seems to have been a very reasonable sum of under sixty thousand dollars and which I at that time had felt to be excessive. Now of course the same car with very few modifications sells for about 30 percent more and it looks as fresh and exotic as it did more than a decade ago. The NSX which has an all aluminum body and a normally aspirated VTEC (Variable valve Timing and Electronic lift control) engine is universally acknowledged as one of the finest sports cars ever made. It was sold in such low numbers due to the cost that in the four years I owned my Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo I had not run into it under the right circumstances even once. Now I had replaced the wonderful Z with the higher performance Supra and had still not had the chance to test the NSX- until one day. The dark green late model NSX was being driven by a young man and we were both headed south on Beltway 8, approaching Interstate 10, just east of Houston. Here the traffic is sparse and the road is smooth and flat for miles.
In any event luck conspired to have the two of us come to a stop at a traffic light side by side with nothing but flat open level road ahead of us and five or six cars behind each of us. Cars are routinely driven at about 80 mph on this portion of the beltway. We looked at each other, smiled and gave the thumbs up sign. I realized that the jet-fighter like NSX in the lane to my left was very low to the ground and the engine was being revved to a shrill shriek by the driver who was now completely focused on the road and the light ahead. His right hand was on the gear stick and dark glasses covered his eyes. He looked to be in his mid thirties, about my age at the time. I was confident of my car’s capability. I had driven it for some twenty thousand miles and had changed the rear Pirelli Pilots once already about five thousand miles earlier. The thick almost squared off short shifter felt comfortable in the slightly sweaty palm of my right hand while my left hand held the thick steering wheel at the 9 o clock position lightly. It is my habit to keep the left window open slightly to hear the engine, this helps me shift at the right time without having to look at the revs and it is also the reason I could hear the wonderful sounds coming from the NSX’s mid mounted engine which was just about across from me. A quick look around told me that there were no revenue collectors nearby and that some of the drivers behind were anticipating the run.
As the light turned green there was a sudden increase in the intensity of the shriek emanating from the NSX which was not too much unlike that of a formula one car and it drowned out the angry whistle that my Supra’s Turbo emitted as I threw it in gear and lifted off the clutch. I have always let my second and third gears do most of the work of hard acceleration and even in this urgent situation I followed my routine. I could see the green NSX on my left still and as I upshifted to second my Supra seemed to slingshot forward with incredible velocity and immediately I saw the green car lose some ground through the corner of my eye. Third gear now and another surge of impossible acceleration and now I could hear the frantic whistle of the big Turbo clearly. A quick glance in the left side rear view mirror showed that the low to the ground nose of the NSX was just about level with and to the left of the big wing of the Supra. I glanced at the speedometer and saw the red needle surge past the 100 mph mark decisively. I held the third gear just long enough and clutched again engaging the fourth gear with the speedometer now reading 120 mph. The coast was still clear and the car absolutely stable. The NSX however, amazingly enough, was now gaining on me. It came level with the Supra at about 130 and clearly pulled out in front by about three fourths of a car length by the time we hit 150 mph. It was clear to me that the higher top end of the NSX was going to allow him to continue to pull away from me from that point on while my speed limiter would restrict me. With on ramp traffic now coming into my right lane the gentleman in the NSX slowed down with me, showing that he did not care to have any advantage in that unsporting way. We both came together at about 80 mph, I rolled down my window, pointed at his car and gave him a big thumbs up. He smiled good naturedly and we went our own way.
I loved the pull of my car but I knew that a car with a normally aspirated engine of about the same cubic inches as my Turbo charged Supra had just done something I had never seen before. 0-100 I had just beaten him but not by much and over 130 mph he had clearly shown me his tail end. I was impressed and while it did not diminish my love for the Supra, I had a new found respect and regard for the elegantly designed and engineered Acura known simply as the NSX. I told myself, I was going to get one of those, one day.
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This took place in 1996, the NSX was therefore a 270hp 3.0 liter.
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****
THE RACE
--------------
A true car enthusiast loves a car for it’s performance. The acceleration, the handling, the braking, it’s quarter mile time, it’s time to sixtry, to a hundred, it’s top speed and the way it feels doing all this. Does it communicate to the driver through the seat of the pants, the steering wheel and the way the chassis behaves under different driving conditions. Is the torque and horsepower enough to propel the car from rest and substantial enough to get it to top speed easily, is the gearing conducive to this effort and are the brakes strong enough to reign in the velocity quickly when needed.
And inside every enthusiast beats the heart of a race car driver. Almost from the time we learn that a car is a fun thing to drive, we desire to be able to drive a fine car fast, as fast as possible. When we purchase a sports car it is of course because we love the way it looks, the way it sits low to the ground, the way the wide tires impart a sense of power and strength, the way the face stares down the “competition”! But it is also because we want to drive this beast the way it was meant to be driven, we want to see “what she’ll do”, we want to satisfy that urge that we have always had, the urge to go fast.
Evidence of this urge is seen every day on our streets and there is not any one type of person that engages in this activity. It is fun if done safely without endangering others, it is deadly if done recklessly.
I have over the years driven numerous different types of vehicles and have enjoyed driving each one of those vehicles in their own capacity. The Toyota Landcruiser is heavy and feels capable of venturing anywhere in any terrain, a fact I found true by personal experience; the Mazda Miata’s sole purpose in being is to provide as much fun for the driver as possible- in the way it looks, the sound of it’s exhaust, the quick precise shifts of it’s short gear stick. One car that I bought some years ago was the very powerful Toyota Supra Twin Turbo. White in color with a black leather interior and a Targa top it was bought new in 1994 from a dealer in North Houston and was a race car just made civilized enough to run on the road. It had very firm suspension setting, wide tires, quick and decisive gear throws and more than enough power to propel it to it’s electronically limited top speed of 155 miles per hour, although more than one person removed this artificial limiter to discover the top speed to be in the range of 175 miles an hour or so. The Turbo charged and intercooled, three liter, DOHC, 4 valve/cylinder, fuel injected engine was rated at a whopping 320 hp and many felt this to be a conservative estimate. The phenomenal torque of 320 ft/lb propelled this beast to 60 mph in no more than five seconds, in the right hands. The Twin Turbo setting was such that the smaller low inertia turbo came on first at lower engine speeds and the big fella poured on all it was worth at higher rpm’s. This setup almost completely eliminated any turbo lag and if the revs were kept in the 3000 range even at low speeds, the throttle response was absolutely instantaneous.
I can say without any hesitation that while cruising at 70 mph in the top 6th gear, I could handily beat 95% of the competition without downshifting at all. The monstrous torque made the engine flexible enough that it could crawl at 10mph in traffic in third gear and yet accelerate to 120 mph in the same gear without a hiccup!
Not only did this car have the performance of a true sports car but it was also as reliable and trouble free as any Toyota. I routinely changed oil and filter every three thousand miles even though I only used synthetic motor oil.
It was in this marvelous machine that I raced many a car and came out ahead. I made it a point never to endanger the lives of any passenger and never to drive in a way that would endanger the other drivers on the road. That meant that I limited the number of encounters to the few that were in a safe environment and where the opposition had enough power to be considered a worthy contender. I never had an accident and no one was ever injured in any way in any of the encounters.
One such encounter is still very fresh in my mind and I shall recount it here. I had always wanted to “take on” the very highly regarded Acura NSX and when it had initially come on the scene in 1990 it was offered for what now seems to have been a very reasonable sum of under sixty thousand dollars and which I at that time had felt to be excessive. Now of course the same car with very few modifications sells for about 30 percent more and it looks as fresh and exotic as it did more than a decade ago. The NSX which has an all aluminum body and a normally aspirated VTEC (Variable valve Timing and Electronic lift control) engine is universally acknowledged as one of the finest sports cars ever made. It was sold in such low numbers due to the cost that in the four years I owned my Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo I had not run into it under the right circumstances even once. Now I had replaced the wonderful Z with the higher performance Supra and had still not had the chance to test the NSX- until one day. The dark green late model NSX was being driven by a young man and we were both headed south on Beltway 8, approaching Interstate 10, just east of Houston. Here the traffic is sparse and the road is smooth and flat for miles.
In any event luck conspired to have the two of us come to a stop at a traffic light side by side with nothing but flat open level road ahead of us and five or six cars behind each of us. Cars are routinely driven at about 80 mph on this portion of the beltway. We looked at each other, smiled and gave the thumbs up sign. I realized that the jet-fighter like NSX in the lane to my left was very low to the ground and the engine was being revved to a shrill shriek by the driver who was now completely focused on the road and the light ahead. His right hand was on the gear stick and dark glasses covered his eyes. He looked to be in his mid thirties, about my age at the time. I was confident of my car’s capability. I had driven it for some twenty thousand miles and had changed the rear Pirelli Pilots once already about five thousand miles earlier. The thick almost squared off short shifter felt comfortable in the slightly sweaty palm of my right hand while my left hand held the thick steering wheel at the 9 o clock position lightly. It is my habit to keep the left window open slightly to hear the engine, this helps me shift at the right time without having to look at the revs and it is also the reason I could hear the wonderful sounds coming from the NSX’s mid mounted engine which was just about across from me. A quick look around told me that there were no revenue collectors nearby and that some of the drivers behind were anticipating the run.
As the light turned green there was a sudden increase in the intensity of the shriek emanating from the NSX which was not too much unlike that of a formula one car and it drowned out the angry whistle that my Supra’s Turbo emitted as I threw it in gear and lifted off the clutch. I have always let my second and third gears do most of the work of hard acceleration and even in this urgent situation I followed my routine. I could see the green NSX on my left still and as I upshifted to second my Supra seemed to slingshot forward with incredible velocity and immediately I saw the green car lose some ground through the corner of my eye. Third gear now and another surge of impossible acceleration and now I could hear the frantic whistle of the big Turbo clearly. A quick glance in the left side rear view mirror showed that the low to the ground nose of the NSX was just about level with and to the left of the big wing of the Supra. I glanced at the speedometer and saw the red needle surge past the 100 mph mark decisively. I held the third gear just long enough and clutched again engaging the fourth gear with the speedometer now reading 120 mph. The coast was still clear and the car absolutely stable. The NSX however, amazingly enough, was now gaining on me. It came level with the Supra at about 130 and clearly pulled out in front by about three fourths of a car length by the time we hit 150 mph. It was clear to me that the higher top end of the NSX was going to allow him to continue to pull away from me from that point on while my speed limiter would restrict me. With on ramp traffic now coming into my right lane the gentleman in the NSX slowed down with me, showing that he did not care to have any advantage in that unsporting way. We both came together at about 80 mph, I rolled down my window, pointed at his car and gave him a big thumbs up. He smiled good naturedly and we went our own way.
I loved the pull of my car but I knew that a car with a normally aspirated engine of about the same cubic inches as my Turbo charged Supra had just done something I had never seen before. 0-100 I had just beaten him but not by much and over 130 mph he had clearly shown me his tail end. I was impressed and while it did not diminish my love for the Supra, I had a new found respect and regard for the elegantly designed and engineered Acura known simply as the NSX. I told myself, I was going to get one of those, one day.
****************************************************
This took place in 1996, the NSX was therefore a 270hp 3.0 liter.
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