FA5 Si Sedan 11k mile review (mods included)

[Freq18hz]

For the price, this car is fun to drive. It corners quickly. The engine rev's willingly, and the transmission shifts quickly and smoothly (when it doesn't feel notchy, or lock me out of 3rd gear somewhat). I have less transmission issues than I did with my RSX-S.

The seats continue to be very comfortable, and supportive during performance driving. I absolutely love the stereo, and the gauges. The AUX input sounds better on this car than any other I have heard.

The car does have its fair share of rattles, but I think this is to be expected on a sub $25k car with fairly stiff suspension.

The AC blows cold, but takes a long time to reach its coldest temp in hot weather. Also the AC compressor steals quite a bit of power on hot days. The car seems to fog up in winter pretty easily, and unfortunately there is no way to disable the AC compressor when defrost is selected.

The engine idles smoothly stock, and feels fairly refined given such a high RPM range. The sound is unique with the stock airbox in place, and is more aurally pleasing than the RSX-S.

On the handling side of things, the car turns very well. It corners slightly faster than a base model 350z, and corners better (pulls more Gs) than my WRX did, or my BMW or RSX-S did. It is about on par with my RX7, which had a fully built suspension. It does have a little bid of a dead spot in the middle of the steering, which seems to get worse over time. Also during quick transitions, there is quite a bit of body roll, mostly from the rear end of the car. The only real issue I have, is that at the limit, the tail tends to kick out quite a bit, followed by a full 4 wheel slide. This definitely makes me thing twice about changing rear camber and spring rates, as I would hate to make the car any more tail happy.

Traction on this car is pretty good, except the all season tires I have, really don't work well in the rain. Also the car is really hard to launch correctly, especially for a honda. I think this is most likely due to low torque, and a decently heavy curb weight.

Mods:

Injen CAI - Installing the Injen CAI was a mixed bag. I didn't have to cut my fender well per se, but just a slight trim. The intake fits extremely tightly and cannot really be re-positioned. Also it sits right up against the radiator hose. Performance wise, when I first put it on the car, I noticed right away that low end acceleration felt very boggy, and the car overall did not feel a smooth to drive. The idle also got much rougher. Also, there are hiccups when trying to floor it in the midrange. Sound wise, the intake sounds great, but IMO is too loud. Its definitely an attention getter, which I do not care for. This part will most likely be coming off, as it has show a consistant no performance gain on the dyno.

Tanabe Touring - first impressions on installing this was that the car was much quieter than stock. After a few weeks of driving, the exhaust got just a touch louder, but only in the bottom end. The best way I can describe this versus the stock exhaust, is that it removes the mid range growl completely, and supplants it with bottom end bass. The end results is that it sounds smoother, yet quieter than stock. No performance gains felt when installing this whatsoever.

DC Race Header + Magnaflow cat - I had these installed at the same time. From the first time I started the car up, it was much louder. Probably about 3 times as loud. The Tanabe sound that was quieter than stock, now sounds quite loud, and is EXTREMELY bassy. This is probably the farthest thing from fart-can I can imagine, and even makes other exhausts from GReddy, Vibrant, Skunk2 sound "ricey". Although quieter than something like the TI-C, or Skunk2, the car is definitely at the maximum of how loud I would want it. The low end bass it produces sets off car alarms, and has peoples heads a-turning from pretty far away, which IMO is a bad thing. I do think however, most of the people on this forum would love it. I'll post clips when I get a chance.

Performance wise, the car feels quicker with the header and high flow cat. It feels like it has more torque in the bottom end, and pulls a lot harder in the high end. Unfortunately the dyno's don't support this, so it is most likely psychological.


All in all this has been an extremely reliable car. My only two big gripes are the quality of the exterior paint which chips extremely easier, even worse than my subie, and the interior plastics which scratch up like no other and look horrible. This has been a great car, and I've enjoyed it a lot. I am currently looking to sell it for something with more performance potential. If I end up keeping it, it will be because the car does give good value for the price.


-Freq

[slostjoe]

Well im impressed its good to here you say good things about your car GL with the sale hope all goes well.

[krypt0]

You can turn the AC off when using defrost, just follow the directions provided in this thread (5th post down) --> Why is my A/C always on?