Acura builds 345-horsepower RDX A-Spec for SEMA

The

2019 Acura RDX

is great — a return to form for the sporty compact luxury

crossover

. So there’s no real harm in giving one the

SEMA

treatment, especially since it entails a real

motorsport

tie-in and some legitimate performance parts. As for the giant graphics, well, it’s SEMA after all.

Graham Rahal

races for

Honda

in the IndyCar series, and he also has his own performance parts company — named, sensibly enough, Graham Rahal Performance — which he started in 2017. They sell some private-label bits manufactured by other companies to their spec, some off-the-shelf parts, and they do tuning and installation work on customer cars.

Acura

gave the job of building the

SEMA RDX

to Rahal.

There’s a fair bit going on under the hood to get the RDX to 345 horsepower from the factory 272 ponies. The 2.0-liter turbo engine gets a bunch of enhancements. The turbo, intake, exhaust manifolds, downpipe, and cat-back (a GRP design) are all

aftermarket

. There’s a customer intercooler, too. KTuning did the

ECU

with a custom map. On the handling front, the RDX wears Eibach springs, StopTech brakes, HRE wheels at 21 inches, and

Michelin Pilot

Sport 4S tires.

The RDX started life as an A-Spec model in Apex Blue Pearl, and from there GRP applied carbon fiber garnish to the mirrors, grille accents, and lower fascia. Troy Lee Designs did the exterior graphics, and inside there’s more carbon fiber and a custom steering wheel (courtesy of Max Papis’s MPI Innovations shop).

The RDX will be on the show floor if you’d like to check out the Rahal shop’s handiwork.

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