How Do You Make An Ariel Atom Scarier?

The Ariel Atom is already the purest distillation of a sports car you can get your hands on in the US.  I suppose with the exception of the kit-form-only Cateram 7 and the soon-to-be-imported KTM X-Bow, anyway.  It doesn't even have body panels.  It looks like an alien probing device with an engine, wheels, and a license plate.

A regular Ariel Atom weighs in at 1,350lbs(!) and the weakest engine is a Honda K20 drive-by-wire motor out of the RSX Type-S, an aluminum 2.0L 16v motor with VTEC, 200bhp, and an 8,000+rpm redline.  There's also the option of a tweaked naturally aspirated 245bhp K20, and a supercharged 300 horsepower K20.  300 horsepower in a "normal" car is pretty intense.  300bhp in a 1,350lb car gives it a power to weight ratio of 4.6lbs per horsepower, which if you're good with numbers, is almost equal to that of a Veyron.

Slow.  That's what this is: very, very slow.  And dull.

If 4.6 lbs/horsepower isn't enough for you, A) what's wrong with you? and B) there's the Atom V8, which is at the ragged edge of lunacy.  A Suzuki Hayabusa-derived V8 with a supercharger cranks out 500 horsepower, which is enough to distort your facial muscles with it's 2.43 lbs/horsepower - basically Grand Prix levels of power-to-weight ratio.  Oh my goodness.  I just cried thinking about how scary that has to be on street tires.

But that's not insane enough for you?  Well, A) You should see a doctor, because you probably should take an ACTH test to make sure your Adrenal glands are functioning, and B) give Real Street Performance in Orlando, Florida a call.  They have the solution for you.

Underfed model with visible ribcage and bleached hair not included in purchase price.

While the compact, Russell Savoy designed V8 is an impressive piece of technology - hey, it's a 3.0L flat plane crank naturally-aspirated V8 with individual throttle bodies that revs to 10,500rpm! - the fact is, you can make massive amounts of power out of that lowly Honda K20.  The crew at RSP built a K20 from the bottom up - Carillo H-beam connecting rods with Carr bolts, 9.7:1 compression ratio pistons, full Ferrea valvetrain with stock(!) cams, and the cherry on top - an RSP Turbo kit using a Precision 6262 Turbo setup.  Tuned for 20lbs of boost 93 octane pump gas on a Motec M800 stand-alone ECU (mated to a Motec SDL3 digidash), the RSP Turbo Atom makes 650 horsepower.  Assuming it weighs 1,350lbs, that would put the power to weight ratio at 2.07 lbs/bhp.  Which is terrifying, but also imagine the powerband - this car is running the RSX-S 6-speed but with a short 4.052:1 final drive ratio.

A Honda K20A2 hits the high-lift cam (VTEC!) around 6,000 rpm.  By then, that huge turbo is already spooling.  In a rear-engine, rear wheel drive car with no body, doors, roof, oh god.  In fact, there's nothing I can write that would explain how scary this car is to drive.  But some of the videos that RSP have posted of the car can!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUl-4BPLgfQ

He's driving down the road at what seems like a rapid, but relatively normal pace.  Then he starts weaving left and right to warm up the tires.  Then he just cuts a 90° left hand turn into what appears to be an unbuilt neighborhood, and all hell breaks loose.  650 horsepower in a 3,400lb car like a Supra is scary - but in a 1,300lb car like an Ariel, umm, death.  Watch his head fly back when he rolls into boost in this monster.  See the back end lose grip on a sweeping left hander and the car twitch like a coke addict.  How bad do you want this rocket powered rollerskate in your life?

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOs6UI1YDXI

Cost to replicate this car?  Easily over $100,000.  But then again, there are a lot of "unnecessary" components on this car.  The Motec M800 ECU is easily a $10,000 item, and was done "just because" - there are much less expensive ways to get a boosted K20 to run happily.  This car also has the optional Alcon Race brakes and the aero package from the RS V8 Atom, although both of those are probably good things to have with 2 pounds for each horsepower.  Still, for what is probably the scariest car you could put license plates on, that seems like chump change.  Make sure to bring clean underwear!

Thanks to Tyler Anastasi for forwarding me the link to the original YouTube video, which got the wheels turning in my head for this article.