Auto Car | Hyundai Rhys Millen Racing Genesis Coupe 2010 | Hunkered down over its 19-inch wheels with its exhaust burbling, the 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe by Rhys Millen Racing (RMR) looks about as badass as any tuner car we've ever tested. Its wheelwells are absolutely filled with Toyo T1R rubber. And it's so low that there's not even room for a dime between the tires and fenders.
"Where's the kidney belt?" we're thinking to ourselves as we climb behind the wheel for our weeklong stint. See, we've done this before. We've driven plenty of tuner cars that have punished us unmercifully as we've driven down the road, the so-called suspension "tuning" feeling as if it had been accomplished by Neanderthals with stone tools.
So we were pleasantly surprised when we pulled out of the shop of Rhys Millen Racing in Huntington Beach, California, and found ourselves driving all of 10 feet before running straight over a set of railroad tracks. What happened next might seem not only unlikely but even impossible given the history of aftermarket tuning. The suspension — the moving parts under the car designed to soak up bumps — did exactly that.
And then for the next six days this high-performance Genesis Coupe built by RMR continued to soak them up. In fact, by the time our test of this car ended, this single trait continued to be so novel that we started running over bumps just to see what would happen. Tiny little square-edge stutter bumps on the freeway? Nothing to worry about. Big rollers at triple-digit speeds? Who cares? And the ultimate test: midcorner bumps when you're already near the grip limit? Not a problem.
This is how an aftermarket suspension should feel. And it's only one part of Millen's package for the 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe.
The Rest of the Story
Back in February, Hyundai dropped a bomb on the enthusiast world with its 2010 Genesis Coupe. The striking car has a 306-horsepower 3.8-liter V6 motivating its rear wheels, huge Brembo brakes (included as part of the Track package trim) and enough road presence to draw inquiries from mullet-wearing Camaro drivers — not typically the sort of guys you'd find curious about a Korean coupe. This is one of the biggest stories in performance cars this year.
And it just got bigger.
Rhys Millen Racing, the same outfit that campaigns a 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe in the Formula Drift Series with Red Bull sponsorship, prepared this mildly modified Genesis Coupe with some of the same parts used on its competition car and some cooperation with various aftermarket partners. The goal of the project has been to show what can be done starting with a Base or Grand Touring model Genesis Coupe, both of which cost less than the Track package and lack its aggressive suspension tuning, Brembo brakes, Torsen limited-slip differential and 19-inch wheels and tires.
Lightweight Exotic Parts
RMR has arranged the manufacture of a carbon-fiber hood and trunk lid for the Genesis, which together shave about 40 pounds from the coupe's curb weight (28 pounds from the hood, 12 from the trunk). The parts are essentially the same as those used by Rhys Millen's competition car, except the hood's vents and ducts are not cut out in this application for a street car, which seems smart.
Under the hood, carbon fiber replaces the stock pieces for the airbox lid and ducting, dressing up the engine bay and adding, Millen tells us, 6 hp. A K&N panel filter replaces the stock air filter. RMR has also bolted on an axle-back exhaust that uses 2.5-inch tubing, and Millen says the exhaust is good for 5 hp.
KW Suspensions supplies its Variant 3 pieces (coil-overs up front, separate springs and dampers in the rear), which offer adjustable damping in both compression and rebound. Meanwhile the new antiroll bars from RMR/Suspension Techniques are 3.1mm larger in diameter up front and 1.5mm larger than stock in the rear, and both are two-position-adjustable.
The 19-inch Enkei RPF1 wheels are shod in 245/40ZR19 front and 275/35ZR19 rear Toyo Proxes T1R tires, a combination that actually reduces weight by about 7.5 pounds per wheel. The Stoptech brake system (a prototype on this particular car) replaces the coupe's stock brakes with six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers. Stoptech's two-piece rotors are 14 inches in diameter up front and 13.6 inches in diameter in the rear. The combination increases both brake torque and thermal capacity.
In an effort to increase the coupe's leverage on the pavement under acceleration, RMR has replaced the stock 3.5:1 rear end with a 3.9:1 rear axle from the turbocharged 2.0-liter Genesis Coupe, retaining the Torsen limited-slip differential in the process.
At 3,414 pounds, the RMR coupe weighs 59 pounds less than the 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 Track Package we last had on our scales, thanks in part to its carbon-fiber body panels. The Stoptech brakes, we figure, are a wash with the Brembos in terms of weight. Their two-piece rotors save weight, but are larger in diameter. Plus the six-piston front calipers are larger than the four-piston Brembos on a Track package car.
Source : www.insideline.com
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