I ruffled a lot of feathers when I called the ninth-generation Accord V6 the last real American muscle car. Many of those feathers were attached to a bunch of cuckoo birds whose favorite small-block '70s midsizers wouldn't have a prayer in heaven or hell of catching an Accord V6 down a quarter-mile.

My opinion that the Accord V6 qualifies as a muscle car was just that—an opinion—but it’s an unfortunate fact that the new 2018 Accord cannot be had with any more than four cylinders at any price. If you want a six-cylinder 2018 Accord, you have to go to your Acura dealer and buy a TLX, which is kind of just a fancy Accord and is not available with a stick shift.

Honda believes that the 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder, the only engine available in the new Accord, meets the needs of the premium family-sedan market better than the old J35 V6. That may be—but we didn’t want to just take their word for it. So I took the new Accord Touring 2.0T to my race team’s semi-secret dyno facility near New Lexington, Ohio—and I also took my 2014 Accord V6, factory stock with the exception of O.Z. Racing wheels in the stock 18” diameter. Both cars were run to empty, then given a full tank of the same BP 93 octane fuel from the same pump. The stage was set for a high-noon shootout.

There was one little problem. We couldn’t get our hands on a six-speed manual 2.0T Touring, so we had to settle for the 10-speed automatic. As you’ll see, this made testing slightly more difficult. But there’s no indication from Honda that the engine is in a different state of tune for manual and automatic versions.

That’s emphatically not the case for the 2014 Accord. Six-speed manuals got their own firebreathing version of the V6, called J35Y3. It was rated at 278HP but as you’ll see, that’s a bit pessimistic.

It was just above freezing when we rolled my 2014 into the open garage and onto the rollers of the Dynocom, but with a jet heater running in the garage we were able to get the temp into the low 60s. Getting a dyno reading with the 2014 was simplicity itself. Just turn traction control off, disable Eco mode, and let ‘er rip. There was one small problem, however: the Accord’s direct-drive fourth gear reaches the 122mph speed limiter before hitting redline. So we had to run in third. Luckily the Dynocom uses a visual reading of RPM and can make the proper calculations.

The third run showed a robust peak of 249.4 horsepower at 6350 rpm, with peak torque of 220.7 at 4750. The Dynocom is known to be a little pessimistic compared to the Dynojet that you’ll see used at tuning shops, although it’s not as tough as the “heartbreaker” Mustang dyno. It’s safe to assume that a Dynocom's rating is between 20 and 25 percent below the actual power at the crank. So this 52,150-mile V6 Accord is making between 300 and 315 horses.

Next up: The 2.0T Touring. Getting a number out of this much more advanced car was considerably tougher. The transmission wouldn’t hold a particular gear, even in Sport mode, so we couldn’t keep it in the direct-drive sixth for the full rev range.

The very first pull was 212.3 horses at 5500 rpm, with 214.1 lb-ft of torque at 4950. Honda quotes peak power for the 2.0T automatic at 6500rpm—but in our test, the car cut boost and performed a mandatory upshift at 5750 or so.

When we started the next pull, things started to go wrong. A series of warnings on the dashboard told us that we’d lost everything from anti-lock brakes to tire-pressure monitoring and—kid you not—cruise control. Pulling the battery cable didn’t clear the warnings. The only way to calm the Accord down was to take it off the dyno, restart it a few times, and drive it around for 50 miles after clearing all the warnings manually in the instrument panel. But it didn’t ever outperform that first power reading.

Jack Baruth

What would the 2.0T have done if it had been permitted to run to 6500rpm? It’s hard to say, but as you can see from the superimposed curves in the photo, the turbo is never as strong as the six anywhere in the rev range. Like it or not, the V6 is simply a more powerful engine. The fact that it sounds marvelous and offers a bit of that authentic Honda VTEC redline rush is just icing on the cake.

Accord V6 in blue, 2.0T in black; solid line indicates horsepower, dashed line is torque. Jack Baruth

With the formal measurement out of the way, it was time to use some private roads in southwestern Ohio for a bit of old-fashion roll-racing. Could the 2.0T beat the V6 in the real world, where the various computer issues and shifting problems wouldn’t be as much of a factor?

Although the 2.0T always pulled half a car or so at the beginning of every 40mph roll, the V6 crushed it in short order, usually well before the speedometers hit 60. In a traditional 40-120 roll, the new car wouldn’t be within shouting distance of the old one’s taillights.

We’ll be happy to repeat the test with a six-speed 2.0T if we can get one, but you’d be foolish to expect too much difference in the numbers. The V6 in the old car is closer in output and behavior to the boosted-up version of the 2.0T that powers the Civic Type R than it is to the family-car variant in the Accord Touring.

With all of that said, there is one area where the new car beats the old one. From a standing start, the 2.0T is far, far better at maintaining traction. It accelerates away while the V6 is still axle-tramping madly and spinning its wheels to no end. Don’t bet against the 2.0T at a dragstrip. Everywhere else, however, it’s not even close.

There’s one final number to consider. Over the course of a 192-mile round-trip, and including the dyno pulls and drag races, the 2.0T managed to return 27.1 miles per gallon. The V6 was at 26.5. So there is a slight fuel-economy benefit, although V6 automatics are known to return better mileage than their stick-shift counterparts.

Overall, we were impressed with the 2.0T. It’s strong enough in its own right and it makes enough power to justify Honda’s published numbers. If you are after the fastest Accord money can buy, however, you might want to call around and see if you can get your hands on a 2017 V6. I called a few dealers and was told that there are fewer than a dozen left in the country. You’ll want to move fast. Which makes sense—after all, isn’t that old V6 the last true American musclecar?

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