... not to be offensive but.. almost any production compact car with decent tires can do what you describe, and still feel relatively smooth, what previous cars are you comparing it too?

What you should really do is autocross the car and find its true limits, a lot more will be revealed about the car.

I remember thinking my first car a 1986 honda accord LX-i automatic handled fantastically... well it was light and did feel somewhat nimble.

 

im comparing it to a honda civic of my friends, a chevy cavaliuer thats been lowered and has weels and tires and my previous lexus. as well as a ford contour, this is its sister car.

 

these escorts really do handle well - they are based om mazda mx5

 

No.....you mean the Mazda Protege. That generation Escort shared parts and general design with the Protege and the Kia Sephia.

The Mazda MX-5 you mention ( better-known as the Miata ) is much smaller than the Escort. It is a rear-drive 2-seat roadster.

 

What kinda lexus? I find my bone stock lexus with sport tires to handle very well given its limitations (the automatic tranny by far the weakest link.). Its tendecy to understeer has all but disseapeared. And when I do find my self in a understeer situation if you have good rubber in those wheels as soon as you let off the throttle the car will rotate immediately. Somethingin my experience few fwds can do at least at that agree, they can tuck in nicely if its a well equiped fwd car but they dont quite have such a response like my heavy rwd sporty coupe does. Its amazing the predictablility this heavy chassis has as litterally all my tires are at the limit of their adhession all 4 of them squealing as I predictable account for the slight understeer and rotate the car around slightly. My S13 chassis did not feel this linear.. perhaps when I try again ill experiment more with it. None of my fwd cars I driven in the past come even close by my experience they drove awesome at 7 and 8th tenths but as soon as you got them to 10/10 they were very understeer prone, but then again at that time i did not have the driving experience i have now.

In fact ill outright say it.

Once this car is fitted with a 5 speed im very sure it will give the 240sx with full coilovers I had a run for his money. Being equipped with 900 lbs less, same width of tires as me and maybe slightly grippier street tires. (falken azenis vs falken 451grbetas) What kills me now? long 2nd gear and being ouf of power on very tight runs.

Right now its a little counter intuitive driving an automatic SC300 in the autocross since when you ease off the throttle you SMASH it right back again instantly rather then squeeze it off just before the apex in order to account for the delay of power going through the slushbox then the torque converter driveshaft rear end then finally your wheels. It is frustating being at 3000 rpms in second after that tight turn because you know the tranny wont shift down. Given the huge burden that is my auto tranny I still managed a pax score of 840 in my perspective class pretty happy with that. I can see gaining 100 points more once this thing has a 5 speed. The difference is THAT dramatic.

I wonder how the current IS and new IS chassis compares to my SC chassis. I dont think the newer SC chassis and other lexus body styles come close to the older SC style in terms of nimble ness with the exception of the IS.

 

Actually I was wrong, its not MX-5, but I'm pretty sure it's MX-6. After all, the escort and MX-6 look almost identical.