2002 Altima SE Auto: 3227 lb, 240 HP, 246 lb-ft
2002 Acura TL-S 5AT: 3510 lb, 260 HP, 232 lb-ft
The Acura has a horsepower and gearing advantage, but is almost 300 lb heavier than the Alty SE auto.
Alty: 3227 lb / 240 HP = 13.45 lb/HP
<== Slight Advantage
Acura: 3510 lb / 260 HP = 13.50 lb/HP
So the Alty 3.5SE/auto has a slight power to weight ratio advantage, but when it's this close you have to look beyond that and look at powerband and gearing.
Powerband - Advantage Acura
The Acura actually has a wider powerband. Peak torque is at only 3500rpm (vs 4400rpm for the Alty) and peak horsepower is at 6100rpm on the Acura (vs. 5800rpm on the Alty). The Acura engine is a lower displacement and slightly less torquey, but it's horsepower that will determine who's gonna win a race, so I'd have to give a slight advantage to the Acura here.
Gearing - Advantage Acura (on a technicality)
The Acura has a 5AT tranny vs. the Altima which only has a 4AT. Gears 1-3 on the Acura are very close together and are optimized for good 0-60 and 1/4 mile performance. 3rd gear tops out at 116 mph, but after that, 4th and 5th are both extremely tall and pretty useless overdrive gears. The gearing will probably prevent you from beating a CL-S at lower speeds below 100 mph.
I'm not sure of the Alty SE's 4AT gearing, but I'm guessing it's similar to the Maxima's. 1st gear going up to 40-something, 2nd going up to the mid-80's and 3rd going all the way up to 130-ish. You could beat the CL-S's gearing on the highway after 116 mph because after that they'll hit their first overdrive gear and slowly chug up beyond 116 mph after that, meanwhile you're still pulling strong up to redline in 3rd up to the 130's - that's where you could pull many many car lengths on a CL-S, but wait....
The Technicality
The Alty SE/auto is
electronically limited to well below that I believe so scratch that on your gearing advantage - the electronic limiter wouldn't allow you to take advantage of your gearing advantage on the highway unless you found a way to remove the limiter. Doh!!!
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That's as far as a scientific analysis will take you
Street results will vary a lot depending on the driver. The two cars are close enough that it could very easily go either way just on stupid things like who has the least amount of gas (weight) or how much the drivers weigh, or how many passengers you have. Other important things are launching. It's close enough that whoever launches the best could gain a car length lead and maintain it all the way up top.
So anyways, on paper I think the Acura might have a slight advantage, but it's seriously close enough that it could go either way at any speed. You guys would have the advantage up top though if you could get rid of the electronic limiter