Part of your acceleration time problems could be due to several factors. First, gearing is an easy target. Go with a higher final drive ratio and you'll accelerate faster. Second, as a front-drive car, a Civic launches in an inferior manner to the rear-drive Corvette (weight distribution is poor). By stiffening up the rear springs, you can keep weight distributed more toward the drive wheels instead of the rear wheels, giving traction where it's needed most and avoiding time-eating tire slippage. Also, try stiffening up the front shock rebound rating a point or so. The Corvette also has wider tires than the Civic and that may be effecting the acceleration figures, too. Plus, you've got factors like ride height, car height, and general aerodynamics working for the Corvette's advantage. Width of powerband, range of powerband, torque (Hondas have notoriously low torque figures), turbo lag, etc... can all factor in, too.
With the Miata and the Viper... once again, you're looking at weight distribution and tire differences. The Miata is rear drive, but very light all around, so they tend to spin their tires more freely than the more powerful Viper because there just isn't enough mass to keep the tires digging into the pavement. Torque, of course, is likely very different between the two. Then there's turbo lag in the Miata and the powerband situation...
As a final note: on torque ratings, the discrepancy between dealership and garage is not one of decimal places. The Japanese version, from which the other versions were ported, uses kg-m as the measurement for torque. We (U.S. buyers) use lb-ft to measure torque and this was not handled properly in the port process. The dealership figures are correct, but the numbers in the garage are in kg-m terms.
