Is Jackass's Research even possible right now?

It's technically possible to do these quests where you are now, but it's much easier to do later, as the enemies do not scale with you; they have a set level. Personally, I wasn't able to do the final part of this quest until I went back.

Once you've unlocked ending C or D, you will also get access to the Chapter Select menu. Since your level carries over across routes, you can come back to do this quest as a level 99 2B, which will make it trivially easy to complete.

However, it's worth noting that this quest is a 2B-only quest, so if you don't do it now, you will have to wait until you get Chapter Select to attempt it again.

There's one often-overlooked mechanic that makes this quest reasonably doable, even at incredibly low levels: self-destruct. It does a high amount of damage, and the self-inflicted damage doesn't fail the quest.

All you need to do is damage the 3 larger machines, ignoring the smaller ones, and then find a spot to stand in one place for 2 seconds to trigger the self-destruct. At level 11 (where I tried this quest, which is about as soon as it becomes available when not trying to kill enemies for XP), it took out both of the smaller machines and took about half of the 3 larger machines' health. Make sure to SD only once you're able to kill everyone left at once; it takes a significant amount of time to recover and start being able to deal damage again.

You can make things a bit easier by using Volt-Proof Salve (will probably be in your inventory already) before you step down to start the 30 seconds, and by leading with a pod program like Mirage or Hammer (both are cheap and acquirable immediately). Laser aiming doesn't seem to work too well due to the forced perspective down below.

I found the hard part of the quest not to be the damage output required, but avoiding getting hit while getting in the few necessary hits of your own before SD. You also need a bit of luck for all the enemies to be in range of the SD, which occasionally doesn't hit them all. It's still challenging, but the challenge is much more reasonable than relying only on low-DPS weapon and pod.

I don't know how self-destruct damage scales, but it might be that around level 20 (which is reasonable to get to before this side quest ceases to be available), it'll destroy all the enemies without having to weaken them first.

As a side note, if you're concerned about the initial damage output, the default weapon you start with in the city, Virtuous Contract, can be upgraded to level 2 almost immediately. You can do so with the proceeds from The Weapon Dealer's Request, which is available as soon as you arrive in the camp, and it only takes a minute to complete. Upgrading to level 2 almost doubles its damage output.