Spoolpigeon's S2000 (re)build

Congratulations. Looks great!

Love the car, inside and out. Great work getting it back together.

Thanks guys! Hopefully have some more pictures this weekend. I have a few other things I'll be doing to it this season so I'll keep updating as I go.

Awesome! Congrats!

WOOOT! nice rebuild and redo. glad it's back on the road :)

Time for some more work on the car. The yearly trans and diff fluid change was due.

Diff oil, trans oil, mechanic oil

MMMM clean

This is slow and awkward

This is where I got worried. This is the diff plug. It had a layer of grey metallic 'paste' on it. No big chunks, and the oil was pretty clean, but it still makes me a little uneasy about its future. This pic is with half the paste wiped off:

All clean

Now on to the fun parts!

I suspected a broken motor mount after the car developed some wheel hop during the last event (as seen HERE ). So I got to work pulling the mounts and lookey what I found!

Apparently the only thing holding the engine in place were my hopes and dreams. Each mount completely seperated. I don't know if that had anything to do with the accident or not, but the wheel hop wasn't there before. Could just be a coincidence.

Anyhow, ordered these BAMFMMs from Innovative

75a stiffness urethane mounts, so not too harsh. These mounts change the factory design of a vertical mount to a horizontal bushing type mount. That ensures that the mount will never pull apart like the stock ones do. No pics of the install, but it's pretty straight forward.

The results were incredible. Instant throttle response now, and the shifting is razor sharp. And the best part.......no more wheel hop!!!! Autocrossed today and it was soooo much nicer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTF0FtEd0uk

Any updates? I picked up an AP2 and trying to build it into a mostly daily, occasional track car. Not many build threads here.

Don't let him lie to you folks, it's a pile of E36 M3.

In reply to BoostedBrandon:

This man tells the truth!

It's been a long time since an update, so here we go.

Did my first track day bro

https://youtu.be/vuWsUggEjeg

All seasons and stock pads were not happy, but had a good time anyways. NCM is a nice place and only an hour from home.

Sent an oil sample off after the track day (bro)

All seems well. Time for more hammering.

So 2015 rolls around and I'm ready to order new tires. RS3s were on back order. Crap. First event rolls around and still no tires. A local guy offers me a codrive in this:

663whp, 680 torques at 2500rpm

https://youtu.be/aGrUcZenYfY

Many funs had. The power was completely useless, and I had to baby the thing around to get a decent time, but damn it makes some good noises.

Oh hai!

30 minutes later

Got a hell of a deal on a set of PF01's last fall, and have been sitting on them until I got new tires. Muuuuuuch lighter than the TR wheels.

Time for some fresh stoppers

Hold the phone, Miata parts on a Honda?

NC Miata front sway bar going on the rear of the s2k. Stock bar is 27mm, the NC bar measured at about 20mm. That should help with the rear stability. Had to make a 3/16 spacer to get the bar to clear the diff mounts, but otherwise it's a bolt in affair.

Final produ...... HHHHHHNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG

Stock front bar? Car looks nice.

In reply to turtl631:

Thanks man! I have a whiteline front bar.

I tested out the new sway bar, brakes, and tires this weekend at an autocross with the Tennessee region at the national corvette museum track/skidpad. I wanted to get in an event before the first points event in louisville to get a feel for the setup change and to scrub in the tires. The first few runs were sloppy, but once I got some heat in the tires the times started to drop. The car was much more stable than before and I had the confidence to carry more speed into certain corners. The softer bar did make the steering response a hair slower, but not enough to worry about. I could feel a bit more body roll through the transitions, however the extra rear grip more than made up for it. Here is my last and quickest run of the day:

https://youtu.be/grd9Rt1S--Y

I placed 6th in their Pro class (paxed based class for top guns) out of 21. 13th raw time and 10th in pax out of 122 drivers. I'm very happy with the results and I'm looking forward to a competetive season!

Minor update:

Picked up an AP2 valve cover for a friend for practically free (traded old valve cover). This is an upgrade as the PCV system is different and cuts down on oil consumption. The red valve cover always seemed a bit boy racer, and the paint was flaking on this one so I decided to change that. Some cleaning and a can on VHT wrinkle black paint makes for a much nicer look.

Spoolpigeon wrote: Minor update: Picked up an AP2 valve cover for a friend for practically free (traded old valve cover). This is an upgrade as the PCV system is different and cuts down on oil consumption. The red valve cover always seemed a bit boy racer, and the paint was flaking on this one so I decided to change that. Some cleaning and a can on VHT wrinkle black paint makes for a much nicer look.

Protest bait!

if this is protest bait I would expect pretty much my whole local STwhatever crowd to be protested at every event.

Looks fantastic though.

Slight update:

A good friend gave me a cat back exhaust from his car that was totalled.

It is a Skunk2 megapower. Should have been called a megaloud. Plus I don't really care for the canister mufflers, so I got 2 of these guys.

The goal was to make this exhaust look like the stock exhaust as best as we could. Off to my good friend Shawn's place. He has a lift and a welder and offered to help. We cut up some spare piping he had and came up with this.

Not that pretty, but more on that later.

Then a few days later we loaded up the car to head to Wilmington, Ohio for the Champ tour there. My dad let me borrow the truck and trailer for the weekend since there was no way myself and my girlfriend would fit all of our crap in the s2000.

The tailgate would hit the tounge jack with the trailer connected, so I made a reminder for myself.

Some a-hole tailgating me the whole way there.

Made it to the event and went all racecar with the stickers n E36 M3.

Saw the funniest autocross shirt ever

and partook in the game of 'find the chrome Autoxpix.com sticker each day'. Yup, chrome sticker on a silver car. Sneaky, sneaky.

I had a blast at the race, and did better than I thought I would. Finished 5th in the class, and was the only guy NOT on the new bridgestones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8ybnN7WndU

Now, lets take care of that ugly looking exhaust.

A little bit of cleaning and some high temp paint makes it soooo much better

I was hoping to make the stock tips work, but it just wasn't happening. So I ordered some that look mighty close to the stock ones.

I'm pretty happy with the new exhaust, especially considering I only have $200 invested in it, but it is still quite loud. I was given a warning at the Wilmington tour for hitting 97.7db. Coming soon will be a Vibrant resonator as well as a new high flow cat (the old one is getting a little stinky). Hopefully that will bring it under the the warning level and tone down the drone during everyday driving.

Looks good! Makes me miss my Silverstone AP1.

What size/width/offset is that wheel/tire combo?

In reply to jsquared:

Thanks!

The wheels are 17x9, +62 with 255/40/17 tires. It's the widest wheel/tire I can run in the class.

Thanks, they are the PF01SS, then? I was thinking about those in the +48 for my STi and could never find a picture of the higher offset version actually mounted on anything.

Correct, PF01s. I like them. Considerably lighter and better looking than the TRM wheels they replaced.

On another note, I just picked up a Greddy E-manage piggyback ECU. It comes with a patch harness so I don't have to cut any wires, and is legal for STR since it keeps the OBD2 port functional. Lowering the v-tec (yo) and some tuning will make for more midrange power where the car needs it most.

Spoolpigeon wrote: but it is still quite loud. I was given a warning at the Wilmington tour for hitting 97.7db. Coming soon will be a Vibrant resonator as well as a new high flow cat (the old one is getting a little stinky). Hopefully that will bring it under the the warning level and tone down the drone during everyday driving.

Unfortunately drone is caused by low frequencies that straight-through absorptive mufflers can't muffle. You might end up with "more" drone by adding the resonator, as it will further cancel out the high frequency stuff. I'd suggest adding a branch resonator like the factory Honda exhaust if possible.

In reply to MCarp22:

Good to know. It's still going to need the resonator though. The NCM track, which has our best autocross pad, is having lots of sound issues with the neighbors. It needs the resonator to bring the overall volume down so I don't add to the problem there. Once the resonator and new cat are on we will see if the drone improves any. If not I will look at adding a Helmholtz pipe. The trick will be figuring out where to put it, what size diameter it needs to be, and how long. A few aftermarket exhaust have them in similar location to the stock one, but I need to research the size of them.