So I did something silly when we were last in Florida visiting my wife's family. My wife wanted to get out of the house a bit and suggested we go car shopping. Talk about red rags to large male bovines.
First stop was at Wirewheel, but unfortunately the car I had my eye on (the Rotus 7) has a clutch that's too hard for my foot to handle. As much as we liked the Elises, the clutch on them was too marginal to risk $30k. But there was also an S2000 for sale in Vero beach, with less than 70k on the clock. As usual you buy the owner as well as the car, and this one looked pretty dang good - PPO was a retired Boeing engineer apparently, PO is a huge car and bike enthusiast who looked after the car very well but didn't drive it much. Plus the car spent a large part of its life in the PNW. So I was willing to not pull a Hoovie and buy the cheapest S2000 in the country, and rather spend some more of my hard earned cash in the hope that it would stack the odds in my favour (yeah, right).
Southwest didn't like the idea of having an S2000 as a carry-on, the usual suspects (Reliable and Intercity Lines) weren't able to pick up the car in time, which can only mean one thing...
Road Trip o'clock!
I'll either be flying into Orlando tomorrow or Thursday, pick up the car the following day and point it due North.
Congrats . I got 136k miles out my Spa AP1 I bought new, before a drunk totalled it
I replaced in 07 with new Rio AP2 . 21k miles on mine. Will sell it someday when I find a 03-04 yellow/yellow nsx to replace it with
my Elise on stock clutch still after running in Lotus Challenge 2 years running. I have owned it since new
Thanks - this is a Silverstone 2004 AP2. Can't wait to drive it back with some detours inland.
Right, flights booked, hotel for the first night booked and airport travel arranged. Living in a place with no Uber or Lyft is a PITA, but I need to get paint protection film installed on the Alfa, and it so happens that the nearest decent installer is over in the next town where I can also pick up a Hertz rental.
I guess I'll meditate a bit on if I put my life in the hands of a Lyft driver to get from MCO to Vero Beach or if I do another last minute rental. One of the behavioural changes I experienced is that one really becomes blasé about travel when you do it as much as I do. Last second travel? No worries...
Going to go home via the dragon? because traffic is going to suck anyway you go.
MCO??? Why didnt you fly into PBI? I would’ve driven you to Vero!!
MrChaos said:
Going to go home via the dragon? because traffic is going to suck anyway you go.
Probably not - I thought about it but expecting a lot of traffic I'm planning to hug the coast (or at least follow I-95) to about Savannah, GA, then head up towards Raleigh for a quick work related meeting (yeah, I'm on vacation...) and then either head straight north into Virginia or make a detour towards Asheville, NC and see where I can pick up the Blue Ridge Parkway.
I have to be back home on Sunday at the latest so I'm around when our HVAC guy comes to replace the home a/c that's living on borrowed time.
Slippery said:
MCO??? Why didnt you fly into PBI? I would’ve driven you to Vero!!
I do appreciate that! Unfortunately I didn't get to book my flight until Monday afternoon and MCO was the cheapest and quickest option on an airline I have status on thanks to direct flights every few hours with Southwest.
It's been smooth sailing so far. Got to Vero last night and the owner of the car just emailed me that he has everything ready - heck, he even washed the car! We're going to meet at the hotel and I expect to have everything done and dusted other than the temp tag well before noon.
FYI I26 is going to be a nightmare. Expect it to be a parking lot from Greenville to Asheville
MrChaos said:
FYI I26 is going to be a nightmare. Expect it to be a parking lot from Greenville to Asheville
From Raleigh I assume he would take I-40 & get off on US 321 to Blowing Rock & catch the BRP there?
secretariata said:
MrChaos said:
FYI I26 is going to be a nightmare. Expect it to be a parking lot from Greenville to Asheville
From Raleigh I assume he would take I-40 & get off on US 321 to Blowing Rock & catch the BRP there?
Didnt see the Raleigh part. But yea that would likely be better
Not sure if the Raleigh part is going to happen yet or not. Thanks for the route suggestions.
Right now I'm in line at the Tax Collector's office in Vero. Car is parked outside and it's sooooooo good. Next stop, Walmart for something to drink and then GRM HQ for a new sticker.
Pit stop at Walmart. Finally rolling. 
Looking great!
Just a quick observation, unless the picture is messing with me, that is Sebring silver and not Silverstone 
Gorgeous car! If you had taken I-75 I would have bought you a beverage in Macon. But the coast is a prettier drive, love that area.
Just stopped at the GRM office to buy a hat as I keep forgetting to travel with one. And some stickers. Now setting sights on Savannah for tonight.
After the hat purchase and a chat with Tim Suddard, I pointed the car North on 1 towards some ominous looking clouds. I fully believe the PO now that he never drove the car in the rain - had I not had the presence of mind to clean the windshield with some windshield cleaner w/ rain repellant, I would most likely have found a ditch rather than Jacksonville in one of those wonderful Florida storms. Why did I forget to grab a set of wiper blades while I was at Walmart again?
Anyway, made it safely to Savannah, GA after this episode of Grassroots Boatersports. The S2000 is running well and seems to be running better with every mile I'm putting on it. Issues so far are minimal - the wiper blades, the annoying clutch delay valve is, well, annoying, it does seem to be a tad low on coolant despite the very recent Honda service (coolant level hot is in the middle of the min and max marks on the expansion bottle) and I nearly burned my hand on the dipstick trying to check the oil level.
I'll swing by the local Walmart in the hope that they'll have some wiperblades that'll see me home and to get some coolant just in case.
Oh, and one of our cats -a very fluffy Maine Coon mix - managed to already get some of his hair on the dash. Not quite sure how he does it as he was almost a thousand miles away, but it's the only explanation I have for the cat hair on the dash. PO has a dog...
Plan for today is to explore the SC/NC coast a bit unless I get fed up with traffic, then kinda sorta see how far I get towards Raleigh.
Make sure you use the blue coolant for Hondas!
I got rid of the delay valve the first week. I don't remember exactly if I needed to buy any parts, but it was an easy process except for the bleeding. I had to bleed it with the slave removed from the transmission (hose attached) as I could not get all the air out otherwise.
Is that black thing on the front bumper paint or a sticker?
Another successful pit stop at Walmart:
Valvoline premixed blue coolant for Hondas. Thanks for the reminder, Slippery.
Oh, and did I mention that this thing is clean?
The PO put a strip of fake carbon sticker on the bottom of the bumper to prevent scratching it when parking. That’ll come off soon as I’m planning to get some paint protection film on the car.
No really any pictures for yesterday other than the above. Savannah was very busy - well, it was the Fourth of July after all - and I'm not a big fan of crowds. After a brief drive towards the city centre I decided to explore the lowlands between Savannah and Charleston instead. Ended up pootling around Hilton Head, then over to Beaufort.
Just as I got to Charleston the heavens starting opening up again, so I skipped Charleston and the Myrtle Beach area and started heading towards Raleigh. Ended up in a place call Lumberton for the night as that had the right combination of hotel availbility and price, plus I was getting tired of driving in the rain. At least the new wipers work, and so far the car's been utterly bored (and returned around 28mpg).
I promised it some mountain roads, so I'm about to find out if I'm making the small detour via Raleigh before heading towards Blowing Rock. Exploring the handling and VTECyo on on ramps is getting old.
Overall the car is behaving well. It will need some catch up maintenance when I get home - the gear change up into second is a bit scratchy at times, and overall the gearbox feels like it needs new fluid. Then there is the rattle from the exhaust when engine rpm drop below 800/900 rpm. It sounds like loose exhaust mounts or a loose heat shield, but apparently the Internet thinks it might also be the cat. The Internet might have a point as the car feels a bit constipated at higher RPM.
Actually the main annoyance so far is that it has an older, high end head unit fitted in place of the OEM radio (Alpine CDA-9886). The dash controls for the radio aren't hooked up, and I can't get at the rear USB to see if it'll work with the pretend iPod on my phone. Musical choices are currently restricted to the usual classic rock stations that fade in and out, talk radio that doesn't do my blood pressure any good, or listening to the engine. The latter is fine, but gets old after 5-6h. I might have to buy some *shudder* CDs before getting into the mountains.
Yea just buy a cd for your sanity.
If you remove that airbox there is enough room for a nice turbo. 
A few things that come to mind after reading your post.
I change both the differential and transmission oil every other time I do the oil, so 10k miles. It makes a huge difference in shifting.
Transmission I use Honda fluid
Differential I use Lubricators Engineers LE-1605. Its thick, so get a pump.
Adjust the valves - I do those every 30k or so.
Radio. I used the Modifry DCI board in order to get the remote radio buttons to work after I installed an Alpine. I am not sure he still exists or is selling those. Looks like is still doing it:
Modifry
Decel noise. If its what I think its is it might be the clutch buzz. It is normal and many S2000s suffer from that. But I want to say that happens on decel at about 3k rpms, not 800 or so.
Also check the straps on the soft top. If they lost tension the roof bars might not be moving in the proper sequence and opening properly. Eventually the latches will rip the roof in not a nice way.
Also get seat bolt locks right away. I sourced them from someone on S2ki.com called Kodokan. This was over 10 years ago so he might not be doing it anymore.
