burnsey

Hi to all,

I have owned my Ap1 Silverstone S2000 for over 5 years now, and I love the car and have no intentions of selling the thing, I bought the car knowing that one day I wanted to learn to race in it, I have been waiting for the rite time to come in order to start a race car project i,e nice stable career and a mortgage I can easily afford, also a great partner who puts up with my projects as being a design engineer my mind is very busy! lol, After months of reading, I finally bit the bullet and have made a start, so I plan to log my progress on here to keep a good track of what I've done and mostly how much I improve along the way.

First things first, which I will probably be slated for is I have never done a track day, mainly just mountain pass runs, but nothing on a competitive level, My plan is as I am preparing the car I will be booking track days and race lessons in between, 1.so I can get used to the car as it changes, and two I need to learn how to drive on the track. My first track day/lesson I will be booking soon, which will be at Caslte Combe towards the end of summer, so I have a lot of work to get done by then. I will be doing as much work as I possible can to keep the budget down, as I want to do this as cheap as possible, not the car to race cheaply in I know, but its the car I want to race and learn in.

What I have done so far:

Some fresh disks and pads, and refurbished all four callipers with new seals,





Some new brake and clutch juice, also chucked in a new clutch master cylinder as it started leaking a little:



These pins were a bitch!



Started interior strip:





Bought a hardtop and stripped it ready to fit hardtop racing brackets, picking them up when I go to America at the end of the month:





Surprising how light it feels without the OEM mounting brackets and leather trim.

All go at the moment, just waiting for parts to arrive, this weekend is going to be spent removing the rest of the interior and removing the sound deadening which is a pain, and next weekend I have ordered a CAI and a shorter fan belt to remove the AC unit and anything which is not needed in the bay. I will update when some more work is done.

Also forgot to mention I am aiming to start off in the production class, I will aim for VTEC Challenge but I will see what is the best option when the car is ready, so if anyone spots anything I am doing wrong let me know. I think its going to take around 12 months to get the car ready as I don't wont to rush it, and mainly I don't want to be putting any of it on credit,so I will have to save for the more expensive things, such as a full cage!

Floppy

What disks are they? I have them on mine but have no idea what they are.

Be careful with stripping the whole car, a friend of mine did exactly that and 6 months down the line regretted it as the car is very good on track anyway until you get very serious.

Good luck!

eddw

What are the hardtop racing brackets?

Disks looks like mtec.

burnsey

They are Mtec disks, i'm hoping their going to be ok for learning, I will most probably have to upgrade when I get faster. Yeh I know what you mean but I am fully dedicated and have wanted to do this for a long time, I have two other cars for daily commuting, sounds weird but I prefer hearing all the gear noises and the look of the bare metal when its stripped lol, I didn't think the AP1 would get a more raw feeling, but removing interior in my opinion as made it even more addictive to drive already, just can't wait to get some coil overs on there, thanks for the heads up,

burnsey

Hardtop brackets are Izzy's custom, based in USA, not sure if they delver to the UK, but I am phoning them tomorrow as I am out there at the end of the month working so I can pick them up, Not sure if I can post the link here, but if you search on google they are easy to find,

burnsey

A quick question here for anyone who has raced or has a lot of experience with track days, I have been looking up on what wheels to get, from reading a few race threads on here, it seems most are using 17" 9J square setup, I am gonna go with the square setup up but has anyone gone with 8J instead of 9J, with offset around 40. I am planning on using Team dynamics pro 1.2, the 8J's are cheaper and obviously lighter, so was just wondering if the 8J's would work well with the car, or as it been best proven to use the 9J square setup,

ADAM_ROB_UK

You needto contact MB.. He has been through all of this and is currently racing his currently racing his S2000 in the vtec challenge

burnsey

Thanks, I will do before I buy them it will be a while yet before wheels anyway, I've read over his race threads several times, he was the main inspiration to get it going to be honest, I was going to wait another year, but reading over his threads gave me a kick up the ass to get started, I don't think I will be starting off with a car as well built as his though,

burnsey

Bit of progress today, rest of the carpet out, and began removing sound deadening, which is very boring! after the sound deadening is done I will be making a start on the electrics.




Over and inch raise on the rear springs already, I won't be fitting coil overs till everything I don't need is taking out of the car:

RobinA3

What are you doing with the interior parts?