mcopley

Due to the high curb in our new house, the S2000 has been stranded in the garage for the last few weeks. My solution to the problem finally arrived in the form of two lightweight ramps by Race Ramps (http://www.raceramps.com/scale-ramps-2.aspx). It's so nice to occasionally buy a product that does exactly what you expect it to! They're really light, look very durable, and make getting out of my driveway a breeze. For those of you with low S2K’s I highly recommend them

We had the Speedaware Twilight Rallysprint coming up (24th Feb), so I had to get the car prepped and the diff bedded in. We spent half and hour doing figure of 8's in a car park, which is not much fun and you certainly attract a lot of unwanted attention. The diff is a little clunky at low speeds with a few turns on the wheel, but nothing too bad at all.

With the car all ready to go we headed down to Kwinana Motorplex last Thursday evening for the Rallysprint. The hour long drive down the freeway in heavy traffic made me thankful I still have air-con, but I think it’s about time I took the plunge and pull it out. The Rallysprint circuit (3.4 kms) was great fun but much more suited to an Evo than a Time Attack S2K. Being dark it was exciting to see the sparks flying off the front discs when braking hard from 165 at the end of the drag strip . I’m hoping someone got a good photo! The diff felt absolutely awesome. The rear end was totally planted and I was able to get on the power really early coming of some very tight turns. Having never run this event before, it’s difficult to say how much difference it made to our times, so I’ll have to wait for the 2011 Sprint Series to figure that out.

Only photo from the Rallysprint so far;

MAD828

That's a top shot, car looks great. Aircon is so good I can't bring myself to pull it out, 20 kilos of weight though.

mcopley

Another cool picture;

xoz

stealthy noice!!

s2kadrenalin

Please check your profile comments page as PM's still aren't working.

mcopley

I hope you are all having a good Easter break!

The sparks flying of the front discs appear to be a case of an inside front pad having less than no material left.... I had to replace the pads in a hurry, and thought I would try the new Project Mu Club Racer's. I've done one event on them so far - they bite well from cold and don't produce too much dust - but the jury is currently out on whether they provide quite as much retardation as the DS3000's.

The new LSD and final drive is proving to be amazing. I haven’t had a chance to test it at Barbagallo yet – but hopefully I will in the next couple of months. My times at RAC have improved by a least 1s (per minute) and the car is so much happier to be driven in a ‘taily’ fashion – which makes it much more fun. I used to have to drive it super clean, or it would bite your head off, but now it’s more forgiving at the limit. There is a constant sweeper at RAC where my mid corner speeds have increase from 95km/h to approx 105km/h (although the speedo is a little off now).

I have some new rotors coming to replace my current ones as the low pad scored them quite badly. As soon as they arrive and are installed, I will post up some pics of the new and old brakes. I am still amazed at how well the single pot front calipers stand up to abuse. Everyone who drives the car reckons that it stops better than anything they've ever driven - so it's going to be a little while before I feel the need to upgrade them.

AdN

your car doesn't weight anything, you could probably stop it by jamming your foot into the front wheel like a bmx.

mcopley

I installed my new Mugen rotors today. The are exactly the same as the OEM Honda ones, only they're slotted and a lot cheaper - so I'm giving them a try. They both weigh 6.4kgs. Pics below;

Old DS3000's - pretty low;


New Club Racer pads;


New and old rotors (front shot);


New an old rotors (rear shot);


Rotors installed;


Dirty wheels and very clean silver rotors;

mcopley

Having recently been offered a magazine feature, there was a mega list of things I wanted to get done before the photo shoot. Lot's of little things that I never have time to get round to finally needed to be done...

First on the list was the inevitable removal of the air conditioning. I’ve been meaning to get this pulled out for ages, but I’ve only just bitten the bullet. I ordered a Bosch belt (6PK1145) online as most Repco/Supercheap/Autobarn etc stored don’t seem to stock this size. Everything went very smoothly but I don’t have pics as it’s not very interesting. I will weigh all the parts soon to see how much I’ve saved – according to this forum it should be about 15kgs.

I also fitted my Ikeya Formula rear control arms. Having fitted these I had a new alignment done and increased my rear camber from -2.5 to -3.

After both of the above I competed in Round 3 of the Sprint Series and achieved our best ever result. 6th overall, 1st in Class and managed to beat my biggest competitor who drives a supercharged Lotus Exige. Needless to say, I was very happy

mcopley

Next was the annoying hole in the middle of the centre console where the hazard light switch has been flopping about for a couple of years. I thought a sheet of carbon would do the trick and I decided to make my own. Here are some pics of the process;

Raw carbon cloth;


Cut to size (we used two layers, but would definitely use 3 next time);


Applying the resin;


Squished between waxed glass and perspex;


Left for 24hrs and then cut out to my template;


Close up of the weave;


Finally installed (excuse the ghetto duct tape – my rivet gun broke);


All in all, I was very pleased with the quality of the result. I learnt a few things that I would do differently next time. I will certainly be making some more stuff as I have a 1x1.2m roll of cloth.