_valtsu_

Hello!

My name is Valtteri and I live in Finland. I have always wanted a sports car. A car that I could have fun in track days and still good enough for daily driver. I test drove na miata first, but I didn't really like it. Lack of power was biggest issue. Then found used S2000 on sale. Went to see it and after test drive I knew I wanted it.
Here is my introduction of ownership so far:


I bought this car in summer 2016. This is 2001 UK model (rhd), so steering wheel on the ”wrong side”. Car was brought to Finland in 2015. Basically stock.

It wasn’t in really good shape, but I still think I got it pretty cheap. Also rhd makes car cheaper in Finland.
172k km at clock, but engine is not original so don’t know is it real number.
It had lot of scratches at paint work and there was bit of rust on bodywork. Also some rust repairs were done to quarter panels on both sides.
Soft top had lot of tears and it was leaking.
Leather on seats was pretty worn and there was hole in leather at drivers seat.
Engine seemed to be in ok shape and it drove pretty well.



I went to track day after few weeks after buying the car. Had lot off fun. Only problem what I had was after few laps car started to shake when braking. Problem went away after brakes cooled down and came back when they were hot.

I look’d bit closer to rust repairs what were done to quarter panels. They were repaired by putting some fiberglass over the rusty bodywork.


Well this kind of repairs were not accepted by me, so they were repaired again this time using metal and welding machine.
I don’t have any pictures of the process, because I didn’t do the repair.

Repaired:


When winter came I putted car to the garage with lot of work in my mind to be accomplished.
Changed new brake rotors (oem) and new brakepads (stoptech sport).

Central locking wasn’t working so I took of the drivers side door panel.

Well something is definitely missing! Somebody has just taken the door lock actuator off the car and putted the door panel back. I bought new actuator and central locking started working.

I also changed speakers to Focal ISC 165 and changed head unit to Pioneer MVH-190UI.

Shift knob surrounding had paint pealing of so painted it to glossy black and installed Mugen shift knob:



At some point car had an aftermarket alarm system installed, but it wasn’t functional anymore.
Only wirings and ultrasonic sensors were left. So took them of.

Extra wirings:



Valve adjustment done:



Then started to work with soft top.
When disassembling interior found this:

A small battery in plastic box between roll hoops.

It was connected to this:

This is Motorola car tracker. Some kind of gps system to track the car. I don't know what is the idea of the device. Took it off.

To this pont it was pretty easy job.


Cannot say the same of getting the job to this point, but felt good when it was done. It was spring time and got the car back to road:



Worn leather on drivers seat:


I got this leather piece replaced in winter, but leather was wrong color.

But it wasn’t a problem.

I made re-dyeing for seats on summertime. Like this:

You Tube

Picture from last summer. Drove 10k km and two track days. Not enough track time. Didn't have that car shaking while braking problem any more, so probably old rotors were causing it on previous summer.


Then came winter again and time to put S2000 back to garage.

Plans for this winter:
Replace worn bushings and get wheel alignment bolts free. Most of them are stuck on bushings, because of rust.
Get some coilovers made for street and track duty.
17" wheels
Lots of other small things to do.

_valtsu_

Started to remove lower arms from car. Off course I had to use Reciprocating saw to remove few bolts. Time consuming job.



Sandblasted:



Painted:


Got new bushings (Mugen) from Rhdjapan, but haven’t changed them yet:

noodels

Thanks for posting,that garage floor has a shine, very unlike my painted floor.
The front adjusters are on my list of things too do,Mugen bush also
Seats came up brilliant also..

_valtsu_

Thanks for posting
Well those pictures with shiny floor aren't from the garage. I painted the lower arms elsewhere.

_valtsu_

Time for update. I'll try to update this more frequent in the future.

I got the lower arm bushings changed. Also swapped CV-buckets when coilovers were on my plans.


When I had rear end stripped this much I took closer look how rusty the wheel arches were. After grinding underbody seal off and getting over the shock that both sides needed new metal for inner panel. I cutted all rusty metal off and also removed lower sections from inner wheel arch completely. On the left side off the picture there are the lower sections where is some sheet metal added afterwards. I should have repaired these properly on the first place, but on that point I didn't know that there was so much rust.


After cutting you can see that rust was also started to eat outer panel:






This was the worst part of the outer panel. Small sheet metal was added before here too:


I think that lower section off door sill is rusted because of leaking soft top. Water got past the soft top drains. Rust wasn't completely thru yet.


On right side rust was thru in small section.


There was also some rusted panel where inner wheel arch meet trunk floor. Many layers of metal on top of each other.


Both sides as well.

_valtsu_

Got new panels from Amayma.com:


Welded in place, primered and sealed with car body adhensive. Plan was to get rid of rubber protectors and seal the edge with adhensive and spray paintable stonechip shield.










Small areas were repaired with sheet metal:


Stonechip shield sprayed:

I left outer panels alone. Just sanded most of the rust away and sprayed Dinitrol cavity wax to stop and prevent rusting.

Hondas garage buddys:

In this company 17 years old car feels quite new

_valtsu_

Got new coilovers: AST 4100 with aluminium shock body. 8kg/mm springs front and rear.




Also Hardrace rear toe arms were installed at same time:

_valtsu_

When I removed air filter box to install oil pressure meter sensor I noticed that the radiator needed replacement because of corrosion:

So I got new Mishimoto radiator:


Install work needed some dremelling. Fan stands needed bit of modification and air filter box also, but it was pretty easy job. I will upload pictures of installed one later on.

miloking

Good job on restoring this old lady. Most people would just sell it and get nicer one...

The King

Keep up the good work. What a difference in your seat!