2002 Spa Yellow build thread
07-04-2015, 06:43 PM
#1
2002 Spa Yellow build thread
I guess this is as good a place to start a build thread as any, being that the vast majority of the work necessary on my S2000 project will be concerned with paint and bodywork. First a bit of background:
I'm a long-time Honda owner and lover and my father and I have owned, combined, ten Honda products with my purchase of this 2002 S2000. I had a GSR powered 1992 Civic Si:
and still have a nice 1991 Civic Si with a JDM B18C Type R engine:
and being such a Honda aficionado, I’ve obviously lusted after an S2000 since there was such a thing but never seriously had an opportunity to buy one.
Well, a few years ago, there was a 2000 Berlina Black one that I was "this" close to buying, but my insurance agent warned me that the car had been written off as a total loss at some time in its history, so I got spooked and ultimately declined to purchase it.
Which brings me to this car:
I have a couple of friends, a husband and wife team who flip cars for a living and they found this one in a Craigslist ad in a sleepy Northern Texas Panhandle town, advertised as a repo by a credit union. $1100 dollars later, they were towing the car home.
The issues with the car were legion: bad Konig wheels, bald tires, no air filter assembly, cheap Taiwanese hood, no front bumper, beat up rear bumper, no seats, no exhaust, no steering wheel or airbag. ( Someone had attempted to steer the car with vice grips and so the spines to the steering shaft were ruined).
(Deep breath) Thick black overspray all over the car, a horrible Rio Yellow fast overspray, faded interior, beat up front fenders, rocker panel damage, generally dirty everywhere, hole in the top, hole drilled in the oil pan for a return with nothing connected to it.
My buddy, “J”, he of the aforementioned husband and wife car flipping team, also happens to be a fantastic custom car builder, chiefly Hondas, and had envisioned taking this one down to a shell and going completely custom with it. However, he has a beautiful K-swapped Integra Type-R and was gearing up for a turbo-build when this car came along. So ultimately, he decided that the timing wasn’t right for him for a project of such magnitude and to let somebody else tackle this project. Here is an example of J’s handiwork:
Anyway, that's about where I stepped in. I could go in any direction with this car, it's obviously not very well-preserved so I wouldn't be faulted for making a weekend racer or autocross car out of it, or even painting it a custom color, but I'm really leaning towards making it the way it left the Tochigi factory thirteen years ago and basically doing a stock build--we'll see. Stay tuned!
I'm a long-time Honda owner and lover and my father and I have owned, combined, ten Honda products with my purchase of this 2002 S2000. I had a GSR powered 1992 Civic Si:
and still have a nice 1991 Civic Si with a JDM B18C Type R engine:
and being such a Honda aficionado, I’ve obviously lusted after an S2000 since there was such a thing but never seriously had an opportunity to buy one.
Well, a few years ago, there was a 2000 Berlina Black one that I was "this" close to buying, but my insurance agent warned me that the car had been written off as a total loss at some time in its history, so I got spooked and ultimately declined to purchase it.
Which brings me to this car:
I have a couple of friends, a husband and wife team who flip cars for a living and they found this one in a Craigslist ad in a sleepy Northern Texas Panhandle town, advertised as a repo by a credit union. $1100 dollars later, they were towing the car home.
The issues with the car were legion: bad Konig wheels, bald tires, no air filter assembly, cheap Taiwanese hood, no front bumper, beat up rear bumper, no seats, no exhaust, no steering wheel or airbag. ( Someone had attempted to steer the car with vice grips and so the spines to the steering shaft were ruined).
(Deep breath) Thick black overspray all over the car, a horrible Rio Yellow fast overspray, faded interior, beat up front fenders, rocker panel damage, generally dirty everywhere, hole in the top, hole drilled in the oil pan for a return with nothing connected to it.
My buddy, “J”, he of the aforementioned husband and wife car flipping team, also happens to be a fantastic custom car builder, chiefly Hondas, and had envisioned taking this one down to a shell and going completely custom with it. However, he has a beautiful K-swapped Integra Type-R and was gearing up for a turbo-build when this car came along. So ultimately, he decided that the timing wasn’t right for him for a project of such magnitude and to let somebody else tackle this project. Here is an example of J’s handiwork:
Anyway, that's about where I stepped in. I could go in any direction with this car, it's obviously not very well-preserved so I wouldn't be faulted for making a weekend racer or autocross car out of it, or even painting it a custom color, but I'm really leaning towards making it the way it left the Tochigi factory thirteen years ago and basically doing a stock build--we'll see. Stay tuned!
07-11-2015, 02:29 AM
#6
Indeed, this poor thing is rough. Most Esses are rightly well-maintained and well-loved, weird to find one that is practically a basket case. Should be interesting.
08-02-2015, 04:04 PM
#7
An already challenging build thread has become more challenging—my engine is shot and my foot is black and blue after incurring a traumatic injury. I have what I believe is a rod bearing knock, never got a low oil pressure light warning. Then I jacked my foot up, so I’m out of commission for a little while. Don’t shoot me for suggesting this, but I wonder if now might not be a good time to think about a complete tear down, color change and an LS1 swap? (Sorry, that was the pain medication talking).
I’m healing up, and when I do, I’ll at least start getting the car ready to paint while figuring out my powertrain options.
I’m healing up, and when I do, I’ll at least start getting the car ready to paint while figuring out my powertrain options.
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03-31-2016, 09:30 PM
#8
Absolutely no news betwixt my last post: it's been parked since August. But tomorrow I'm buying a very low-mileage 2001 AP1 drivetrain, 17,000, to be more precise. The build is resurrected!
10-21-2016, 06:19 PM
#9
So I drove 450 miles to Tulsa, OK and back (to Lubbock, TX) in early April to buy that Carfax-verified 17,000 mile USDM drivetrain. The guy was a very cool older gentleman and bought the drivetrain from a Denver, CO wrecker to swap into his TVR Vixen, a little 2000-pound british two-seat sports car with a fixed roof. His son was matriculating at Oklahoma State and I guess his dream of swapping that drivetrain into the TVR began to fade particularly in light of the expense of his son's college education. He was asking 3800 bucks, but I offered him $3700 and he accepted. He said that some low baller called a few hours before my arrival to say "I'm coming over with a trailer and $2200" My new friend the seller said, "No you aren't" lol!
So we loaded up the engine and transmission, still as a unit and he threw it a bunch of ancillary parts: the secondary air pump, lots of hoses, complete body wiring harness, computer, driveshaft, even a mint, mint 17,000-mile cluster--a great deal.
I work the graveyard shift at a big hospital and a major staffing shortfall dictated that I would work 52 nights in a row from August into September, so I really didn't have time to arrange to have my good friend-- who happens to be a long-time Honda line technician-- perform the swap for me, that is until Saturday October 15th.
He decided to drop the engine/suspension crossmember out from the bottom. He disconnected everything up top and proceeded to knock the knuckles and tie rods off of the crossmember/steering rack and used a big OTC power train jack to lower the whole assembly. he then used an arm of an asymmetrical lift to raise the old engine off of the cradle and the same arm to lower the new engine onto the engine cradle/crossmember. Then it was matter of rolling the OTC powertrain jack underneath the S2000 and bolting the whole business back underneath the car.
(My summary makes it sound easy, but my mechanic incurred his fair share of bruises, skinned knuckles, cussing sessions and gas-drenched workboots--he started at 0800 and didn't finish until 1800 or so. Yeah, I took him to the closest bar for a few brewskis after.)
To be accurate, the car was ready for a start attempt at 1800 Saturday, but it simply would not crank. If we sprayed carb cleaner into the intake tube it would try to fire, but we simply weren't getting fuel into the cylinders. We struggled until 8:30 pm and were all pretty tired at that point after 12.5 hours of work, so I advised that we sleep on it and come back with a new perspective the next day.
The next day, my good friend/mechanic met up at about 2pm and he systematically checked all of the wiring, particularly the area where three big connectors come through the firewall grommet in the area of the brake booster to meet the ECU. All wiring looked sound during inspection. We tried the spare PCM, but it still would not fire. He checked fuel pressure at the rail and measured 50 psi--within spec. The last thing he tried was to pull the fuel rail and injectors out as a unit as I cranked the car. I cranked it and I could see fuel spraying everywhere from inside the car and the car actually fired--angrily, roughly, but momentarily before he gave me the quick "cut it" signal. Only one injector sprayed fuel but it did so so violently that fuel got inside at least two or three injector holes, allowing it to run momentarily. We laughed out of relief and irony--three of the four injectors had fouled themselves shut after ten years of disuse. He simply swapped the fuel rail and injectors from my old engine and the beast roared to life.
I'm ecstatic. The car is back on the road and I'm truly in love with it. Sure, it's still a jalopy, but at least it's a jalopy with a brand-new (practically) 17,000-mile USDM drivetrain inside it, and it runs as sweetly as you'd imagine it would run with such a minty drivetrain inside.
The nature and scope of the kind of work that my friend does is high-volume, fast-turnaround Honda line work, which does not allow for taking extra time to paint the engine compartment, install new bushings here and there, much less clean up anywhere, it's a wham, bam thank you sir proposition, but the work is perfect, if not pretty. Someday, I'll have to yank that engine again and detail the engine compartment, but my time and resources are limited to the extent that I'm going to have to just try to detail and clean and even paint a bit with the engine in place.
First order of business is to paint that red bumper, which I really don't mind, I mean yeah, it looks like hell, but does the color of the bumper necessarily detract from the visceral experience of driving an S2000? Not really, but yeah, it's bugging me. Stay tuned!
So we loaded up the engine and transmission, still as a unit and he threw it a bunch of ancillary parts: the secondary air pump, lots of hoses, complete body wiring harness, computer, driveshaft, even a mint, mint 17,000-mile cluster--a great deal.
I work the graveyard shift at a big hospital and a major staffing shortfall dictated that I would work 52 nights in a row from August into September, so I really didn't have time to arrange to have my good friend-- who happens to be a long-time Honda line technician-- perform the swap for me, that is until Saturday October 15th.
He decided to drop the engine/suspension crossmember out from the bottom. He disconnected everything up top and proceeded to knock the knuckles and tie rods off of the crossmember/steering rack and used a big OTC power train jack to lower the whole assembly. he then used an arm of an asymmetrical lift to raise the old engine off of the cradle and the same arm to lower the new engine onto the engine cradle/crossmember. Then it was matter of rolling the OTC powertrain jack underneath the S2000 and bolting the whole business back underneath the car.
(My summary makes it sound easy, but my mechanic incurred his fair share of bruises, skinned knuckles, cussing sessions and gas-drenched workboots--he started at 0800 and didn't finish until 1800 or so. Yeah, I took him to the closest bar for a few brewskis after.)
To be accurate, the car was ready for a start attempt at 1800 Saturday, but it simply would not crank. If we sprayed carb cleaner into the intake tube it would try to fire, but we simply weren't getting fuel into the cylinders. We struggled until 8:30 pm and were all pretty tired at that point after 12.5 hours of work, so I advised that we sleep on it and come back with a new perspective the next day.
The next day, my good friend/mechanic met up at about 2pm and he systematically checked all of the wiring, particularly the area where three big connectors come through the firewall grommet in the area of the brake booster to meet the ECU. All wiring looked sound during inspection. We tried the spare PCM, but it still would not fire. He checked fuel pressure at the rail and measured 50 psi--within spec. The last thing he tried was to pull the fuel rail and injectors out as a unit as I cranked the car. I cranked it and I could see fuel spraying everywhere from inside the car and the car actually fired--angrily, roughly, but momentarily before he gave me the quick "cut it" signal. Only one injector sprayed fuel but it did so so violently that fuel got inside at least two or three injector holes, allowing it to run momentarily. We laughed out of relief and irony--three of the four injectors had fouled themselves shut after ten years of disuse. He simply swapped the fuel rail and injectors from my old engine and the beast roared to life.
I'm ecstatic. The car is back on the road and I'm truly in love with it. Sure, it's still a jalopy, but at least it's a jalopy with a brand-new (practically) 17,000-mile USDM drivetrain inside it, and it runs as sweetly as you'd imagine it would run with such a minty drivetrain inside.
The nature and scope of the kind of work that my friend does is high-volume, fast-turnaround Honda line work, which does not allow for taking extra time to paint the engine compartment, install new bushings here and there, much less clean up anywhere, it's a wham, bam thank you sir proposition, but the work is perfect, if not pretty. Someday, I'll have to yank that engine again and detail the engine compartment, but my time and resources are limited to the extent that I'm going to have to just try to detail and clean and even paint a bit with the engine in place.
First order of business is to paint that red bumper, which I really don't mind, I mean yeah, it looks like hell, but does the color of the bumper necessarily detract from the visceral experience of driving an S2000? Not really, but yeah, it's bugging me. Stay tuned!
10-22-2016, 01:09 PM
#10
Glad you got the car back on the road, sad to see the car lived such a tough life before it got to you but it seems to be in good hands now. 
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