Guicar

Do people still do these "build threads?"

I guess I'll take a crack at it. First I guess I should introduce myself, as I'm not a very active member here on S2KI, but hopefully that will change in the future because the Facebook groups are pretty meh. I'm Frank and I live in Broward County, Florida (Miami/Ft Lauderdale for you out of state peeps). I bought my Silverstone MY01 back in January of 2017 with 68,000 miles and when I got it, I knew immediately a few things had to be changed.

First photo taken within an hour of purchasing the car.

As you can see, the car was pretty slammered and had a cheap ebay front lip, rep spoiler, civic fogs and really crappy Chinese tires. I let these few things go as they were just cosmetic and the overall condition of the car was amazing, given the age and miles.




I met up with a few friends that day to hang out, these were two of the dudes that basically helped push me into an S2000 (shoutout to SoFlaKidd and Mechmechanic, who I don't think has an S2ki profile).

My first order of business was obviously raising the car. Luckily the roads in Broward are relatively smooth the farther north you go, but this was just ridiculous.




Also, I bought a very used HKS Hi-Power dual exit exhaust from a buddy of mine.




That was done, and of course while washing the car the side marker light broke off, so I had to order a new one.

Let me just get this out of the way, I suck at taking pictures. I don't know anything about Nikon this or Canon that, so bear with me and my sad attempts at taking BALLER PICZ YO with my poop android.



Kami Speed meet 2017 (April, I think?)


Pit Stop in Ft. Pierce

All the S2000 peoples going about their day, burning oil and spinning out and whatnot

After the meet, went to eat some mofongo and stare at pretty Dominican ladies

I ended up buying a square set of AP2V2 wheels from an awesome guy down in Miami (shoutout to Kevin, sorry I don't know your S2KI tag!). Wrapped them in a set of Continental ExtremeContact Sport tires and on the car they went, with some H&R 20mm bolt on, hub centric spacers in the rear for teh ultimate flush fitment y0. I also took the chance to replace all the fluids. Amsoil 75w-140 in the diff, Amsoil MTF for the transmission, and OEM Dot 3 fluid for the clutch and brake lines.





Around this same time, I started getting a pretty bad condensation issue in my headlights. I guess whoever installed the clear lenses before I owned the car didn't do a very solid job. Needless to say, I had to reseal them. This was a very fun job, to say the least!


I guess the hot Florida sun really took its toll on that seal, brough

Look at all that rust! I was surprised the ballast and bulb were still working after seeing the condition of the housing.

I was living at my parents house at the time, and no my mother didn't know about my using of her oven to do car things or else I would have been dead meat LOL

Like I said, I'm horrible at taking photos. This was the only pic I snapped after putting the headlights back on. Oops

The car pretty much stayed like this until I snagged a color matching OEM spoiler from a seller in Pensacola. After putting it on I went out to take a few pics. Unfortunately because of my awesome photo skills I decided that doing it at night was a good idea. Oh well




I always liked this picture. To me it really captures the essence of what the S2000 always was: an unfiltered, raw driving experience. No distractions, no fluff. What a great job the Honda engineers did with this car.

Keen eyes will notice the, uhm...additions to the door panels. I really hate the aftermarket tweeters and didn't have a choice in the matter, as they were already installed when purchased. (The driver's side fell out while driving it home that same day, lol). It really stinks because the besides that, the door panels are flawless and it's not something that bothers me too much so new panels haven't been high on the priority list.

Anyways, moving on.

Next on the list was, of course, AP2 retainers and a valve adjustment. Shoutout to Alex (@alex.built on Instagram) for taking care of this for me. 0 problems so far and she sees VTEC regularly.


I was amazed at how clean everything was underneath the valvecover. Compression was also 250psi across all 4 cylinders! What an engine.

The car stayed the same for the latter half of 2017, so enjoy these fancy piczturesz



In August 2017 I moved out of my parent's house and in with a good friend of mine. Hooray for garages! Finally had one for my baby so I could keep her out of the scorching Florida sun, and away from the notorious South Florida Honda thieves.


Is 75k really a milestone?


I love the woooooookie noises. My old roomate's Tornado Red Mk4 R32 was really a special car. RIP


My buddy Chris and I out at Markham park for the 2017 Florida Preludes meet. Yes, I owned a white 5th gen Lude for 4 years. It was my first car and I popped many car guy cherries with that car. The Prelude community is one I still interact with a lot, some of my closest friends were made through it so I still attend the yearly BBQ to this day.


First and last time I take my car to Wynwood. I couldn't enjoy myself due to being way too worried about someone stealing it or hitting it. Unfortunately my girlfriend had to suffer because of my totally understandable paranoia, so now we just take the beater corolla down there when we want to get schwifty.

Enter 2018.

In February I finally decided that the original plastic window top had to go, it was in really crap condition with holes and the faded plastic. It got replaced with a Robbins cloth top with a glass rear window.



I never took up close photos of the OG top, mainly because it was just embarassing. This picture can give you a relatively good idea of the general condition of the old P.O.S.


Muuuuuuuuch better. Shoutout to E3 Customs in Pompano Beach, you guys rock!

Hey look, it's meet up time with the boys! Sandy definitely sold me on the S2000, within a month of having an in depth conversation with him, I had my own. Thanks for the final push, my guy.


Hanging out with the boys.


"Shhh! They still don't know I'm a Miata."


Sandy's car is so photogenic and it really bothers me, but in a good way. It's pretty quick too for NA.

Well, I decided after a waning interest in the car due to my fanatical lust of E46 M3s, that what it really needed was a cleaned up engine bay.


How the engine bay looked beforehand. Horrible!

I used a diluted solution of Chemical Guys All Purpose Cleaner to get the grimy bits off. Luckily my car has never had any oil leaks so there were no residuals to worry about.

Next I had to do something about that valve cover.



I really liked the texture the powdercoat gave the valve cover.

I took an old spare VC I had over to blast coatings in Lake Worth. They certainly delivered.


All done. What a difference!

After this little project, I was all into the S2000 again. It's just a timeless car that will never be replaced. I decided it was near time to start going balls deep and take care of something that really needed taking care of...

But before that, check out some pics from the S2000 meet I hosted earlier this month:


Prepping for the meet with a proper detail. Wash/claybar/polish/wax/seal


I'm really surprised at how well this interior has held up over 17 years. The red really pops against the subtlety of the Silverstone exterior. Peep the Renegade Motorsports shift knob and the Modifry cell phone holder, the latter of which is essential in an early AP1 due to the relative lack of storage space, even in the realm of S2000s.



Bae's Booty


Shoutout to Tony, I know you're on here somewhere. This guy will drive anywhere to hang out with S2000 peeps, and he definitely deserves credit being willing to put all those miles on his baby just to help keep the S2000 scene alive here in Florida.


What a great turn out. 40+ S2000s may not seem like a lot, but in a nearly dead scene like South Florida is, the first meet in nearly 2 years was definitely a successful one. Thank you so much to everyone who came out. You are all da bes

Okay. Let's get back to business. That thing I told you about? Yeah that's the hacked up bumper I'd been driving around with for the past 2 years. It was time for that to go.

I decided to go with the Shine Auto Project Amuse R1 style front bumper. I know this bumper may be a bit played out, but I really love how it looks like a more aggressive AP2 front end. While it was at the shop, I had them repaint the rear bumper due to some exhaust burns (lol) and because it looked like it had been poorly repaired in the past.


Dropping off the car for some services. It's always nerve wracking handing over the keys to someone you don't know and entrusting them with your baby.


And the final results:

Wow. Just. Wow. What a difference.


That booty finally gets to shine all sparkly-like

This is pretty much how the car sits today, and now that the cosmetics are out of the way for now, it's time to start focusing on what's underneath. What fascinates me most about this car isn't the aesthetics, but the chassis design and suspension design and engineering behind the entire vehicle. It's such a well thought out platform and it deserves to be in top notch condition. First on my list is to get rid of these crap function and form coilovers, and get some seat time on a track to really learn the car's limits and my own as a driver, before I start getting too crazy with modifications.

Thank you for reading, and I promise going forward to be better with pictures and give more thorough updates.. Guicar out!

TsukubaCody

I have no idea what your thread title means but I assume it's some dork speak.

You should get an AP1 rear bumper. Much better looking than AP2.

Guicar

Lmao! It's just a mocking way of spelling "stance nation." And we'll have to see. For now the rear is staying since it JUST got resprayed

Ricky_Flowers_

Hey Frank!

Guicar

Dammit! I forgot to take more pictures AGAIN.

I guess some words and 2 photos will have to suffice.

Anyways, I'm currently in the prep phase for my first HPDE event. December 16, 2018 at Homestead motor speedway. Needless to say, I am super excited to shakedown on track, build up some skills and see how my car performs as is. Just had to do a few things beforehand to make sure she would make it through the day:

I started with an oil change (of course).

Installed some new rear tires (Conti ECS) for a bit of the grippu.

Flushed out all my old dot 3 fluid for some Motul RBF660 goodness.

Flushed out all the aftermarket coolant for some good ol' Honda blue.

Inspected all the suspension components for anything loose or worn out. Also checked for any fluid leaks of any kind. I definitely got lucky. All the bushings and ball joints still look great, and there are 0 leaks of any kind.

Lastly I installed some Hawk HP+ brake pads and centric blanks.




That's what the old brake fluid looked like. Ain't no way in hell that's going anywhere near a race track

This coming weekend I'll be taking the car to a good friend of mine who is our resident alignment specialist within our circle to get it tracking straight and true. Anyone got any good suggestions for alignment specs?

All in all the car needed minimal things done to prepare it for losing its track virginity. I'm hyped to get out there and see what the S2000 chassis is all about.

Wish me luck!

Guicar

Show me de wae