Feezy

Man, if I had things my way I would love to do things like this for other people.

| really enjoy documenting all of the work that goes into everything. I feel like you see the finished product, specific for cars like mine that are done in a minimalist style, and you don't really get a good understanding of the level of work and detail that goes into making it look like you haven't really modified the car.

I have some pretty cool updates to get to, so I'm really trying to burn through my backlog of updates.

Feezy

06.15.2022 - BBK Decision

It has been no secret that I was after a brake kit for the car. After owning the Porsches, the thing that stood to me on the S2000 as looking dated was the brake system. I had my heart set on some matching front and rear BBK that cleared 17's, retained the OEM e-brake functionality, I also really wanted a monoblock caliper if I could swing it. Something about the way they look just speaks to me. I tried my damnedest to make this happen. I reached out to anyone and everyone I could. I didn't feel that any of the kits on the market were the quality that I was looking for, so I reached out to Brembo and several of their distributors to see if I could have what I was looking for made. I tried for several months and to boil it down they are happy with the Brembo GT kit and don't see a market for a new kit of any kind, even just a nice front kit. I was talking to Andrew Hake extensively during this and kept circling back to the pictures he posted. After quadruple checking my wheel clearances against the endless templates, looking up all the data on the brake bias calculator sheet, I ordered the Endless Mono 4 set up with the 324x30mm rotors. This setup is closest to the OEM brake bias when run with OEM sized rears according to the spreadsheet.

To make the kit look and feel complete I also ordered matching e-slit OEM sized rear rotors with black centers, endless racing swivel brake lines, and matching MX-72 pads. I also changed the endless rotor hat color from the motorsports bronze/gold finish to black to give it that more OEM look. The Endless Mono calipers only come in one finish and it's the alumnite gray. I wanted the cars brakes to look complete so I ordered a new set of rear calipers with the intention to paint match them. I was talking to Alex (I can't remember his name here) and he told me that "Steel It" is a very close match to the Endless Mono finish. I ordered a couple of cans to give it a whirl. It was going to take 3-4 months for them to get to me after the order so I had enough time to get the rears painted and fully cured before the install.

Thankfully shortly after the Parts got here in October @Adrs2k came into town for a work trip. He took a bunch of pictures of everything before it all went on the car. We spent the weekend driving the other cars (there is a lot to update on that as well) and didn't have any time to work on the S2000.

Everything fresh out of the box.













Unfortunately the caliper pics came out blurry and we didn't catch it until after he left, so here a lame phone pic.



Comparison of the finisah of the Endless Mono caliper and my OEM calipers painted with "Steel-It".

kos

Feezy

11.25.2022 - Endless Mono 4 Install

Compared to everything else I had been doing, the install for the brakes was pretty straight forward. In anticipation of doing this I had unbolted my oem lines from the calipers and let all the fluid drain out into some containers over a day or two.

The biggest difficulty here was removal of the front OEM dust shields. Those little bolts sucks, but with a combination of PB Blaster and small vice grips I got them removed and then cut the heat shield off. From there the next issue was the instructions. It seems as though the instructions are more generic to the Mono kits and less specific to your application. Because of this I could not assemble the brackets and rotor in the way it showed. I could only get it to work one way, and after checking with several other people it was the same orientation that their BBK brackets also went. I ended up using the directions and torque specs from one of the StopTech kits IIRC. I ended up putting in the bolts that hold the bracket to the caliper in with a drop of red Locktite so I don't have any concerns with them coming loose.

I also elected to run the shim kit for the front that came with the front BBK as well as the shims from the OEM pads in the rear. I wanted to hide as much of the blue pad as I could while leaving just enough for you to see if you went looking for it. I am very pleased with the final result. Originally I didn't order the rear Endless brake lines as I already had the SOS lines, but after seeing the Endless front lines I put in an order for the matching rears.

B serious

Cousin, I have been following this build and obviously its been fantastic.

I didn't feel the need to say anything until I read that you were keeping cruise control.

cot damn boy.

Feezy

LOL It took all of zero effort to keep it. I like that the engine bay looks "factory" or at least everything looks like it belongs. I have a very distinct vision in my head and I don't see the car looking right if cruise control isn't where it's supposed to be. The funny thing is it still works just fine.

Please don't hesitate to post more. It's getting lonely up in here.

B serious

Yeah, most people would just delete cruise, unfortunately. Unbolting and tossing is easier than what you've just done haha.
It's such a cool OEM+ touch to keep it, and it's exactly what I would have done had I gone through this process.
So I had to say something haha.

The whole build thread is rad, dude. It's obvious there's tons of thought into what you buy and how you install it and put it all together.
The JDM 04-05 coil plug cover, for example. 99.9% of people would never even notice that because it looks like a USDM AP1 cover at first glance.
I tend to have a similar eye for small stuff - but you're incredible at documenting it.

Great photos quality, and I like all the detail to each mod. It's not just a bunch of "I got a BBK, slapped it on, and snapped some iPhone4 shots for clout".
I can tell you're really into this.

Cool that you posted the photos of how steelit turns out. I was kinda looking into it for the exact same purpose...refinishing calipers and other metal parts at home in lieu of taking them to a zinc plater.


Anyway, no build lasts forever, and you've been building like crazy for the recent time.
Hopefully, you're putting this thing together to enjoy the ultimate driver S2000 and planning on keeping it long term.

Feezy

12.19.2022 - Tuning & First Drive

With everything together I spent some time setting up the car. The guy who built my harness was also a dealer and tuner for LINK ECUs. As he was familiar with my ECU, S2000s, helped me choose my sensors, and built the harness himself, he was the obvious choice to get the car up and running. He provided me with a base map and we did a couple hour long tuning session or two to get the car up and running, see what needed to be changed, moved, adjusted all before final assembly. There are a couple of parts on the Toda manifold that are inaccessible or difficult to adjust with everything together so I worked with him to get all that squared away before the box went on for the last time.

I synced all the throttles to be even, set the hard idle, ect. We went back and forth a few times and I ended up needing to individually adjust all the individual throttles to be equal to the lowest one, rather than the highest one as I had before. There was a lot of time spent on idle, incorporating the IACV, all that jazz. In addition to that I was also working on bleeding the coolant system which was being a royal bitch. I thought I was having an issue with the thermostat so at some point that was replaced for a new one. I don't think that was the problem, but I have a new thermostat to go along with the new everything else on the car. So that's cool.

To remote street tune the car I ended up connecting my laptop to my phone's wi-fi, set up Any Desk, and called my tuner through the same phone and used a set of headphones as the S2000 is pretty noisy. Shockingly it worked without a hitch. We spent 3-4 hours working on low and part throttle before getting into WOT and Vtec. The entire tuning experience was mostly smooth sailing. I can definitely see how having someone who can put hands on the car would be beneficial, but I am very glad I went with this approach to start. It allowed me to deal with quite a few small gremlins and shake any potential issues out.

I have a couple of quick pics of the car that I took over the course of a few different sessions. I don't usually have the top off and I forgot how great it looked topless.









The car is filthy at this point. You can see all the hand prints and dust everywhere. The car had been stationary since I started the project at the beginning of September.

Feezy

Thanks man, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that feedback. I genuinely love this platform and I do my best to document and share everything I do to the car. I want the car to be more than a collection of cool parts that I tossed on it, I want each individual piece to blend into the car as if it could have come that way from a manufacturer. I want to enhance the characteristic of the car and turn it into an excellent street car that I can enjoy for the long haul.

As far as selling it, well, my wife and I have already had discussions on where the car needs to go when I pass away, because the only way it's leaving my possession is through my cold dead hands. I absolutely love this thing, and I'm so incredibly proud of how it's come together.

Feezy

12.30.2022 - 04/05 Valve Cover, New Spark Plug Cover, and PCV Replacement

As you can tell in the pics my 20 year old valve cover was looking worse for wear. It was directly, chipped, peeling, and generally looked out of place next to all of the new components in the engine bay. I was going to swap to an 04/05 cover to utilize the PCV port with the ITBs so now seemed like a good time to do it.

I ordered a gasket kit plus the spark plug grommets, and found a valve cover locally. I dropped it off along with my AP1 spark plug cover to my powdercoater to have them done in the factory colors. While he had S2KandtheAnt and I were talking and he mentioned he had one of the JDM AP2 spark plug covers in stock. It's the same thing as the USDM covers only it's the correct wrinkle black instead of the terrible terrible gold indicating you received an incorrectly sized motor. (jokes) I ordered one of those to toss on the car and see which I liked better.

Fresh cover with both spark plug covers for comparison:



Bonus shot of the bare head I took while I was swapping the cover:



I also started looking into the fittings for the PCV port. The 04/05 covers come with a better PCV design that you can remove and replace with a fitting that allows you to use it as a vent port. With the ITBs I don't have a vacuum source to pull the PCV open, and this hopefully allows me to just cap the front port rather than to run a line off the front.

There are two sizes that can work, I ordered all the fittings to test and see which was best. You can run a -6 fitting but from the couple I had in hand the -6 fitting steps down when it goes to the -6 side. This would work fine probably, but with me trying to get away with one line I elected to go for the bigger -8. The metric to -8 fitting is straight through which should allow the greatest possible amount of pressure to escape from the head. For the time being I have a 90 degree elbow attached, and I'm using some rubber tubing I had on hand to send the vapors underneath the car. I will be revisiting this at some point here shortly and adding a catch can once I determine if my current set up is adequate venting for the engine.

-6 Fitting





-8 Fitting





Final Setup



This currently seems to be enough as I have no issues with the dipstick popping. I also ordered a heavy duty HPS silicon cap for the front port.