Loopy

Love the progress and the updates!

JacobFatz

Thanks! Hope you've enjoyed it so far!

JacobFatz

Little life update... I started a new job in Georgia, about four hours away from where I used to live in Charlotte. I'm so grateful to have landed this position. Can you guess what I'm doing and where I am?





I've only driven a 718 Cayman GTS and a 991.2 Carrera S (both with PDK) so far and they were both so much fun. I can officially say I can drift... but only in a $90k Cayman on a polished concrete circuit.

We made out way back to Barber in Alabama for the Honda IndyCar Grand Prix of Alabama this year. Here's some pics from the trip.







Staging on the track in front of all the live nation tv cameras and huge crowd...




Took Max Chilton out for his parade lap. Such a cool experience.



And on the way home:

LagunaPearlAP2

Amazing thread! A pleasure to go through!

JacobFatz

Thank you!!

JacobFatz

I've noticed that my rear shocks seem to be harsher than they should be. When hitting a bump, the car is jolted rather than bounced if that makes sense. Which probably explains why under compression, the rear of my car gets tail happy pretty fast. Doing some research, I found the SakeBomb recommendations for spring preload and they were waaaaaaay different from what I had (2mm all around). I used this chart:



According to this chart, the maximum I would be able to lower my car in the rear is ~0.9" which is barely anything. I got the SakeBomb rear lower shock forks so I could go lower if I wanted to. I knew I wanted to raise the car from where it was since the least amount of camber I could get was around -3.5*. I wanted to shoot for -2* in the rear.

I also was out driving and my car just felt... sloppy? I guess that's the best way to put it. It just felt "loose" and not like a sports car should. After overanalyzing my options like I always seem to do, I ended up on the Hardrace/Megan Racing (same exact parts) engine and transmission mounts or Spoon engine/transmission mounts. These are OEM-replacement but made with hardened rubber versus the liquid filled OEM rubbed so these will be every so slightly stiffer. My mounts are 16 years old at this point (car was built in 08/03 as a MY04) so I was completely expecting them to be destroyed even though it is a relatively lower mileage car at 71k miles now.



Spoon mounts were about $150 more expensive and I couldn't get them without the typical JDM wait time so Megan Racing/Hardrace is what I ended up with for both the engine and transmission mounts. Somebody also posted on Facebook that the BC Racing extended adjustment knobs for the rear shocks fit Ohlins. For $35, I gave them a shot. I have not installed them yet, however. I was going to install them when doing everything else below, but they were not cooperating and I had bigger things to take car of first. I will update back once I install them or resell them if they don't work.



Time to get to work! I am so, so, so, sooooooo happy to have a shop I can work in again.

The plan was to:

-Install SB lower forks
-Adjust preload on all four corners to SB reccomendations
-Adjust ride height to about a 2 finger gap all around
-Corner balance from there
-Alignment with around -2* camber in the rear
-Replace engine mounts
-Replace transmission mounts
-Change engine oil/filter
-Change differential fluid

Let's get to work!





20mm preloaded rear 8kg spring




Ready to go back on the car


Front 10k spring preloaded 10mm


Aaaaaaaaaand that's a lot lower than I wanted..... These SB rear forks are no joke. As you can see from the above photos of the shocks before they went back on the car, they had another probably inch of threading to go lower... That would have been tucking the wheel inside the fenders @ 20mm preload!


Much better... Keep in mind, the front came down just a touch. The car hadn't been rolled, all bushings were loose, and the rocker was resting on the lift arm.


Preloaded all bushings on the car and moved it onto the alignment rack. Camber all around at that ride height ended up being around -2.2*. It is a tad high for my liking; if I want to lower it more, I will need to get some sort of adjustable ball joint or toe arm for the rear so I can adjust the camber more positive. I did NOT corner balance the car since it was getting late and I honestly just ran out of steam. I have all the time in the world to go back and make it perfect later. I figured I accomplished enough that night. I forgot to take a photo of the alignment rack, but it is in-ground and super badass! I guess it has to fit GT3 Cup cars and 918 Spyders on it regularly, so that makes sense.


On to the engine and trans mounts... Very straight forward and took all of 30-45 minutes with a piss/water break in the middle. Super super super easy. My old mounts were in way better shape than I expected. Even with an engine torque dampener, they felt pretty sloppy.




Then I changed the oil with Pennzoil Platinum 10w30 and an OEM Honda filter. I think it only had around 3,500 miles on it but it was over a year old. I also changed the differential fluid with Amsoil Severe Gear 75w110 from the new bag they sell. They definitely give you more than a quart in there, by the way. I was on the phone and not paying a lot of attention, so I ended up putting the fill plug in the drain hole and filled up the diff. The drain plug has a magnet on it so you definitely want that at the bottom of the diff, not on the side. I took the "fill" plug out of the bottom and swapped the magnet plug in there super fast. I probably lost 1/20th of a quart but I still lost some, however I had plenty left in the bag to refill the differential without any issues. The bag was also kinda neat to use versus a pump or 5psi compressed air into the container.



All done! Very long night. I am going to re-align the car after putting a few miles on it and before any track time to make sure everything is tight. So far, my impressions of the mounts are awesome. I absolutely love them. The transmission doesn't move at all and the car feels super tight again. The combo of Megan mounts and engine torque dampener (I have NRG) is perfect for what I use my car for. Minimal vibration at idle with A/C on, and I'm talking like a small little hum in your butt, not teeth rattling madness.

The suspension feels pretty good. After playing with the dampening, it's about how I want it. I will adjust it more as I drive. The rear now dips on hard bumps rather than slams into the bumpstops so I really hope all of this translates into better car control and more stability when driving at the limit. I've fallen back in love with my car after all of this... I'd really like some CE28SL in 17x9 +63. They apparently clear ST40 Stoptech big brakes up front without a spacer so I may end up exploring this further.
Standby for track impressions. There is an event in 24 hours from now assuming no rain (unlikely ), otherwise it will be in about a month.

Update a month later... It rained during that ^^ event. I'm going out tomorrow but the forecast still says rain so screw it, I guess I'm running in the rain. Plenty of events coming up.

I got a SakeBomb billet aluminum micro antenna. This thing is awesome! Looks sooooo much better than the stock antenna (or whatever I had on my car, it wasn't even an OEM antenna).

JacobFatz

Finally was able to get back on a race track! It's been almost a year since my time. Back at Atlanta Motorsports Park with SCCA TNiA. Advanced group. Ran an (estimated) 1:38. My stupid lap timer sucks but there is still some room to improve. Very fast people in stock powered S2000s usually max out at 1:34ish.







Minor updates as of 11/27/19:

Maintenance alignment that I did at my friend's shop in Charlotte. I basically set the rear to the least amount of camber I could with stock adjusters and stock AP2 non-CR toe (the CR toe felt nice but not good enough to justify the accelerated tire wear imo) and then in front I set the camber to the most negative I could then caster as positive as I could with 0 toe. Obviously, I took the lower value and matched both sides so it was symmetrical.

Feels great, I think this combo is a winner... for now. We will see.



The before spec is all screwed up because I did multiple caster sweeps and kept resetting the values so don't pay attention to that. I think this has to be the 10th (at least) alignment I've done on this car in the four years I've owned it. Tire pressure and alignment make such a huge difference, even with stock equipment! You don't need to spend a million dollars to tune your suspension. Play with it and find what you like.



And super minor but I've wanted these OEM Honda Access floor mats for yearsssssssss... since I had my silver AP1. I could never justify the money for floor mats even though it's a relatively low amount of money to spend. My friend had a set that came in a car he's flipping and he gave me a deal so we traded my OEM USDM red 02+ mats for these plus a little money going his way. When I installed the brackets for these, I didn't cut the carpet. I just placed the bracket where it goes but on top of the carpet and put the screw through like that. I think it's a lot cleaner than how Honda wants you to install. The passenger side is just placed in there partly because I didn't have two more screws and partly because I don't think they need to be screwed down. I'll upload new pics of my interior soon with them in there.

JacobFatz

As promised, here is how the interior looks now with the new Honda Access floor mats:



I love it!

Went to the mountains a few times as well to try out the new alignment and feel how removing the NRG ETD would change things and literally all it did was decrease NVH. I'm still not even sure if the little shock was blown or what, but either way... that's gone. Here's a photo on one of the overlooks.



The next update is a little sad but hear me out... The plan was to sell this car and buy a 981 Porsche Cayman GTS with a manual transmission. I know, I'll never be able to replace this car and I've put so much time and effort and money into it. I know... I know.

Well, when discussing the future plans for this car with a friend, she basically begged me to sell her the OEM hardtop. I didn't really want to start parting the car out, but then she made me a $5,000 offer on the top. I accepted.

Here is the last photo of the car with its OEM GPW hardtop on it.



So a few days later, I found out that Porsche is going to be offering a flat 6 engine in the new 2020 718 Cayman GTS, meaning the prices of the current 718 4 cylinder turbo cars are going to be killed and the prices of the 981s are also going to get hit pretty hard since the 981 prices are (in my opinion) inflated by the fact that they were the last flat 6 Caymans. Buying one now would be a financial nightmare, so I decided that I will wait another year or so, or just until the depreciation hit has come and gone, before I purchase my first Porsche. Until then, I plan on keeping this car and playing with it just as I have been for the last four years. The downside is that I've sold my OEM hardtop but now I am keeping the car which kind of sucks. Oh well. I've been enjoying putting the basically brand new Robbins soft top that I installed years ago down more often now that it's super easy to do so.

lltysonll

Did you ever find out if the BC knob extenders work with ohlins? Nice build was very entertaining to read the progress.

JacobFatz

Thanks! And no, after messing with them for probably an hour and a half, I couldn’t get them to stay on top of the adjusters or have any real feedback if they did stay on. I’ve given up on them and will buy the SakeBomb version eventually.