R00567

I have never had a formal build thread because i tend to keep to myself, but I have been on the boards for a while now and thought it was time. I have finally decided to bite the bullet and chronicle everything for the new S. I might need to break it down into more manageable chunks because of how many pics i have accumulated over the past year :-)

I had a MY2002 Suzuka Blue Ap1 that i had done a lot of work to. The car was sitting and performing very nicely when stacked up against its AP2 brethren. Basic mods include intake, exhaust, test pipe, radiator, wheels, tires, suspension, engine and diff mounts, etc. I had been doing upgrades to prepare the car for boost.

Old S in its glory



One day in the garage the mom walked in while i was cleaning the S and she said "why dont you have a yellow one to match the ITR?". That statement triggered a series of events that would later define my hunt and the car that i eventually ended up finding. I immediately put the suzuka blue S back to its stock form (because stock cars sell easier vs modified ones) and the first buyer that came to look at it was in fact the same person that ended up buying it. No questions or haggling was done because of how clean the car was.



ITR that was needing a friend IN YELLOW #thanksmom

last time i saw the old S, delivering it to its new owner. the rain on that day was fitting (car was sad it was going to a new home) :-(

With the old S now sold, i began a quest to find a 2006+ RYP (because of how much easier it was to tune the computer, Traction control, etc). This proved to be much harder than expected. I spent a good 3 months with nothing but dead ends and getting dicked around by multiple dealerships (nothing new). All of the semi clean ones were 20k+ and were no where close to NM. After getting burned so many times by shiesty dealerships, i temporarily gave up. I almost bought a plane ticket to Maryland to go buy a 2008 (that was beat) from a dealership until the guy because unresponsive and told me it sold a week later).

One night a week or two later, a good friend of mine texted me (1130 or midnight, and he also has an S so he knows the feels) and told me to jump on the computer.... He had found a 2007, IN YELLOW, LOW MILES, for sale BUT IT WAS NOT LOCAL (this was to be expected)! This had to be my lucky day finally. I immediately contacted the owner who was reluctant to talk to me at first (because of all the jokers he had contact him before) and he still had the car! Surprisingly selling it was harder than he expected because the car was turbo.

The previous owner had a very clean low miles RYP 2007 (that they purchased from Honda), that he paid a shop that will not be mentioned for the sake of drama (roughly 12,000$ from the parts descriptions and labor invoices), to turbocharge the car. The old owner wanted more power from the S but didn't want to supercharge it either (he didn't really explain the insistence on turbo vs SC). I was immediately reluctant / hesitant to buy another person's project car because not all "shop" work is done with tender love and care. After much pep talking from my good friend, he told me to suck it up and go get the car (because he knew i could fix anything potentially wrong with it). Having built reliable turbo cars (also Hondas) i knew slightly what i was getting into, but you never know until you see an out of state car in person. I booked a ticket that night and sent a screen shot to the old owner so he knew i was serious.

Upon arrival the old owner was very cool, and picked me up in his daily evo X. He told me his wife was very sad to see the S go but with how bad the build was and the drivablilty issues it was having they were over dealing with it, the shop that did the work, and trying to save the car.



patiently waiting to board :-D


Sagnaw Airport Display

First encounter with the car! Car was stock looking minus a greddy Spectrum exhaust. Looked very clean on the outside! The car was a summer only Michigan car from the Saginaw area, and was sitting nicely on KWv3's (just like my old suzuka). Top had a minor tear but i really didn't care for small cosmetic imperfections *(the car had 27,000 miles on it)!


stock 2007 wheels


ninja exposed front mount


small scrape on the front



Engine bay shots (looked semi decent on the internet but upon close inspection the hack job began to surface...) AC lines were mangled, wires were everywhere, windshield washer cap was melting / had melted, random oil pressure sensor fitting hanging out and unsecured. The car had a lovefab gt2 gt3076R turbo kit on it. It had an upgraded clutch, and was tuned to make 400 on pump using an AEM infinity ECU that was wired inline to the stock ECU. That is where all the pleasant details about the setup end. The old owner told me it was having bad heat issues and the batter was relocated to the trunk *(red flag 1). The old owner told me it took the shop forever to ceramic coat all the hot parts and reinstall them to help mitigate the heat issues (red flag 2). The old owner also told me that dealings with him and the old shop went sour because he was waiting for a year and a half before any updates had been done to his car. Old owner was very nice and helping but at the end of the day he was not the person that built the car or had any details on the build. The old owner also told me the cylinder head gasket was replaced with a inline pro 3mm HG and the valve-train was replaced with ferrea components (Awesome pluses).


I knew there were heat issues, and the gold foil tape was not the most visually appealing. +10 hp for the red windshield washer fluid hoses.



sweet evo X that was my taxi ride over (super nice guy)

Some interior shots from the car (everything looked minty for the most part), was not a fan of the gillion gauges hanging out on the driver pillar, it was very very busy to say the least. I am super grateful he didn't drill the dash or anything like that.




The owner and I agreed of a very nice price to sell the car for because 1) he was tired of dealing with it, and 2) he knew that only the right buyer would buy the car from him because it was in need of lots of work. Test driving the car the owner was like "Oh my god this guy is going to kill himself" because i stalled it backing it out of his driveway. In my defense the car had a super grabby clutch on it that i was not accustomed to using. (naturally i drove it very gingerly). I quickly signed and did all of the paper work, and began packing my things into the car to head out.




I knew the front end was going to get chipped up during the highway drive. I had always loved the spoon s2000 livery so i opted to mask the front of the car up for the upcoming road trip to Pennsylvania to surprise the unsuspecting GF who is at Penn State for school.






this Jag clearly didn't want to have anything to do with me after shooting flames from the rear :-D


at a gas station gassing up (my spoon camo was not holding up too well)


another pit-stop for some food


Finally i had arrived.

Will continue the story when time permits!

hybridz0r

look forward to seeing more!

Akkmednoseflem

Finally you have a thread! Watching this car transform in person has been amazing to see!

R00567

Some pictures of the car PRE-surgery. As you can see things were not executed in the cleanest manner whatsoever. I bought the car knowing it had heat issues despite the previous owner trying to ceramic coat everything. I have seen some ghettofabbing in my time but this one takes the cake.










Tried to do some last minute heat wrapping before the trip to Texas as a preventative measure.


Final Heat wrap job.

All packed up and ready to leave PA.


Abbreviated itinerary
Pitstop for some gas to let the car take a break.

Finally made it to Dallas for a break at my buddies house. #dreamgarage
Obligatory Chicken & Waffles Texas style.
Doing some last minute checks before the final trip home.
Goodbye breakfast with my bro (and his LSB E46 <3)

Recirculating dump tube's vband clamp decided to fly off *(was very stressed out because i had to macguiver the car home)
Back of Walmart in the middle of no where trying to regroup and make sure the car would be ok to limp home.
Self loathing moments when nothing is working out for you in life.
Finally was on the home stretch!
3 am the car was finally home. Now the real fun begins...