Mack21

I can't wait for a review on the collars. I still feel like they're awesome in theory but maybe unnecessary if you get a good alignment.

baZurk

When I log in to s2ki and see this thread hasn't been locked yet...

Ricky_Flowers_

Before I begin this, a little bit of preface: This car of mine, this wonderful, retarded little super-miata, has 114xxx miles. That's 114xxx miles on the roads of Miami, the streets of Charleston, the curves of the Appalachians, and the banks/dips/braking zones of the track. Needless to say, this car has lived a long, full life up until this point. As we all know, S2000s are some of the most well-engineered cars built in the last 20 years, so, with routine maintenance, this car has made it to this point relatively unscathed, save for a chance encounter with some weather, and a warehouse wall literally falling on it. However, no matter how well engineered a car is, it's still 13 years old now, and things like the compliance bushings and motor mounts were starting to show it. On the road, this translated to poor steering feel and crashiness over bumps and ruts, and on the track it meant my rear end would kick out to the right under hard braking. Scary stuff. Because I intend to keep driving this car until my hands and feet fall off, I needed to fix these issues, and maybe make a few improvements while I was at it.

So you understand the scale of the problem, this was my driver's side front compliance bushing:



And this was it after I removed it (with fire and an air hammer):



Needless to say, that sucker needed to go. So I bought the Spoon bushings from Gotuning Unlimited (thanks again Tommy!), as well as the Rigid Collars that everyone seems to be going apeshit over. The rigid collars were a breeze to install once the car was up on stands, and couldn't have taken longer than two hours (while drinking beer, at around midnight, after putting a K20A2 back together for the first time....). It was when I started to prep the front arms to be removed that I knew I was in deep shit.

The passenger side came off easily enough. Unbolt everything, hit the compliance bushing with a little bit of impact gun, and viola! It was out. The passenger side, however, was a 6 hour job to get out. 6. Hours. For one control arm. What happened was the inner bushing itself had separated from the outer bushing ring/sleeve/whatever, so it was just kind of.... there. Also, the inner eccentric sleeve thing had essentially rusted solid to the bushing, so it was damn near impossible to get out. I've worked on a lot of older cars before, and I really didn't expect this to be a challenge. I'm laughing as I write this, because there were concerned people poking their heads into my shop while i was going to town on that damn bushing with a torch and hammer, screaming. Anyone who knows me knows I yell a lot.

I ended up destroying the eccentric bolt, so I went and picked up spare my friend had and put the whole thing back together once I pressed the bushing in. That part was pretty straightforward for anyone who's ever used a press. Putting it all back together was a relative breeze: Reset everything to the marks I made before I tore it all apart, torqued to spec, and put it on the alignment rack. I aligned the car to the exact same specs I had it at before: Caster 6.5-ish, Camber 2.2/2.5 F/R, zero toe (dialing in more rear toe for Sebring) F/R, and went for a drive.

I knew there would be a significant improvement, but I didn't expect it to be this good. Obviously, the car feels razor-sharp now, compared to before. Yes, there is a slight numbness to the steering still, but thats due more to the amount of camber up front than anything. The car no longer crashes over bumps, which is a huge deal for me. I took the car to one of those roads we all hate, with ruts and bumps, dips, etc. and drove it as I normally would. The car is composed where it once was out of shape, the rigid collars allowing the suspension to do its job with precision. Precision: that's the word I'd use to describe the car's dynamics now. It feels like a truly precise driving instrument, feeling factory fresh after rolling off the assembly line over a decade ago. It's not something that most people would notice, but I do because I've driven the car almost every day for the past few years.

I can't stop driving the car now. I've put close to 300 miles on it in two days of just aimless cruising. It's like getting re-acquainted with an old friend.

Photos for affect. Sorry, my car is filthy in these

..... by Ricky Flores, on Flickr

..... by Ricky Flores, on Flickr

..... by Ricky Flores, on Flickr

..... by Ricky Flores, on Flickr

..... by Ricky Flores, on Flickr

..... by Ricky Flores, on Flickr

..... by Ricky Flores, on Flickr

I'm really excited to see how the changes affect the car on track. I'm running Sebring this weekend, and anyone who knows Sebring will tell you to nut-and-bolt your car, because it will beat the living shit out of it. This should be the perfect test, and I cannot say enough how happy I am knowing the car will be my friend more than my enemy on one of the craziest tracks in North America.

Thanks again to Tommy, and also Bryan (Aponer) for helping me install the collars.

This will probably be the last thing I do to the car before December. The unfortunate reality of being a college student and having to pay tuition really cramps my style when it comes to making this car what I want it to be, but rest assured there are big changes coming. The next big thing I do involves something called a Haltech, and supposedly will give me more power?

Also, something about 4.56 gears?

Ricky_Flowers_

This. Also, have a jack under the oil pan and diff when you're working on each subframe. The safest way to do it is to loosen the subframe bolts enough for there to be enough space to slide the collars in on each side, and lower the subframe with the jack.

Bad1flip

I like the tuna here.

Ricky_Flowers_

No one likes the tuna here, dude.

baZurk

I like to fill the nasty hole in my fuel map with tuna.

Ricky_Flowers_

I like to fill the nasty hole in my fuel map with tuna.
[/quote]

This is just getting weird now.

Feezy

As per request I'm moving this to the build thread section.

#BUILDTHREAD

Ricky_Flowers_