JacobFatz

JacobFatz's 2004 Honda S2000
JHMAP21454T000124

Current modifications as of December 3, 2020:

Exterior:
OEM AP2 front lip
OEM CR sidemarkers w/ amber (194A) bulbs
"S2000" fender badges removed
Factory windshield frame vinyl wrap removed
15% window tint on all windows excluding windshield
Robbins premium cloth soft top with heated glass window
SakeBomb Billet Aluminum Micro Antenna
OEM AP1 rear spoiler
OEM JDM Honda S2000 rear emblem in NFR

Interior:
Black 00-05 OEM carpet
Honda Access premium floor mats in red
2009 OEM red/black seats; BYS driver rail & 00-05 seat belt buckle, 00-05 passenger rail and seat belt buckle
Modifry Seat Belt Lock w/ switch under steering wheel
Black OEM leather transmission tunnel cover; all clips/fasteners replaced with OEM black
Moddiction titanium Anvil shift knob
Pioneer DEH-X6500BT head unit
Modifry DCI module
OEM AP2 red/black door panels
Custom RedLine Goods reupholstered OEM AP2v1 steering wheel

Front Wheels/Suspension:
Enkei PF01 17x8 +50
Hankook Ventus R-S4 225/45ZR17
Muteki SR45ti titanium open-ended lug nuts
Stoptech ST40 calipers
Stoptech 328x28mm two-piece slotted rotors
Stoptech sport pads
Stoptech stainless steel braided brake lines
Öhlins DFV w/ 10k factory springs preloaded 10mm, ride height lowered 1.25"
Spoon subframe collars

Rear Wheels/Suspension:
Enkei PF01-SS 17x9 +60
Hankook Ventus R-S4 255/40ZR17
Muteki SR45ti titanium open-ended lug nuts
5mm H&R wheel spacers
Painted OEM red calipers to match ST40 front kit
Stoptech slotted rotors
Stoptech sport pads
Stoptech stainless steel braided brake lines
Öhlins Road and Track coilovers w/ 8k factory springs preloaded 19mm, ride height lowered 0.75"
SakeBomb FPSpec Low-Profile mounting fork for Öhlins
Spoon subframe collars

Engine:
KOYO 53mm race core radiator, 1.3bar KOYO cap
K&N drop-in air filter
Gutted OEM airbox
NRG engine torque damper
Megan Racing/Hardrace engine mounts
Dewhal battery brace

Transmission:
SOS stainless steel braided clutch master cylinder to slave cylinder line
AP1 slave cylinder
AP1 flywheel
ACT H021 pressure plate
Clutch interlock switch bypassed
Megan Racing/Hardrace transmission mounts

Exhaust:
Berk 63.5mm test pipe

Fluids:
OEM Honda coolant
Pennzoil Platinum full synthetic 10w30 engine oil, OEM Honda filter
OEM VAG DOT4 brake/clutch fluid
Royal Purple Synchromesh transmission fluid
Amsoil Severe Gear 75w110 differential fluid

Alignment:
Front: +/-0° toe, -2.7° camber, +6.1° caster
Rear: +0.36° total toe, -2.2° camber

Click here for fuel logs.

More or less how the car currently sits: (not pictured - OEM hardtop is gone, Honda Access floor mats)



__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________

I had another thread very similar to this one, only it was for my 2000 Silverstone that I bought back in 2014. By June of 2015, I began to part out all of the modifications and spare parts. On August 9, 2015, I sold the car and had nothing left of it.

If you're interested, the "build" thread is here: https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/110...#entry23665062 (Sorry for the missing photos. I don't have the patience to redo all of that thread as well. I hate Photobucket.)



My original thought was that I wanted a Grand Prix White AP2 in near mint condition. I went back and forth on 04-05 or 06+ a few times and came to the conclusion that I wanted and 04-05 unless I found a GPW CR. Being that there were only 1208 GPW 04/05 S2000s ever made for the United States, the search was getting pretty intense. I had been half-ass looking for one since basically three months after buying my AP1, but I was never serious enough about buying the car to even call the sellers. In that time, I saw two S2000s for sale that I would consider to be worthy of what I wanted. They were both in the $20k+ range and I also didn't have that kind of disposable money.

After selling my AP1, I didn't have a car at all. I was using my mom's Chrysler 200 for the time being, but I really needed to buy a car... and fast. As a very serious search for the unicorn 2004/2005 GPW went on, I gave up. Four weeks of searching and I didn't find a single S2000 close to what I would consider my dream S2000, and that was the entire purpose for selling my AP1, which I absolutely loved.

So a month went by, I needed a car desperately, and to top it all off... Classes just started.

I gave up and bought a 2002 Chevrolet Corvette Z06.



I absolutely LOVED the car. For about a week. The power from the 5.7l LS6 was awesome. The 6 speed gearbox was alright. The handling was absolutely horrendous. I daily drove the car for about three months and pretty much had enough. I hated (I use hate in exchange of - I really really missed my S2000) it by the end of the first week of ownership. I started looking again.

Every single day. S2ki classifieds, local Craigslist, AutoTrader, Cars for Sale, and Car Gurus. Sometimes twice a day.

On December 22, 2015, I saw an ad posted here on S2ki. The ad was posted around 4pm on December 22, 2015 and I apprehensively called the seller around midnight. We talked for a little bit and by noon December 23, I was ready to buy a plane ticket to Maryland. Oh, right. I live in Charlotte, NC and the car was in Gaithersburg, MD. I decided to buy a plane ticket for the following Monday (12/28/15) to get the car.

This is the For Sale ad:
https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/114...#entry23836381

So, after a little more talking, Chelsea (seller of the car) informed me that there was another interested person coming to see the car that Saturday (12/26/15). I wasn't going to let there even be a chance that the car is sold to anybody but myself, so I cancelled the plane ticket, went to Enterprise, rented a 2016 Fiesta for 24 hours, and left that night (12/23-24/15) at 3am. I arrived at the pre-determined meeting place around 9:30am on Christmas Eve. Keep in mind, the car wasn't even posted for sale for 48 hours at this point. I test drove it, it didn't really matter though. I was buying this car. By 10:30am, I was back on the road with my new 2004 Grand Prix White S2000 and the title in the trunk. I got home around 6:30pm on Christmas Eve, tired as HELL but it was so worth it.

I finally have my GPW AP2.

In DC at Enterprise:


And after I got home:


Literally the only thing I have done so far is check the car over head to toe and get a Moddiction Anvil shift knob from Ryan.




Modifications so far are:

2008 replacement shocks
Gutted soft top assembly and wind deflector removed
OEM hardtop and OEM hardware
All black 2007 seats and passenger 00-05 rail
All black AP2 door panels
Authentic CR front lip (which was installed properly - meaning drilled into the front bumper )
NRG engine torque damper
Moddiction Anvil shift knob

The car came with LOTS of service records - so much that I bought a binder and 40 page protectors to keep them all in.
Also with both original sets of keys, the valet key, window sticker, four OEM oil filters and all of the original owner's manuals.

Bloody Hatch

Touching story. *sniff sniff*

B serious

I had a similar feeling when I drove a C5 Z06. Fun. Lots of power. But....didn't feel nearly as good as a S2000. I hate the corvette's "good luck guessing where you're at in the car" seating position. Also the "good luck guessing where the front end is" steering feel.

Maybe it takes getting used to. it wasn't for me.

on your GPW!

JacobFatz

Exactly! The seats aren't supportive at all so even if the car did handle amazingly, you'd never be able to tell. Same with the steering feel. Huge truck steering wheel with minimal feedback. It's an awesome car, the S2000 is just better.

And thanks!

JacobFatz

Update 2/18/16

Well, the car has been pretty awesome and trouble free. Almost 2,000 miles on it since I've bought it now and I haven't driven it for basically the entire month of February. You'll see why.

First thing I did was have the entire car PDR'd. There were a few dents that I wanted pulled out and one in the driver's side door that was driving me crazy. It was right in the body line and somebody had already tried to pop it out before I bought it but just made it look even worse.




He did a great job and spent a lot of time on the car. Absolutely top notch work. I can't find any trace of the old damage. About 15 extra dents were found and repaired.

Here is the body line afterwards - you can't find any flaws in any body panel now.


And the hardtop had a nice golf ball sized dent in the corner. Perfect now.


The previous owner had started a CR conversion and swapping the interior to all black... Well that's cool and all, but I want this to be my car, not in anybody else's vision but my own.



The soft top was removed so I've gathered all necessary parts to reinstall.

-soft top frame 02+
-soft top motors
-seals
-latches
-rain panel
-and I have a project in the works for a Robbins black cloth heated glass window soft top

Also, I know the interior was being converted to black... But I like that idea sort-of so I'm continuing on with that. I bought black carpets and a black leather tranny tunnel cover. I'm planning on having all black interior with tan seats.

The CR conversion is cool and all, but it's not a CR and I don't like the snow plow look of the front end.

So I sold the CR lip and bought an OEM AP2 front lip to replace it.


Unfortunately yes, the front lip was drilled into the bumper cover so I had to do some paint work.

It looks so sad.


And dirty... While I was waiting for the paint work to be done I cleaned up the front end that you'll never see just cause I could.






Onto the body work for the bumper. We decided to melt the holes shut from the front, use a bit of fiberglass on the rear to reinforce the thin areas, and then sand the face smooth. The painter and I were actually at a disagreement on how to do this so that held us up for about a week. The bumper was in his possession from 2/1/16 to 2/17/16 but it got done right and that's all that matters. UPDATE 5/19/2017: Now that I've had the body work done for about a year now, I am very unhappy with the quality of work done, so I will be re-repainting the bumper and getting a new OEM painted GPW AP2 lip sometime soon.



*note the grey weather stripping for the lip. It's all about the little details.

And this was the biggest part of the whole project. I spent way too much money on fixing this front bumper cover I probably could have bought another one for a lot less, which the painter also suggest many times to me. I wanted to retain the original bumper cover so the car remains VIN matching all original.


I also bought a used OEM AP1 trunk spoiler off of the classifieds and had it resprayed with the bumper cover and front lip. I secured it with 3M extreme bond tape and just took the brackets off. We'll see how it holds. Right now I can lift the rear end of the car up by the spoiler so it's pretty strong.






Last piece I installed were some CR side markers. I didn't realize how easy these were to install.




The front bumper and lip are sitting in my room for now. I've been sick and the grille/emblem/plate hole brackets are at the paint shop.

Bumper and lip are installed now!





Also ordered a Modifry DCI for my Pioneer head unit. I bought it used from somebody who bought it back in 2014 but never installed it, then sold his S2000... So he sold it to me pretty cheap. Well, it showed up at my door and I installed it. For some reason it was making my head unit act insane. I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong, so I emailed Bob (Modifry CEO) and he invited me over to his house since he lives so close to me. I arrived and showed him my work, he checked it over and it was all correct. I showed him exactly what was wrong and he had no idea either, so we just swapped it out for another DCI at his house and it was fixed. Apparently that was the first bad DCI he's seen in over a year. We chatted for a little bit, he told me about his three S2000s and showed me his workshop as well. Excellent customer service even though he knew I didn't actually give him any money. I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

kevinS2OOO

Interesting. It would make a cool Type S build if you put in the soft top again. But anyhow, car will look gorgeous either way.

Bloody Hatch

how much was the PDR all around?

JacobFatz

Ehh I'm probably not going that route. I honestly don't know where I'm going with it once my interior and soft top project are done. Thanks for the compliments and comment!

He told me usually it would have been around $350-400 if it was a trade in at our dealer. He charged me $150 so about $10 a dent. We actually missed one on the hood. /:

vasquezgno

Nice car. People around NYC want 150 for just one ding. Gl with it

JacobFatz

Quick update on the car. Nothing has really been done to the car, more preparing for one big day of work.

I've gathered few parts to replace the current interior (pictured below):

[url=https://www.s2ki.com/forums/"[ame]https://flic.kr/p/WUpbjc"][/ame][/ame]
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2002 black OEM carpet
2006 OEM black leather trans tunnel cover
2002 soft top frame
2002 soft top motors
2007 soft top latches
2004 soft top defroster harness
2001 soft top brackets and seals
2005 soft top drain rail
2005 soft top drain rail brackets
2000 radio door, yes I'm swapping my perfect condition AP2 door out for this one.
Brand new misc. brackets and cables and tensioners and clips from Honda for the soft top and interior
Brand new Robbins cloth soft top
OEM hardtop stand
2009 OEM all black/red face seats, Yes, I had to search for a while, drive a good distance, and pay a small fortune for these...

I also called my tint man while the soft top was uninstalled, so I could pull the OEM hardtop off and give him the soft top off of the car. I had everything done in 15% all around minus the windshield and the install went flawlessly since it was all super straight forward and off the car for him. The picture of the top on the ground was just to get the tint to mold to the glass, we flipped it upside down on top of a microfiber blanket and inside a tire. The interior pieces are getting a good shampooing and steam cleaning, then they will be installed. I have a lot of work to do...

[url=https://www.s2ki.com/forums/"[ame]https://flic.kr/p/WDiEoC"][/ame][/ame]

Small update 4/12/16

The new seats are in nice shape, but not 100% like I wanted, so I had them steam cleaned, stripped of all chemicals/dirt/contaminants, then refinished to almost new quality. The same guy that fixed my AP1 seats refinished these for me. The passenger rail is off because I was in the process of swapping the 00-05 seat rail over to it btw. I'd call them probably 9/10 condition now. There's a few blemishes here and there, but once they're installed, you won't ever know.
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Steam cleaned the center console while we were at it. Also shampooed and pressure washed the carpet. Clean as hell new interior ftw.

Then I had to include some nice photos of the car since I gave it a nice clay and wax job. I've been learning a lot about detailing and paint correction with this car.
[url=https://www.s2ki.com/forums/"[ame]https://flic.kr/p/VCeiCU"][/ame][/ame]
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