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OK all you turbo S2000 drivers, lets start our own thread. Who are you, what do you have, how is it running, and have you had any problems. I'll start it off. My setup is UR turbo kit upgraded with dual ball bearing turbo, 600 cc injectors and UR 3" SS dual exhaust and high flow CAT. Did the install myself with no problems. Car is running great and I love it. Any problems? Well yes, but nothing serious. I'm still in the process of road tuning using a datalogger and my wideband O2, and hope to be back on the dyno in a couple of weeks to see how my HP numbers fair. The first of two problem I experienced was on my first dyno run where I discovered that the Greddy MAP supplied by UR was worthless. Way off the scale too rich. Here is the dyno plot with that MAP.
That was at 7.5 PSI of boost. I'd say it's a little rich. After two more dyno runs I was able to get up to this:
Ran out of dyno time and had to call it quits at this point. It was still running too rich on the top end. I think I've improved on it since then and will find out in about two weeks on my next dyno day. UR definitely let me down with the map. The other problem I had with the MAP was the old injector/new injector ratio was set way too low and was causing my CEL light to come on about every 5 to 10 miles for a "MAP lower than expected". Every time the light came on the car would stall. It was a pain in the a$$, but I finally figured it out.
My car is in the works. I also have the UR kit and have had my share of problems. I will post when my car gets back from MZM. estimated time of 8 weeks!
I bought cjb80's (Chris) used Speedcraft kit back in March (or sometime around there). A friend of mine and I drove 1,200 miles to Florida for the supercharger removal / install (part of the deal). After everything was done we were going to do some street tuning just to make the car suitable to drive home. We drove around with a wideband and did a few low RPM full throttle runs. After some tuning (car was mega-rich / off the chart still) we started to hear an odd clunk coming from under the car. It got worse and worse as the day went on and we eventually spent the night in the garage rev'ing the car up and listening to the clunk trying to figure out what it was. After many hours of trying to figure out what was going on Chris had no other idea other than the motor being messed up. We spent the next day finishing up some of the small things on the kit, but we mostly mopped around. We were scheduled to leave the next day to come back home. I was going to drive the car on a hurt motor because at this point I knew that if anything was wrong I would simply have to save up for a Mike Simon motor, so I didn't really care if I caused more damage. But, when we got ready to leave the next morning the car wasn't drivable. Any load on the motor and the car would stall. We were screwed. We had to rent a Penske truck and trailer ($850) to get the car back to Houston. After two days of driving we were back home.
Chapter 2 - What's Wrong!?
The day after arriving home I took the car to the dealership that had done ALL the work on my car, including all the supercharger installs, differential work, etc. I was informed when I got there that the only mechanic that ever works on S2000s had left the dealership. They told me that they could look at the motor and do any repair work but if anything came up with the turbo they could not work on it. I dropped the car off for them to look at and left my bumper (which we removed to get it on the trailer) with them. Within the next day or so they looked at the car and decided that the turbo was the problem. They said that it appeared to be locking up. The compressor wheel was hitting the walls of the turbo. There were marks all on the intake side of the turbo from where the compressor wheel had been hitting. I called Chris to talk about the turbo and he simply couldn't understand how the turbo had been damaged between the time it was on his car and by the time it went onto my car. I trusted that Chris hadn't sold me a busted turbo, so we both were just confused as to what happened.
Chapter 3 - Good News?
It turned out that the turbo was under warranty because Chris bought it from Speedcraft (his original turbo failed and he just bought a new one instead of having the original fixed) less than a year ago. This whole time the car is just sitting in the back of the dealership in their rear parking lot where they store some of their cars that are in for service. I was working and I decided to contact a local turbo expert, Jason Herrera a.k.a. St00pid, to uninstall the turbo for me then to come back later in the future to install. After 3-4 days of him not being able to make it out to the dealership I decided to just remove the turbo myself on the coming Saturday. I called Turbonetics and arranged to send the turbo in for inspection. They simply said that the turbo saw an immense amount of heat, that it would be covered under warranty and that they would ship another one out to me. I was rather happy.
Chapter 4 - The Worst Day of 2003
I got the new turbo and I believe I contacted Jason again for the install to be done. I don't remember what happened but I eventually just decided to reinstall the turbo myself. I got help from Trung (SpeedxXxRacer ) and we spent about 4 hours on Saturday reinstalling the turbo. During the install I noticed a clear gooey substance inside the NOS jet that Speedcraft uses to restrict the oil going to the turbo. The NOS jet is on the turbo-side of the oil feed like. I called Chris and asked, "Dude, where all did we use silicone?" Chris replied,"Just the oil pan." So, neither of us knew at that time that silicone was not up to the task of sealing an oil pan. I cleared the goo out and moved on. We tested the oil feed line by not connecting the return line and running the car to see if the turbo leaked oil. At first it did not. I took the feed line off again, more silicone goo. I cleared it out again, and we did the test again. This time we saw a small amount of oil dripping out of the turbo. We were satisfied with that and moved on.
We did all of the reinstall out in the sun in 90+ degree weather. We worked from about 11 to 3 and skipped lunch. Both of us were exhausted by this point. I drove the car back to my apartment without a bumper on it (only one block away) and Trung followed me driving my Insight with my bumper in the back. We decided to go get something to eat at Chick-fil-a. I was so exhausted that I didn't feel good enough to eat. After trying to force myself to eat I decided to just go home and eat it later. I napped, showered, then decided to install my bumper. I couldn't do it all myself and my girlfriend offered to come over and help. After about an hour of struggling we got it installed. I was once again sweating and tired and exhausted. I hadn't eaten anything all day. It was 10 PM and both of us needed food. We decided to go get something to eat but I wanted to wash the car off first, it was very dirty. On the way back from the car wash, which was just across the street from my apartments, I decided to floor it to see how the car did. As soon as it hit VTEC the car died. I was about to cry. I started the car and every time I gave it gas it died. I was really about to cry. My girlfriend and I pushed the car into the apartment complex. I needed to get it all the way to my garage on the other side....and not only that but the exhaust was so low that I didn't think I could get over the speed bump that was on the short path to my garage. So, we pushed the car about a 1/4 mile, just the two of us, over at least 6-8 much smaller speed bumps. We had to stop 3-4 times as my gf was having an asthma attack. I was trying to compensate for her troubles and I asked her to not push too hard. By the time I got to the garage I could hardly breathe. My girlfriend and I walked upstairs to my apartment and I sat down. She got me some water do drink...and I started having major problems. This was the first time in my life that I hyperventelated and had heat exhaustion. My fingers and hands cramped up and I couldn't straighten my fingers. I spent the next few hours sitting in the bathtub trying to cool down, being forced to drink water that I felt like I was going to throwup. I suffered some major leg cramps that were very overwhelming. It took me a few hours to become normal again and then I finally finished my lunch that I had brought home. This was the worst day of 2003.
Chapter 5 - warranty #2
By this time I had been in contact with the mechanic who left the Honda dealership, he had started up his own shop after a falling out with the dealership. I arranged for him to come get the car and find out what was going on. I knew the turbo was messed up, and I knew now that the oil pan needed to be redone and the car checked out for any other problems. My mechanic removed the turbo, which didn't have any signs of wear like it did before. I sent it in to Turbonetics anyway. Turbonetics claimed that the turbo was fine and initially wanted to charge me $800 for a rebuild kit. There was a misunderstand and the turbo was eventually rebuilt under warranty, even though nothing was wrong with it...so they say. So, they shipped out a practically new turbo, again.
Chapter 6 - The First Tune
The mechanic got the new turbo installed, the oil filter relocation kit cleaned out, and the oil pan redone. I decided to just go with the mechanic and fine-tune the car on the dyno together. We spent a few hours working on it, getting the A/F ratios into the 12's. One of the things that I only learned after I got to Florida was that the Speedcraft kit came with a 12:1 FMU that was going to be WAY more fuel than I needed. We had to use the eManage to REMOVE fuel, which I had never planned on doing when I purchased the eManage. Unfortunately, for taking fuel out, the eManage is hardly better than a V-AFC. On the dyno we had trouble making consistent power. After a good 3 or so hours we still didn't have the car where I thought it should be, but we were flat out running out of time / money. We figured some of the back to back runs could be causing the car to be a bit hot, and we just left with the car as it was and figured we'd see how it drove. Here is the dyno:
Chapter 7 - I Don't Like It
After driving the car I really didn't like the tune. The car made good low end power but the power above 6K was horrible. I was comparing this to the supercharger which just continued to make more and more power as the RPMs climbed. I didn't really have the money at the time to go back and spend another few hours on the dyno. I decided to make some slight changes on the street, based on what I saw on the dyno, to see if the car would respond to leaning it out a tad. The car did run a little better. After a few weeks or driving I still hated the tune, the car was very slow compared to what I was used to. I decided to contact Jason and see if he could tune the car better than what myself and my mechanic did. We set up a date and tuned the car. For the first 3 or 4 pulls Jason had to pull out of it because the A/F numbers got into the 13's. We richened it up as we went up the RPM each time and finally made a dyno pull with the A/F ratios all being in the 12's. The car still didn't make good power. At this point I started to wonder if all of the turbo S2000 dynos I had seen were tuned to a leaner 13.X:1 range. Jason refused to lean the car out any more than it was leaned out because of the unwanted affect of advancing the timing by using the MAP sensor signal to lean out the car. The car only made about 265 whp at 7 psi. I was very disappointed but we assumed that with the heat we were about 10 or so HP down from what it would run if it was cooled down. We decided to just give it some street time to see what I thought, but, there weren't really any other options in Jason's eyes.
Chapter 8 - I STILL Don't Like It
The car was still slow, compared to what it SHOULD be. Based on the cars I raced it was only about as fast as the supercharger, and maybe slower. I was able to get out 2-3 lengths on a C5 only for him to come back and pass me up and make 2 lengths. The low end was great, but the high end sucked bad. I started talking in-depth with Chris and Jason to see what my options were, and what they thought was going on. I came up with a plan. I asked Jason if running the eManage on larger injectors without the FMU would allow us to tune it cleaner, and make the power that it should make. Jason agreed that getting away from the FMU would clean up the tune and allows for a tad more leaner fuel. Both of us hoped that simply getting away from modifying the MAP signal at the level that we were would somehow have positive affects on the power, even though neither of us could really argue why it would. So, I bought a set of used 440cc RC injectors off of Jason. While he was installing them in the next few days I found out that Ultimate Racing claimed to be running the ignition timing control through the eManage on their S2000.
Chapter 9 - Ultimate Racing Pissed Me Off
Jason called Ultimate Racing in attempt to find out what they did different than everyone else that allowed them to do ignition timing on the S2000. They wouldn't tell us. All they told us was that it had nothing to do with the wiring, just that "You just have to set the eManage up correctly." I spent days doing research trying to find out what the secret was. I knew that I had the eManage set up "correctly" as I had been driving with it on my car for almost 6 months (I installed it in October of 2002). Jason and I played for a day with the car, blew about 5-6 coil pack fuses and eventually gave up. I knew that I would just have to find someone who knew what the secret was. It took me probably 2 weeks to finally get the info I needed. A guy on the Yahoo eManage group (forum) responded to a post I posted and told me the secret eManage dial settings that he discovered on his own. Where I had been telling the eManage I had a 4-cylinder Honda (b series) he found out that if he played with the dial settings he ran into an engine code of "F20C" when he set the dials correctly. No one even knew that Greddy recognized the S2000 as a supported application. I was very excited. I called Jason and told him the secret settings. The guy that gave me the settings had not actually tried to change his timing, but he believed it would work. We tried it out the next day, and sure enough it worked! So now, not only did we not have to mess with the MAP sensor and worry about it modifying the timing...we had timing control. Jason felt like this would really give us a good tune.
Chapter 10 - Back to the Dyno
Jason took the car to the dyno. During the first few runs he noticed oil leaking from underneath the car. The oil filter relocation line had worn a hole in itself from rubbing against the chassis. He drove the car back to the shop, stopping along the way to fill the car up with oil. The lines were replaced and the car was taken back to the dyno a few days later. The lines started leaking on the dyno after the first pull. Jason took the car back and replaced the fitting that was leaking, double checked everything, let the car run for a while...and then took the car to the dyno again. With timing control, higher boost, and conservative A/F ratios we eventually made 320 whp at 11 psi. See the 9, 10, and 11 PSI charts below.
Chapter 11 - I Finally Get to Enjoy the Car...or Do I?
I picked the car up later that night. I drove it sort of gingerly home but got on it a few times, nothing crazy. When I got off the highway I did punch it once through 1st and 2nd gear and the car was amazingly fast. I was giddy. I stopped off at my apartment to drop my gf's car off and she and I went to dinner. For some reason the car hesitated when I got on it on the way to dinner. I the way back it would hesitate and a pop would come from the exhaust when it did. I called Jason, and he wasn't too worried about it and said I should just bring it in the next day. He thought the tune just needed some small adjustments. My girlfriend and I decided to go for a drive since I had been so long without the car. As I drove it I would get into boost occasionally, each time the hesitation got worse. As I'm driving I noticed the Oil Pressure Light on the dash come on...my heart sank. I wanted to cry...again. I was very worried about the motor. I cruised on to a gas station and pulled over. I let the car cool down a bit and then turned it off. I called Jason, but wasn't able to get a hold of him. Within the 3-5 minutes that I spent trying to get a hold of him a huge puddle of oil had gathered under the car. I finally got a hold of Jason about 12 PM or so and he and Brad from his shop came out to check out the problem, and brought a case of oil in case we decided to drive the car. Yet again, the oil filter relocation filter had cracked and I had lost about 5 quarts of oil in the 3 hours I had the car. I was 100% sure that the motor was messed up, and that the turbo was probably as well. I figured the hesitation came from the motor locking up...but Jason thought it was more likely to have been the car going in and out of VTEC due to the low oil pressure. I prayed that he was correct. I called and had a tow truck come out, a specific flatbed that I trusted. We all sat around until 2:00 AM when he finally showed up. The broken car went away once again.
Chapter 12 - New lines
Jason and his shop decided to have some custom lines made that could take an incredible amount of oil PSI and would be stronger in general. The lines were made and installed onto the car. Jason felt that the motor was fine and I got a ride down there to pick up the car. Before I left Jason wanted to go out and have me drive the car to make sure it was OK. On our first boost run the car hesitated and Jason asked me to pull out. We got into it one more time but we heard a loud metal sound. "That sounds like a spun rod bearing", Jason said. I wanted to cry. We limped the car back to his shop and listened to the car for a bit. Everyone was very depressed. The night was left with us agreeing that any damage that was caused due to the oil loss would be covered by the shop, no matter how bad. Jason gave me a long depressing ride back to my apartment.
Chapter 13 - The Not So Bad News
We had agreed to have the car go to my mechanic, who had a lot more S2000 experience and wasn't as busy as Jason was. He took the oil pan off and started his inspection from the bottom up. The crank was scored and needed to be replaced. Two of the rod bearings were bent and needed to be replaced. One of the rods had slightly twisted and needed to be replaced. My mechanic happened to have an extra short block that had a good crank, good rod bearings and good rods. They agreed to pay him for those parts and his labor and get the car back together. The motor had to come out.
Chapter 14 - The Bad News
After removing the motor and taking the pistons out my mechanic noticed that the piston ring lands had been melted / crushed and that the cylinder walls were scored. It was determined that this had to have been form a lean / detonation condition not from oiling. Although the cylinder walls could have been scored if the rods had been majorly twisted, that was not the case. Also, it was explained to me that the motor could have been ran with no oil and the ring lands would never do what they did. I guess my little street tuning episode where the car ended up being in the 13.x:1 range is the only culprit that I know of, I really do not think the recent tune caused any damage to the car. So, I needed to buy pistons and find a fix for the cylinder walls. The problem is, I've been unemployed since December, only working contract work (programmer) to keep me afloat. At this time I wasn't working at all and was running out of money. I was majorly bummed.
Chapter 15 - Sucking It Up
After being in some disbelief about the cause of the piston failure I eventually just decided to suck it up and talk about my options. If I'm going to have the motor rebuilt I'm not about to put stock pistons in the car. I talked with Jason and he said he would give me cost on CP pistons, which is what he uses on all of his cars. The cost of custom 10:1 S2000 pistons is $530 shipped. A local shop has a process of honing out cylinders like the H22A and S2000 have. They have honed many H22A's with success. I dropped the short block off today for Jason to take the machine shop to look at to see if they could indeed hone it. The alternative is sleeving the block. We got a quote, just in case it comes up, their cost on AEBS sleeving the block is $987. Gooooh! So, this sucks. I still don't have a job. I've been selling various S2000 parts out of my garage to come up with the money for the pistons and the hone. I've got about $400, need to sell some more stuff to get there.
Chapter 16 - Closure?
But, I really like the turbo setup. Even though all of this totally sucks and I haven't really had my car since March the turbo is so different from the supercharger. I keep trying to think back to that one run I got through 1st and 2nd gear where the car was "scary fast". My car has been cursed since I started modding it up, so none of this really surprises me. I'm tired of dealing with it, and will probably leave the car as it is for 6 MONTHS after I get it back, but I don't regret what I've done.
man wesmaster, your story makes me think twice about going turbo. sure a turbo can offer much better hp gains, but i dont have the money/resources/patience like you do. i think the supercharger is the perfect option for me.
Originally posted by RazorV3
i think the supercharger is the perfect option for me.
I do recommend the supercharger, even over the turbo, for many of the people that ask me for advice on their decision. The superchargers are great and easy to install, maintain, etc. Good luck with your FI adventure.
09-29-2003, 04:27 PM
Turbo S2000's Unite
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