Just got the Spoon Tower Bar, Front Lower X-Brace, and Rear Lower Bar installed today...

Needless to say, they make an AMAZING difference to the entire feel of the car. Everybody on this board has already heard the praises of the Spoon X-Brace... and I agree that this piece alone would probably make the biggest difference. The Spoon Tower Bar is beautiful... highly polished (SHINY! )... simple and effective, as all Spoon products are. The Spoon Rear Lower Bar is an extremely solid piece... much thicker and stronger than the stock brace... and the coolest thing is that people driving behind you can see it!

Well, enough raving... on to the pics...

Here's the Tower Bar...


Here's the X-Brace...


Here's the Rear Lower Bar...


And here's a pic with both lower bars installed...


As you can see, these pieces are all a perfect fit. One caveat with the rear lower bar is that the stock bar has holes for the protective cover of the vacuum canister (the black metal plate to the right of the drive shaft and in front of the bar) to bolt on to. The Spoon Bar does not. We contemplated drilling holes in the Spoon bar to reattach this plate, but in the end decided against modifying this beautifully solid piece. Instead, we simply retained 2 of the original bolts for the plate and left the rest of the assembly free to sit on top of the bar. Finally, a plastic tie-down was placed around one corner of the plate to keep it from rattling around. In the end, a very solid installation. The other option is to remove the the protective plate altogether... but I felt safer with it in place.

These are among my first mods... along with Rick's console cover, Muz's mat, and Mingster's dead pedal. Need to build a solid foundation before moving onto the performance modifications!

I'm a verrrry happy camper!

 

Hi I'm also from Vancouver, where do you get your Spoon stuff?

 

NA-1,

Check your private messages...

 

You didn't drill holes in your rear bar for that Smog box?

 

nice pics...

 

Is that what that is? A smog box? No, we didn't drill holes... although like I said, we did consider it. The black metal plate that protects the smog box originally bolts to the stock bar. The Spoon piece does not have these holes (perhaps the JDM S2000's don't have this smog box?). You can opt to remove the metal protective plate altogether, but I felt better having it there... so we reattached it using the original single mounting point at the front end of the plate and one of the two original mounting points at the rear of the plate. The entire bracket will then effectively sit on top of the Spoon bar... with nothing holding it. We then used a plastic tie-down (not shown in this pic) to secure one corner of the bracket to the Spoon bar. The plastic tie-down actually encircles the Spoon bar, so it is visible, but not too much of an eyesore because it is clear and very strong. The end result is satisfactory and stable... with no rattling (which I was initially afraid of when we were trying to figure out how to install the darned thing!).

I'm quite pleased with the end-result... but I guess since it's not a PERFECT fit, this piece might not be for everyone.

Please let me reiterate though how solid the Spoon Rear Lower Bar is... I think the pics speak for themselves!

 

Yeah, I know how solid it is, I have one, but I haven't put it one because of the requrired Drilling.

 

I can see the zip tie in the bottom picture on the inboard side of the black plate. I don't think the plate will protect as well as if it was bolted on.

 

krazik-s2k,

Yeah, we considered drilling it too... but seems like it might compromise the rigidity of the bar. Furthermore, even if you managed to drill holes to match up perfectly, the screws would not be long enough. So in the end, not worth the hassle.

RandyP,

I didn't even notice the lower pic, but yeah, that's the tie. In terms of the amount of protection the black plate offers, it is marginal at best. It is very thin metal. I agree that bolted down is best, but the way we have it, it's still bolted to the underside of the chassis at 2 points instead of the original 4. It's just no longer bolted to the bar... just tied down.

After speaking with my friend, we figured out why Spoon designed their bar this way. In their fully modified car, they install a catch-can in the engine bay and remove this smog box and black plate altogether. I did not want to remove it, so this was the best solution we could come up with. Again, it is very solid and does not move or shift around. I was flipping through my Hot Version S2000 catalog and noticed that CUSCO makes a rear lower tie bar for the S2000 which apparently has the additional holes required for bolting on the plate... so a perfect solution DOES exist. Oh well, can't have it all, I guess!

 

anyone know if Neuspeeds lower rear tie bar provides for the smog box?