As the title says, I have been thinking about it recently and I have searched the forum with no luck, except for the exterior, interior, suspension differences.

About the engine, I have found some references about lesser oil consumption and smoother VTEC transition (new ECU maybe). Oh and the gearbox/clutch.

Are there any real differences between the two or it's basically the same engine with a few minor tweaks?

 

Nope the smoother Vtec and lower oil coonsumption came with the +04's

 

The smoother vtec will be down to the ECU not the engine. There was some additional breather or something put in to reduce the oil consumption on the 04, but the 03 is still more frugle on oil than the 01-02 models.

Budgie has swapped out his 02 engine for an 04 so he should be pretty up on the differences between the engines/ecu's.

 

Whichever one you have, will be best. That applies to all posters

At two and a half years, and 25000 miles, my 04 has started kicking harder when transitioning to VTEC.

 

I even think the story got more confusing when I think back.

Some 01s used oil, some didn`t. It didn`t seem anything to do with the engine quality either it was some sort of oil type/engine build lottery.

I really could not explain it any further.

 

I read something a while back about how what was done during the running-in process would affect oil consumption. Not running in properly would lead to heavier oil consumption, as would not fully working the engine after running in. I think this was generic stuff, rather than S2000 specific.

 

I found at pre-synthetic stage, whilst mineral and molybednum (ie pre 6k) oil consumption was higher.

After the TSB oil bolt recall was carried out and fully synthetic added (post 6k) oil consumption dropped.

I always checked daily but it used very little in the synth days.

 

Carper is right some early cars don't use much oil. My 00 car used 500ml in 13K miles! It improved on the 02-03's. But ALL the +04 cars use little or nothing!

 

My 03 had horrendous oil consumption, min 1 litre every 2000 miles.

My 06 hasn't used a drop in 4000 miles.

 

My MY03 has used 100-200ml in about 4k kms (2500 miles). Thanks for all the replies