Hey guys, a couple of weeks ago I picked up a 2005 S2K, and quickly realized that I needed a little more power. I didn't want to spend a lot, but I also wanted to have safe and reliable power that wouldn't risk a possible engine replacement in the near future. After weighing all of my options I decided on the GReddy turbo kit. I know that there are some pretty serious limitations as far as upgrading this kit down the road, but I was almost happy with the stock power, so I figured that just a "little" more would make me happy.

I purchased the kit locally (Portland OR) for a great discount because someone had already ordered it from a local GReddy dealer but couldn't afford to pay the balance, so I snapped it up at a little less than my cost (even before shipping!). A good friend of mine owns a local tuner shop, so they did the installation and tuning.

Before we got the car on the dyno, I took a look over everything and it seems that the fit and finish was pretty darn excellent. Installation wasn't too tricky. I think the only real issue that I have seen so far is that the sheet metal air guard that mounts to the core support doesn't exactly clear the charge pipes as they should, so I have to do a little trimming.

Tuning became a problem very quickly. At first we didn't realize that the factory eManage maps are locked from the factory and are not tunable. This is apparently because of the CARB certification. The engine was detonating VERY NOTICEABLY with the factory tune, and above 6000RPM the car was just not safe to drive. Without being able to tune, we were dead in the water.

Luckily, another local S2000 owner (boostftw) with the same kit had gone through this same experience and still had the S2000 basemaps saved on his computer. He emailed them over to me within minutes and within the hour we had the car back on the dyno and got the tune dealt with. Thanks Eric!

Our baseline runs, before the turbo, netted me 213hp and 152 lb-ft of torque. During eManage tuning we saw a high of 270hp (can't remember torque) but after dialing back the timing to improve safety we finished with 259hp (and I don't have the chart handy so once again I can't remember the torque). These power gains are with stock cat and exhaust.

Driving the car is much more fun now! The smallish turbo builds boost very quickly and I can feel the most improvement in the 2500-5500 range, not so much above that, but I was always happy with the VTEC kick, so I am not disappointed. There is a new noise around 3000RPM that is a little annoying... kind of sounds like road noise, but coming from the engine regardless of vehicle speed. I'm going to look into that... might be the turbo or some of the new hardware resonating at a certain frequency. Not too imposing, livable, but would be nice to eliminate that.

Overall, I am happy with the improvements for the price that I paid. I am very disappointed that GReddy's eManage tune was so dangerous, and if not for Eric I wouldn't even be driving my car this week. Luckily everything worked out, though.

More updates as they come in...

 

Doing some baseline runs on the Unnatural dyno



Baseline: 213hp / 152 ft-lbs



The installation is complete



Tuning the eManage

 

You gotta change out that exhaust, its killing you. It would help lots.

 

Something doesn't sound quite right, you're about 40-60hp short even with stock exhaust.

 

Yeah, something was strange right from the beginning... the stock CARB maps should NOT have been detonating as bad as they were. Unfortunately we had a time crunch and I had to leave as soon as the car was safely drivable. I'm going to take the car back in for fine tuning once I find an exhaust.

 

i don't see what's wrong with 259whp on stock cat & stock exhaust, unless i missed something (i skimmed it). sounds pretty good actually.

the basemap for the ap1 was tuned to run stock cat and 80mm exhaust combo so the map isn't perfect for a stock cat and stock exhaust out of the box.

 

Not only is it stock exhaust, but one side is slightly crushed... I'd say probably 80% capacity.

 

You guys have to realalize that different dynos give different readings..... I was at 12 psi with meth and full 3" and the dyno I was tuned on read me only having 242 whp... The dynos are used for tuning not just to see the power rating... it is strange u were detonating with stock bsae map.. those are extremely rich expecially with stock exhaust... but if u went to a 70mm u would gain quite a bit...
I would guess u should gain a little more HP than what u did tho... about 40 whp delta???

 

Yeah, I thought it was strange, too. The car has 35k on it and is bone stock. I don't know jack about tuning, though, so I don't really know why it would be so.

 

nice man! Did the new plugs help? most people forget to swap out the plugs. Anyways welcome to the darkside