Well, last night I finally got my car back. The story is so long and drawn out, and I really don't want to talk about half of it so I will summarize (yes, this is a summary!).

My car was in the shop for almost 8 months. The story started with the infamous copper head gasket failing... twice. I finally got the bill for that job, total came to $2100 + another $1100 or so for tuning which was lost. The end result was a really nice dyno sheet and a beautiful power curve.. for one night.. then it failed.

Before we continue here's the secret that Chris Daneck and friend Pappy (mainly) got all in a huffy over: Copper head gaskets suck. Honda gaskets are 3 layers, the top and bottom layer have raised areas which provide a tighter seal on the head gasket similar to o-ringing. The copper gasket did not have this. You cannot o-ring the head of the S2000, you have to o-ring the block due to space constraints. This - in most cases-requires removing the block from the car. If you're going through all that trouble for a band-aid fix, you might as well go all the way...

And no, I never had the piston specs..

Anyways, my car was out of commission for about a total of 8 months. It took about a month to get the engine torn down, and pistons ordered. They came about 2 months later. JE apparently was in the process of buying out Corillo (sp?) which is a large rod company. Because of this purchase JE was supposed to make me a set of Titianium rods. My shop assured me that they were developing both at one time, and to be patient a top engineer at JE was making them, and they would be calling before production started. I guess I should have known at that point something was up. Anyways, after about 5-6 weeks after the pistons were ordered a set of pistons arrived. No call, no rods.

The shop calls their guy at JE and asks about the rods, they turn around and say 13 weeks to make a set of rods, with no consideration for the time we've already spent in the process. I don't know where the communication broke down here so I guess I can't blame anyone - not that it would help.

At this point I am scrambling to get a set of rods. I start calling rod companies, and discussing rod failures and theory. All of the shops said about 8+ weeks for rods. My shop was concerned about a rod failure above the piston pin because the metal is so thin there, and the stock rods appear to be cut there. Any sharp angle in an application like that is a weak point for stress apparently. I had the stock rods shot peened and cryo treated as fast as I could. They came back looking the same as they left.

In the mean time I am also researching head porting with Alaniz Cylinder Head Technologies. This is the same guy who did the Temple Of VTEC head. I sent off my head to him around this time, with the promise of it being back in 3 weeks or so. There were some delays with this project and it came back about 2 weeks later than expected, which isn't a big deal in the scope of things. Apparently there was a delay with Manley, the valve company not shipping the valves on time. Alaniz eventually used blank valves and machined them to fit the head. Based on the flow charted intake and exhaust flow are greatly increased. The head looked like jewelry when we got it back.

Around the time that head went off, I insisted that we have the cams ground. The cams were done by a company called Web Cam. My shop seemed to have a lax additude toward the cams but at this point I figured that everything was prone to delay and I wanted to make sure we had them ready to go when the head came back. I was assured they would be shipped in 1 week after the order was placed. Sure enough, they were delayed as well. It rook 3-4 weeks for them to arrive (same time the head was out, so no big deal, but it would have screwed me even more if we had waited as planned.)

In the mean time I am still doing rod research and I call ImportBuilders.com (formerly Atomic Performance) up. I saw on their website that they were developing an S2000 N/A race engine, so I call them to discuss. They mentioned they were could get rods quick, but it would cost a ton. One week he tells me, this is on a Thursday evening. In the conversation he slips and tells me what company he is using.....

Ten minutes later I am on the phone with the rod company talking with an old redneck type. After telling him my story, the most important part being I needed the rods in less than a week, he kind of laughed at me. He told me he could have them in 4 weeks, then he put me on hold to see if he had a spare set of S2000 rods available. 5 minutes later he says that someone bought his last set of S2000 rods he had THIS MORNING. He asked for my number and told me he could have the import guy call me in the morning (Friday.)

Five minutes later I get a call from the import guy. He was really cool, and knew his shit. I he told me that he would need a stock S2000 rod overnighted to him, and my aftermarket piston pin. He explained that there are fractions of an inch differences between different manufacturers of pins. I went down to my shop and gathered all of the pieces together. My shop recommended that I send a piston as well because there is very little clearance between the top of the rod (above the pin) and the bottom of the piston. I did as he asked and sent off one of my fresh new JE's.

Tuesday (!!!!) I had a set of $1300 (!!!!) built rods, which have been known to support over 800 hp in a Honda 4 cylinder B series motor. I was so happy..

About a week later we started building the engine. This was QUITE the experience. I learned so much about engine building. I was there for the entire thing and doing a large part of the work. It took about a week or so of time off from work, and trying to work in with the shop when they had time.

Eventually the engine was running... poorly. It turns out that we had the cams in backwards (rotated 90 degrees off. Several days later we took the valve cover off and rotated them correctly and it cranked first try.

At this point we discovered that the piggy back computer was wired in incorrectly. When the throttle was pressed, the TPS sensor read 0 and the air flow sensor went up and down! No big deal, there were 8 wires to be wired in.. right? Two weeks later (argh!) the shop had it wired in correctly and was apparently ready to tune. This is where things get fuzzy because there was a breakdown in communication...

This is about 2 months ago now. Somewhere in this process the turbo started going bad. I was so upset at the lack of progress I went down there one day and insisted to have my car back. They showed me the broken turbo and I left the car there. We took the air filter off of the turbo and I cranked it, eventually the turbo stopped spinning all together and just got stuck -- while the motor was still running!

I spoke with Todd at Speedcraft about getting another turbo ASAP. He gave me a good deal, and had another 60-1 turbo in a week. I sent the turbo off for rebuild and just heard a couple weeks ago that the whole turbo is ruined except the housing, and would cost more to repair than I could get a new one from Speedcraft.

I got the new turbo in and started installing it in the car a couple days later. Several days of leaving work early to work on the car later I had the turbo on and the car running long enough to drive it in to the shop for them to close for the day.

At this point we're ready to tune, right? Weeks went by and all I heard was there was a slow water leak and the oil feed line wasn't installed very well (my fault) and therefore it was leaking. They tightened the oil line down... to this day there is still oil "seeping" apparently. The water leak turned out to be an pinched seal at the thermostat housing apparently. The thermostat was replaced with a Spoon thermostat which was sitting and waiting to be installed.

Nothing happened that I know of with the car for the last month and a half or so besides the last paragraph.. this lead to insanity, emotional breakdown, denial, etc etc.. I eventually got so pissed that two days ago I demanded the car back.

I went to the shop had a heated conversation and left with the agreement that we would clear up the bill tomorrow (yesterday) and I would get the car back. Yesterday evening I had the car towed back to my driveway, I started it up, and drove it in to the garage where it sits today.

In the last 8 months I have driven the car about 50 feet.

The car's tuning is completly out of whack because of the dramatic compression ratio change, and oversized valves, and bigger cams.

Yesterday afternoon I sent in a fax to setup the auto transport company to transport the car as soon as possible to Orange Park, Florida... Speedcraft. I have been speaking with Todd at Speedcraft and have decided to go ahead and have the AEM EMS computer installed, using AEM's boost controller. Speedcraft will also be installing a Spoon flywheel, and Star stage 3 disk, and lightened pressure plate. I expect the work to be completed in 2 weeks or so, with results trickling in as progress is made.

SO BACK TO SPEEDCRAFT it goes .... I hope to fly up there in two weeks or so and meet Todd for the first time, and pick up the car and drive it home.

It will be really exciting to see how everything works out. The moment of truth will come shortly! Who knows, maybe it will be the world's most powerful S2000 after all....

Chris

 

What the hell do you do for a living......are there any openings!?

 

I am speachless. I just hope the things that have happened to the car were not detrimental to the internal workings of the car.

 

If you end up with the world's fastest s2000 I think it'll be worth it in the end

Now let's just hope the reliability of the car comes out good too.

 

Pinky, I don't think so.. the shop is very good mechanically anyways.. I was there for every step and everything was built to spec using the service manual..

I believe it will be worth it in the end..

 

yeah no shit...trust fund maybe? your parents want to adopt me?

 

I made lots of money off of Worldcom stock... heheh

It's alot of money, but over time it's not that bad.. think about how long I have been investing all my money in to it..

 

I'm with Luder, Chris...your job sounds MUCH more cushy than mine, and I make my own hours...sort of Any jobs that need a warm, hard-working body?

 

porn star?

 

Jesus...what are your expectations as far as power is concerned? How much boost will you be able to push with those new pistons? You are doing all the $hit i am dreaming!!!

Matt