Hi all,

My background is old tech, large cube chevy smallblocks (anyone interested in a 406 bottom end?) but a coworker bought an s2000 and I fell in love. Now I want one. I just want to show up and have one that's faster than his even if it take two years.

My build plan is as follows:

1) Buy a used 00-03 s2000.
Prefereably in silver with red interior =)

2) Brakes and suspension
The suspension and braking seems to already be there. The disc brakes all around look plenty big enough and the suspension felt pretty good. Any areas I need to know about here? Any reccomended upgrades?

3) Final drive and transmission
Again, the final drive and transmissions seem all there. A final drive of 4.1 and the 3.133, 2.045, 1.481, 1.161 gears (yes i know there are two more I'm not getting thru 5 or 6 in the 1/4 mile) will get me top speed of about 130-140 mph depending on tire diameter I believe. Are there any serious short comings in the final drive or transmission I need to be aware of? Are all s2000 final drives limited slip? Any reccomended upgrades?

4) Safety
Roll bar, seat belts, etc. Any reccomended dealers for this stuff?

5) Engine
To start I'm going with an AEM engine management system to pave the way for things to come. I realize up front it's not needed but I'm a big believer in do things in the correct order and pggy backing seems like a bad idea to me.

Phase One: Inline Pro 2.5 stroker kit. Anyone build one of these? I plan to do it myself as I've been building engines a long time. Any war stories from the crowd? Complaints about the kit?

Phase Two: Turbo kit. Ok this is where I'm on foreign soil. Blowers I know. Turbos are a different story. It will take me a while to get here anyway...

Anyone see any glaring flaws in the plan? All feedback is much appreciated.

 

A 4.57 final drive and the comptech upgrades are a must if you are going forced induction. The bearing caps will flex with hard launches and break, sending the ring gear out the back. the comptech billet steel bearing cap covers pretty much cure this. you can get both at the same time when you buy the final drive.

the 2.5L stroker has a lot of risk. there are more failures than successes in this I believe. IMO, I wouldn't mess with any kit that gives you over 2.2L as the stroke and the rod angle becomes way to aggressive to run at high rpms.

 

Thanks Steven.

I hadn't looked into rod angle yet as I haven't been able to find much info on the stroker kit.

I understand making the rear stronger but why the ratio change? Is the torque curve really that weak down low? I have a lot to learn about these cars. I'm used to runnin a 3.08 final with monster torque.

I love this. It's like starting all over =)

Thanks again.

 

yes, I'm getting my FI with AC next week but I ordered my gears and comptech diff to help the new Sc out. Def a good mod!

 

the comptech bearing caps in the diff are the must with FI. the 4.1 ratio is fine, but the 4.57 is better. Yea, the low end torque is low, but not really any lower than other 2.0L motors...yet I digress. The torque is great up high, but only adequate down low. 153lb-ft from 2.0L is really good actually.

on displacement. anything you add must be in the stroke. there is no room to bore as the walls are too thin and close together. The S2000 uses fiber reinforced metal instead of iron. this material is slick and wears well, but you have to have people familiar with FRM to do any rebuild boring or honing.

I believe that parts of the block had to be modified to clear the rods/crank for the 2.5L motor. I don't know if it involved removing the oil jets...this is not good. Bottom line, I (and many here) think that the sidewall loading will be just to high if you want to run even 8000RPM.

The AEM EMS is a good move. The S lacks a programmabe ECU which is a big limitation. the EMS removes this.

 

bsd,

I think Steven has given you some good advice here, but you should spend some serious time in the other s2ki.com forums to get input on your performance mods.

Best wishes, and good luck in the hunt.

 

You can learn alot here.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I've been soaking up info from the forums for about a week.

I also think I found an s2000. =)

I'll probably keep it stock for a while. learn my way around it. It's going to be so different from what I'm used to. I'll let yoy know how it turns out.