How common is it for these to tear??

 

*Rant start*

You R&C guys are funny. So because something is "overkill" and JDM, in your book it must be a show piece. Putting in full spherical bearings seems overkill to me, but I don't hear you calling it a show piece.

I'd be willing to put some money on it that Spoon has more experience racing the S2000 than just about anyone, especially compared to any US company. This bracket was developed because they noticed this problem right away when they starting racing the S2000.

While stitch welding the mounts is an effective solution and relatively cheap, that doesn't make it the best solution. The OP asked for suggestions, not JDM sucks rhetoric.

*Rant over*

 

Is this a known issues? My thought would be, don't strip the nut. It's not a small bolt with fine threads.

 

I've never found that to be the case on the many S2000s I've worked on, but anything is always possible. I guess if you have those installed, be very careful .

 

I don't speak for all R&C posters, just myself. You might be right. I might be right. No one knows for sure. There's no doubt that the Spoon piece adds a lot of reinforcement. Is it needed?

The price tag is ridiculous on that piece either way considering there are cheaper ways to keep the tiny little stock spot welds from failing and/or repairing the damage once they do.

I don't care if that piece is made in Japan, China, Sweden, or USA. I still think it's over-priced and quite possibly overkill. That's given my armchair analysis of the fact that the stock tiny spot welds last for quite a while even with race tires. If all that additional steel was actually needed then the stock welds should fail in the first braking zone when a bump/dip is encountered.

[EDIT] Don't get me wrong. The Spoon reinforcement is a beautiful piece that looks very well made. The price tag is almost reasonable considering the tooling needed to make it. But, if a little perimeter weld on the stock bracket is sufficient, why bother making something that could successfully be used to mount an S2000 to the Space Shuttle? [/EDIT]

 

Just to chime in with some insight. The Spoon piece was actually developed and produced by Honda Japan. It was used on some prototype cars and factory built race cars but never made it to production. For whatever reason, Honda decided not to include it on production cars (maybe because of that welded bolt stripping issue?). Since Honda already had the tooling to make this piece, Spoon agreed to meet a minimum quantity for Honda to make a production run of them. From what I was told, it was a very large number, so large that Spoon started selling to companies like J's Racing for re-badging under their name. This is also probably why the piece is so expensive. If you look closely at it, it even has the same markings as Honda factory made OEM replacement parts.

 

Anyone have a pic of a failure?

Is the consesus that the failure occurs due to forces generated under braking. I believe this is the case. That the UCA experiences a force attempting to rotate it in a counterclockwise direction (if viewed from the "shinny" side of the wheel) under braking. If this is the case, it seems as though the JUN bracket may help by distributing those forces more evenly over the two UCA chassis mounting points.

Although I'm beginning to think the best compromise is to have to the stock bracket welded.

 

If you look at it from above the car, the outer edge of the upper A-arm is being pushed forward by the brakes. It's pushing the forward chassis mount into the body and pulling the rear mount away from the body. The forces from this pulling/pushing are much greater than the forces trying to slide the arm forward.

That's why the Honda TSB fix is to only weld the rear bracket as the front bracket spot welds hold just fine when the arm is being pushed towards the body at that point.

 

here are detailed pics

http://www.pbase.com/rsrock/aarm

 

is this also a problem on the ap2?