Update:

Devsport splitter mount fastened to the splitter and bumper


Frame mounts:


I finished up the oil cooler install and decided to put the engine bay (mostly) back together. I still need to come up with a mount for the K&N filter box.


I took the car for a shakedown run and quickly realized the parking lights and turn signals weren't working. I found some loose wires on the AP2 tail light mod and a couple blown fuses. Fixed those and now have all lights functioning as they should. One of the AP2 tail lights has an extremely dim running light.. could this be related to the wiring? Previous owner simply pulled the pins out and put the bare wires on the connector for the tail lights so I will need to do something about that.

I'm still not convinced the charging issue is completely resolved. I drove the car long enough to get everything up to operating temperature, shut it off, then tried to re-fire and it cranked very slowly. The battery has been in the car for a while, so I think it may be that. Both fuses for the alternator are in good shape and the alternator was replaced with a good used unit (old alternator had a rectifier going out, flickering dash lights..).

Anyways, the car is running well enough to have it inspected this week. I'll get that done so I can put some street miles on it and get a feel for everything.

 

I'm fairly certain the excess heat from the unwrapped header + the lack of a heat shield was causing my battery to struggle to crank the car when warm. I had a DME heat shield that came with the car, so I put that in place but have not driven enough to see if it has had any positive effect.

While I sort through the charging issues, I contacted Rotora and got a drawing of the brake pad so I can get some pads made for the car. The caliper is their FC4 caliper and it is paired to a 330x30 mm rotor (need to verify rotor dimensions, but this is what I suspect..). I couldn't find this info anywhere on the interwebs, so the pad is roughly the same shape as FMSI D810. The Rotora pad is a few mm shorter, has clearance for dowels/pins, and ~3mm thinner than the D810 shape. Needless to say, I called Porterfield and they were able to immediately start on a set of Raybestos ST45 pads. I also picked up a set for the stock rear calipers.

I'm now trying to resolve a tail light issue. The driver's side tail light running light is dim, the passenger side is too bright. When I unplug the driver's side, the passenger side looks normal. When I unplug the passenger side, the driver's side doesn't work at all. If I switch the lights, the lights work the same regardless of position. I checked and I have 12v at both running light pins with the wiring unplugged. I'm going to check voltage at those same pins with the lights connected and see what I get. This is the definition of an AP1>AP2 tail conversion gone wrong, lol.

 

Good news: tail light wiring is corrected and working properly. The bad news is I lost oil in the engine and spun a bearing. I pulled the engine this weekend and it is now being shipped to InlinePro for a fresh rebuild.

Engine about ready to pull


Drained the oil and found this..


Engine out of the car and stripped down, ready to be loaded on a pallet and shipped out


I dropped the engine and transmission out the bottom with the front subframe. It was quick and painless but I certainly don't want to make a habit of it InlinePro quoted 3-4 weeks turn around, but I do have some things to work on in the interim.

 

InlinePro have finished tearing down the engine and made some interesting discoveries. To begin, there was a cigarette butt where oil should normally be entering the factory oil cooler.


As I suspected, one of the rod bearings had spun.



Another interesting discovery: the engine had Ferrea B-series valve springs with spacers on the bottom of them. It also had aftermarket connecting rods but one of those was damaged, so will be going back to stock.


I will hopefully have either an F20 or F22 crank being shipped to InlinePro by the end of the week.

 

WTF?!?!?! That's definitely a surprising and unexpected discovery - and not at all in the slightest good sort of way.

 

Hello Matt,

Agree!

[QUOTE=mt.nichols;24688424]InlinePro have finished tearing down the engine and made some interesting discoveries. To begin, there was a cigarette butt where oil should normally be entering the factory oil cooler.


IDK, that is strange and make me wonder if it was intentional.

Real nice looking car!

Michael
Plano TX

 

The joys of buying someone else's project
I'm confident there's no way a cigarette butt could be in that part of the engine unless it was purposely placed there. Who put it there? Who knows..

 

I found an F20C that dropped a valve but the crank was in immaculate condition. I picked it up and should hopefully have it shipped to InlinePro by tomorrow so that the build can continue. Finding a decent F20/22C crankshaft is a difficult task these days.

 

Welcome to the group! Saw your intro on the North Texas S2Ki page (I am one of the admins) and I also track my S2000, mostly at Cresson but occasionally at Eagles Canyon. I mostly run with Apex Driving Academy (lots of S2000's run with them) as well as with NASA and occasionally SCCA. Hope to make it out to COTA one of these days. Anyhow look forward to seeing updates on your car, and out at the track in the future!

 

Thanks for the warm welcome! I hope to see you around.

Update: it took me a few days and a few broken tools to finally get the crank pulley bolt free. I pulled the crankshaft out of the block and will be shipping that to InlinePro this weekend. InlinePro should have the build done by the last week in February; as soon as I receive it, I plan on getting the engine back in the car immediately. In the meantime I have some wiring and other things to sort out. First things first, I'm going to pull the shifter out and grease it per the TSB posted on here. It was a bit difficult to get the car into 5th gear and reverse and the easy fix seems like the logical place to start.