cthree

There is a lot of things you can do to your car. Some make it look better or sound better and some make it go fast. When I set out to prepare my entry for OTC this year I had one goal in mind: prepare an otherwise normal daily driver S2000 and make it go faster than anyone has driven an S2000 on a road racetrack, at least in my neck of the woods, without making it a full blown race car. I'm happy to report that I think the mission was a success. I would have like to gotten a trophy at OTC. I would have liked to spend less money -- some wasted.

That's the point of this thread I guess. I'm going to document a bit about how the car was setup, what the money was spent on, what worked and what didn't. I will start by saying that there was no single component or setting that had a silver bullet solution. Putting it all together:

1. The best parts.
2. A driver that could effectively communicate what the car was doing.
3. A group of intelligent and thoughtful people to help weigh the options.
4. Money
5. Time and effort

as a system was the key, I feel, that allowed us to accomplish what, in some cases, was never done before.

The general plan went something like this: Get the car to 2500 lbs or less while still retaining most of what was originally there when possible. Be able to restore the car to a more or less street car when done without having to buy or make any parts. When all was said and done we got the car to 2525 lbs (I could have removed more but was satisfied with as close as we got) and retained most of the interior functions (air conditioning, power windows, sliding driver seat, dash, center console, cup holder, etc.) What we lost was the steering wheel, air bags, passenger seat, roll hoops, seat belts, stereo and speakers, cruise control, horn, soft top and all of the interior plastic including the door trim. While not completely street legal it was really only the horn which was a problem. I could have hooked up the horn button to the new wheel but was too lazy.

In addition to weight reduction I did acquire some significant cheating bastard parts. The first and most significant was a set of Ohlins shocks which were provided by Ohlins USA for this event. Second was the ELDA Solo I rollbar which I thank Wael at ELDA for helping with this. Third is a new set of CE28N wheels with assistance from Jeff at Evolution. Thanks to all of my sponsors for your contribution to this project.

In Part II I will talk a bit about our tire and wheel selection.

davepk

As Erik says, it was no single part or change that was a magic bullet. However, some of the succesfull changes made are seemingly untried on an S2000 and come very close to being a magic bullet when properly integrated into the car setup. Keep your eyes on these threads as there are a number of beans about to be spilled.

jerrypeterson

You got my attention. Go on.

Asura

<--- Listening

geekd

What MY car did you start with? Your '00?

Ludedude

Yes.

cthree

Yes. We were driving my '00 S2000 with 60K miles on the clock.

PLYRS 3

<------- curious subscriber.

honda606

Has anyone created a DIY thread yet that shows how to properly strip the S2000 in this fashion?

I'd like to do this.

cthree

tip: take everything inside and move it outside

not sure if there needs to be a faq for stripping the interior, it's pretty straight forward. The helms covers what screws are where and how to remove most parts. The softtop is a bit of a puzzle but once I realized the the back was soft and not rigid it came out in no time.

However, it's not a totally crazy idea either. Does this mean your going to strip your S2000 into a race car I have put my interior back in but will eventually take it out again. Since I have the elda bar not all of it goes back in tho so it won't be virgin.

PM me or ludedude and we will get your article, if you choose to write it, into the library for v4. there is an aweful lot of content going in there. we have almost a dozen writers working on it.