Last night I met up with 2kturkey and his S2000. 1st time Ever I actually followed an S2000 (in particualar one with the same color as mine :-). Looks damn fine from behind :-) Anyway, as you might have gathered from another post, 2kturkey has got the GTECH and has already done done runs himself. We found ourself a nice piece of road with no traffic and did a whole heap of 0-100km/h runs. We did a fair few in each car, solo as well as with 2 of us in the car. Also, we did a fair amount of runs where we launched the car from 'idle' (ie. with no revs). btw, both of our cars are stock standard with nothing added/removed and I am running Shell Optimax fuel (98 octane) while 2kturkey runs the BP "hi perfromance" fuel (not sure about the octane rating here but it is at least 95 octane). This is what we found out...

It turns out that my car was a bit quicker than 2kturkeys even though I only have 2,500km on it while 2kturkey has 20k+ Most of the difference can be attributed to 2kturkey's 1st to 2nd gear synchro that is not behaving and making his 1st - 2nd gear change slow (it 'crunches'). Also, 2kturkey has very worn tyres (which have only about 10% of thread left) and therefore less grip.

First we were doing runs in his car and with 2 of us in it, the best we managed was 6.50 and most of the runs landed in between the 6.5 and 7.0, though he had a few runs as slow as 7.4. Eventually I hopped out and 2kturkey went for another 6 runs by himself and managed a run of 6.28. That was pretty good.

Then I hopped into my car and in the car by mayself I managed 6.15 on my 1st run. I had a couple more runs and they were 6.25 and 6.15 (again). Then I got him to hop in and did 2 more runs which gave me 6.40 and 6.28 ... looks like having another person loses you about 0.2 of a sec. Also, the car is much harder to launch (without bogging down a bit) with 2 people in it. It turns out that when in the car by mylsef, I needed to launch the car from 7.5k revs in order to get 6.15. If I gave it 7k then the car would bog down a bit in the 1st gear and raise my time to about 6.4. Same with giving it 8k revs - the wheels spin for a bit too long and my time raises to 6.4 again. I'm thinking that if I was given a grippier road and could launch the car from 8k revs without the excessive wheelspin, then maybe the time could be dropped to flat 6 secs (maybe, just maybe 5.9x is possible).

Also, we did a few 0-100km/h runs where we launched with minimal revs (1 - 3k). There's no wheelspin or 'chirp' and doing this slows the times down to somewhere in the mid to high 7s. We had a few 8+ sec times but out best (I think it was in my car again and 'solo') was 7.3 secs.

I'm already impressed with the 6.15, but I can't imagine how 5.1 for 0-60m/h is possible. Can someone (like Sev) explain what you do different to get that much of an improvement in times?! That is 1 full sec quicker than what we managed .... if you 'translate' that to 0-96.5km/h (0-60m/h) then that is about 5.75. I can see about .2 secs improvement with brilliant traction (grippy asphalt) - which could bring it down to 5.55 for the 0-60km/h. That seems to fit very well with all the US/UK magazines who get somehwere between 5.5 and 5.8 for the 0-60m/h times. I'm guessing that they run with only one person on board and publish the 'best' run, not the average. Still bettering what I'd call an absolutelly perfect run by another .4 secs seems right on impossible to me. So, what can you do to gain 0.4 sec if you already have minimal whheelspin, no bog down and excellent 1st to 2nd change.... what else is there to it?

[Edited by DavidM on 02-12-2001 at 05:55 AM]

 

Very cool post! There are so many varibles in this type of thing, ie; surface, temp, equipment, vehicle, driver, and the ever present "X-factor". Who knows how the mags really get their numbers, they are a waste of time if you ask me. Why take a stock Stook to the track...just to get stomped? Why post numbers that are only achieveable on a track, and under perfect conditions? My 0-60 runs have ALL been on the street, and will continue to be, and frankly, I appreciate your numbers much more than the mags. If the number can't be duplicated on the street, they're useless. Thanks again for some real street-wise numbers.

Andrew

 

I am real curious to know what the ambient temp. was
I know that makes a big difference, and when the temp is around the 40's here it feels alot faster than in the 70's and when its in the 90's its a real dog. And yes everybody I know why that is.

 

Straightforward post! Thanks.
When my S2K was new, it was a slug. The best I could do to 60 from off-idle was a tick over 7 seconds, about .5 seconds slower than my Legend LS 6spd coupe. I read about the other owners' blitzing to 60 in the low 5's and just figured that mine was a slug - my bad luck. I changed my oil to Mobil 1 and things got worse. (I've used nothing but M-1 in my other cars for years.) Put in Castrol GTX and things got better, actually timed some runs in the low 6's. At about 7,500 miles, had Weseloh Honda do my transmission, pressure disk and clutch, seat belt, and a refill with Honda 10W30 ... and when I got my car back it was a rocket. "What did you guys do to make my car so much quicker?" I asked them. Nothing they said. Some opined they performed an "Italian tune-up" defined as driving the piss out of the car. They deny it. I haven't timed mine since the Castrol GTX days but my car is so much quicker now it is just silly. My car used to be a drag at part throttle low revs, now it leaps, it's frisky, nervosa, enthusiastic. Before the VTEC performance was workmanlike but lackluster ... now it just screams. Sorry about that, I'm just so happy. Anyway, this is one of those good mysteries of life. When I time it again, I'll post the results. I'm pretty sure I'm at 6 flat, at the worst, with off-idle launches.

2x6

 

Temperare was about 22 degrees Celcius (that is about 72 degrees your measurment). Cars felt quick and it felt like a reasonably 'quick' nught.

2x6speed - are you saying that you think that you can do 0-100km/h in 6 secs (from 'idle' launch)? ... that's good 1.5secs quicker than what we managed and 2kturkey's car is well run in. 1.5 secs is 25% difference - I don;t think that is possible.

 

______________

Hi David M

Yes. At 2500 miles I was lucky to get into the low 7's with off idle launch. At 6000 miles, with Castrol I timed myself in the low 6's if I remember correctly with off-idle launch. My car now has 9500 miles and is MUCH quicker than it ever was before. I think it'll do 60 from off idle in 6 flat, but the clock will tell. Anyway, my car saw about a 25% improvement in 0-60 times from 2500 miles to 6000 miles. It's much quicker now than it was at 6000 miles.

 

Good to see your post David, it was a lot of fun last night - I also enjoyed chasing you along the back roads (with a few twisties thrown in guys) with the HIDs reflecting off the silver body work it looked brilliant.

It appears my 1-2 change crunches are now definitely getting serious. I had another one today in Williams Rd changing at 4k revs - not good news - so I have officially complained again today to Honda with a very strong email insisting they agree to the fix asap.

I think our times were pretty much optimal - the only other variables I can think of would be tyre pressure and road surface. Its easy enough to experiment with tyre pressure and I think if I lowered my a little I would probably get a little more wheel spin. As far as road surface goes i assume the drag strip would offer an optimum surface so yyou may want to consider Calder when you come back from your holiday (they hold the street drags every month . The other variable of course is temperature but I think we'll have to wait until night time in July for it to drop down to the 40s (5 degrees C)!

Overall I felt our times were pretty comparable (my 6.18 vs your 6.15) but I was a lot less consistent, hopefully the gear change fix will help in that area.

I'm also keen to see how others can do 6 flat for off idle as we were a good 1 - 1.5 secs slower than that (however I think 2x6spd is talking 0-60mph which should take .4 -.5 sec less than 0-100k). The key here is consistency too - you may get the occasional perfect run but replicating it regularly is the tricky bit.

 

2x6spds - my car has 'only' 2500km so I cna't say what will happen after 20,000km. Though, I can say that 2kturkey's car felt about the same as mine and that has 20,000+ km. Also, I can say that some of the times from 'idle', like when you 'bunny hop', were as slow as 8.3 secs ... I think that is the slowest time we got for 0-100km/h that day. Also, we regularly got times of somewhee between 7.5 and 8.0 secs for the 'idle' launch runs. Best one we managed was when I was in my car alone and did 7.3secs - that felt like we really achieved something. To get time that is 20% quicker still seems imposible to me. 6.15 is the BEST time that we got when launching the car from 7.5k revs - it felt like I could do 6.2 times all day but to think that you could put your car next to mine, launch it from 'idle' while I bag it up and then you'd still beat me - that I cannot picture at all .... not in 'another' S2000 ... I bet that the SC S2000 launched from 'idle' could not beat a regular S2000 launched from 7-8k. Let's put it this way - if you read the 'S2000 vs HSV R8' thread - you'll notice that the R8 is a very low to flat 6 sec car (for 0-100km/h). When that car takes off (fast) and I launch from 'idle' - the R8 was about 8 car lenghts ahead by the time I reached 40km/h. Not only that but by then the R8 was travelling at least 10km/h quicker and pulling away fast. No way will an S2000 (no matter how well it runs) ever be able to keep up with that with an 'idle' launch. Therefore, if I'm doing 6.15 secs for 0-100km/h with a 7.5k revs start, then I cannot see 'any' S2000 being able to do 6.0 when launched from 'idle'. 'idle' launch was losing us somewhere between 1.5 - 2.5 secs for the 0-100km/h run. If any S2000 can do 6.0 with 'idle' launch then I'd presume that particualr S2000 would do flat 4.0 for the 0-100km/h run when launch from high revs .... I just can't even imagive that - Diablo or F360 cannot do that.

btw, whatever I'm writting here is just from my own experience. If someone else has access to some timing equipment (and I don't mean hand held stop-watch) then it'd be great to see some tests you guys have run. I'd say you'll be surprised to see how fast you have to go to get flat 6 and how eazy it is to get high 7s for the 0-100km/h. If someone can go quicker then I'd love to hear all about it.

One more 'variable' that I didn't mention in our runs. My car had about 60% of fuel on board - that is about 30 liters - which is about 30kg. From the 'solo' and 'two up' runs we deduced that having another person (80kg) in the car will cost you about 0.2 secs for the 0-100km/h run. Therefore having your tank literaly empty when you do the runs should give you another .075 of a second (that could have brough my 6.15 time down to 6.07 that day).

ps. Just for reference value the 6.28 0-100km/h time that I got with 2 people on board compares to a recent local magazine test of Mustang Cobra (240kW). They managed 6.4x time for the 0-100km/h (with 2 people aboard). I don't know how it is in the States, but this tells me that the S2000 can run with the Mustang Cobra here in Aust.

pps. I forgot to mention - after drooping the clutch good 6 times in the row, I had no clutch slip at all and there was no clutch smell either. The clutch seemed to hold up perfecly ... I was expecting it to start slipping after the 2nd or 3rd drop ... not even close as I was still geting a 'chirp' on the 1st to 2nd gear change.

ppps. 2kturkey, yeah, a lot of fun :-) Also, that 'grind' problem you're having ... Honda 'has' to fix that as it only will get worse ... I went though the 1st to 2nd synchro on my pre-MR2 car about 7 years ago.

[Edited by DavidM on 02-12-2001 at 05:56 AM]

 

Hey DavidM.

Good of you guys to do some testing like that.

I believe you can do much better then that.

Here are the reasons why i can do a 5.1 and you weren't able to.

First, at 2500 KMs i used to only do 5.4s. You will see that with time, the car will get much stronger, especially untill 7000-8000 Kms on the odo.

Other factors:

1. My runs of 5.1 were done in 5 Celsius weather.
2. The best i can do in 22 Celcius is around 5.3
3. My runs are done with no spare in the trunk.
4. I do the runs with 1/4 tank of fuel.
5. I raise my tire pressures to make wheelspin easier. Try putting them around 37 psi all around and you will be able to launch lower RPMs with better results.

Another variable to consider is elevation, i run at 100 feet over sea level here which is good. What about you?

Try these things and you will see a gain of at least 0.3. which should put you in the 5.5s 0-60 MPH.

Oh and BTW, i have been able to do consistent 6.2s with a best of 6.21 with off-idle starts.


[Edited by Sev on 02-12-2001 at 07:19 AM]

 

Hi Sev,
Thanks for the reply .... I was thinking that there could be maybe 0.3 sec that we could make up by having better road, conditions and less fuel. Though, that's what I'd concider absolutely ideal run and conditions.

With the 'high revs' launch we have already managed something like 5.75 secs for the 0-60m/h run. I can see .3 sec being taken off by all the things you mention - that will bring us down to about 5.5 ... as you said. That is 'only' 0.4 secs of your best time (though that 0.4 is the hardest and most dificult to see at the moment).

It's the 'idle' launch that has me really puzzled. It looks like we managed about 6.9 - 7.0 for the 0-60m/h 'idle' launch time. That is about 0.8 secs of your 6.21 time. I find it so hard to see that there could be 0.8 secs to be gained ... time will tell I guess. Also, concidering that some of our 'high revs' launches were about 6.5 secs (0-100km/h) it is hard to see how an 'idle' launch'ed S2000 could actually match (or even beat) that ...even though it wasn't the best possible run.

Sev, could you describe in detail how you do an 'idle' launch?

ps. 2kturkey's S2000 has already more than 20,000km and it didn't seem any quicker than mine.