So I dropped off the S on monday (1/30) to Autopower for them to fab up a Roll bar (and cage) for the S2K. Gave them pics from all the roll bars I could find and a service manual. They have looked at a S2000 before but didn't like it and didn't like the fact that there was no place to Bolt It to the floor. Well with some push from Charlie from a Safe Drives, They agreed to look at it again with a fresh open mind.

Well after looking at it yesterday and this morning they said there was no way to do it without affecting seat travel and they aren't interested in building a product that not 100% of customers would like.

So Charlie calls them again and talks to them, then me, I print out full threads of peoples bars and tried to so them full travel and placement of where I thought (I am no bar builder or anything close) the bar could go. So after about 10 mins they agree to really get into it and do some more investgation into it.

They where really skeptical about it, which is understandable. If you've looked in to it once why spend more R&D time and money. But I think they appreciated the fresh look and information that I could give them, which wasn't much really.

Anyways, I told them they can have my car until Feb 17th to work on it and fab something up. They really want to produce something for the S2K as long as it won't interfear with seat travel and placement (to avoid angry customers). Hopefully in a week or two we will have a full bar and what not for the S2000 again! Though it may completely replace (remove) the stock bars and some new plastic may be needed. I did tell them that I really wanted to keep the glove box as it is the only place we have to keep stuff.

I have to say the Rick and Don @ Autopower are great guys. They are super nice and very professional.

 

Nice work , hopefully it will work out. I hope they don't have to remove too much plastic though. I know that the hardcore track guys probably won't care, but for a street car I would hate to remove the plastic.

 

Good news! I hope they do come out with a new roll bar for our car. The cusco isnt bad, but its not safe/legal for track use. Cant wait to check it out.

 

New update.

I went down to autopower to talk to them some more and see what they could do. Well what it came down to was an interesting design and implementation. Basically the bar that they will build has sacrifices, many of them. The stock roll hoops have to go as well as quite a few pieces of plastic that covers them and some others. Now the stock seat belt stays, however in the autopower method you have to cut off the stock seatbelt pivot bolt hole (with welded nut) and move it to the roll bar. Now with that in mind conceivably everything else would fit in and what not. But you might still lose some seat travel.

They are going to jig one up and put the car together and see what it comes out as.

Here is the hitch though. They are not sure they will sell it. And if they do then the customer MUST understand and recognize that they will be losing some of the interior and that the bar must be welded in at the front as it is the ONLY option to install it (after looking at the other designs they deemed the "bolt-in" not a safe method and will not offer it).

More fun. They can offer the bolt-in diagonal cross brace and harness bar. The harness bar is no problem. The diagonal will make the passengar seat lose about 2 inch of rear seat travel (either back or recline, not sure which yet).

 

they should just copy the cusco one but with some modifications to be approved for track use....

 

Oh boy you don't want to know what Autopower thought of the Mugen and Cusco bars. To put it nicely they will never build something like that. They only build things that they consider safe and will meet specs put out by race sanctioning bodies.

This is not to safe that they might be safe. It was their stance that since it did not have the correct rear bar angle then it was not something they were interested in building or fixing the design.

 

^ what did they think about the elda bar?

 

The elda bar they thought was good. However their issue was that the tolerances where so tight, that for them it wasn't worth it. And also you lose seat travel. In their eyes if it won't please 100% of customers then they don't want to make a kit for it. The main issue they thought they will have is if someone buys one and they tell them you will lose travel and other items, If the customers says "yes that's fine", then after the customer installs it it is not what they thought it would be or something else was wrong because of the tolerances being so tight then they have to deal with an unhappy customer and that is just not worth it to them.

Which is smart business because even though there are alot of S2K owners who want one there would still be the 20%+ that buy it then be not happy with it because of something.

 

But yet they are proposing a design which would limit passenger seat travel? Seems oxymoronic (yes, that's a real word; not calling anyone a moron here).

Personally, I don't care if I or the passenger loses an inch or two of seat travel. I'm 5'9" and have a good deal of seat travel left. Perhaps it's the way I like my setup, but I always ensure that only my left leg needs to move when depressing the clutch pedal to the floor (as opposed to having to move your ass a bit in the seat).