02-03 interior and engine with 04 body

 

DONT GET A 2003!!

because i want one and theres very few on the market compared to 2000's and 2001's.

AND DONT GET A BLACK ONE!!
you'll get pulled over a lot for being suspiciously mysterious.

 

I haven't read the entire thread, so if you already answered this question, you'll have to excuse my asking again ...

When you say that you'll be using the car mainly for autocross and track days, does that mean that you will just be driving it to and from the events, or will you also be using it as transportation some of the time?

If competition is your primary use, you might want to consider laying out a budget, including the cost of the car, and see where that puts you with MY selection. If you're serious (or get serious) about your autocrossing or tracking, you'll be putting R compound tires on the car at some point, and then you'll have some suspension tuning issues to deal with, so at that point it's not going to matter much whether you start with an early (AP1) or later (AP2) chassis. Are you going to gut the car and put in a good roll bar or full cage?

If I were you I'd be more concerned about finding a car in good condition at the right price than about MY differences. Later cars (S2200's ) have more torque and power, so all else being equal they're quicker on a fast track, but the early cars with the F20C are quicker from a standstill to 60MPH, due to gearing and rev range differences. Every two years Honda has changed the suspension, shifting the tradeoffs around a little, but all the cars have neutral or very close to neutral handling and in stock trim they're all suitable for honing one's skills. Unless you really want a stronger bias toward oversteer and a more basic and basic looking car, you might want to steer clear of the MY00-01 cars.

Life is tough when you have to make decisions like which MY S2000 to buy.

 

To keep this thread from going to hell, everyone needs to say they prefer the opposite of what they have.

 

if you aren't looking for FI, or keeping the 9k rpm redline, go for the newest car you can afford!

 

LOL, the reason I didn't read the whole thread was because I figured it had probably already gone to pot.

 

I'd put condition and history ahead of MY considerations.

 

i will run my s2k in a stock class in autocorss so i want to pick something that i could just put on some r-comp and run it casue i had couple cars higher up in class they cost way too much to take full advanage of the class. so i will just want to stay in stock class with the s2k casuse i see that they do real well nationally thank you all for the input so far i am leaning toward a 03 ap1 (i think) from what i have read.

 

Once you put the R compound tires on the car, it's going to start lifting the inside rear wheel during hard cornering, and the Torsen LSD will send all the power to the tire with no grip. The problem is that the rear anti-sway bar is so fat that there is just too much roll resistance at the back to work well with the additional grip. In stock classes you can remove the rear bar, or replace the front bar, or both, but even in stock classes, if you're going to run R compound tires on the S, you're going to have to do a little suspension tuning to get the most out of the car.

The Gendron adjustable FSB is around $600.00, so it doesn't have to be horribly expensive, but you will be wanting to make some changes.

If I read your opening post right, you're planning on autocrossing the car on the OEM tires for a while? ??? IMO that's a good plan, because you'll learn the car quicker and more easily on the OEM tires. Best mods for autocrossing are the Evolution schools.

The MY03 is a good choice. An MY04 would get you the extra power and torque of the F22C, but that won't matter on autocross courses, where grip and skill is king. Us the money you save by getting a super clean AP1 to pay for some good schools.

 

+1

I would much rather have a almost new AP1 over a well-used AP2.