There's about five pages to this overview of the changes to the 04 that is posted at TOV. It is an excellent, detailed review of what Honda's goals were in making the changes that they did, how they accomplished them and the results. If you read through it I think many will realize that the reason for the changes were in no way to soften the car, but rather to improve upon (near ) perfection to make it even better. It starts out with this:

[QUOTE]Honda always seems to be in the unenviable position of improving upon products which already are at or near the top of the class in their segments. For a product like the S2000, it seems the task would be insurmountable, yet Honda has attacked it in their typical style........

To this day, the S2000's performance envelope puts it in a class of few. To improve the dynamic performance without upsetting the superior balance and overall execution of the car would require careful thought. The stated goals were:

 

Interesting.

I know that with such a low production-run type car, and especially with a company that operates the way Honda does, it would never happen, but I would have liked to see the 2.2L motor offered as an option here in the States. I bought an '03, but had been thinking about waiting to see what would happen with the '04.

As it turns out I am very happy with my decision not to wait. If Honda had offered the 2.0L motor as an option on the S2k here, it might have made me regret my decision a little. I know it may not be the most practical, or useful thing in the world, but I would not have been happy with an 8000RPM redline. Some of the other changes are fairly compelling, but I just can;t get past the redline.

 

Except for the 8k redline and guage cluster, I'm a little jealous.

 

no jealousy here...i've been enjoying mine for over 4 years now and still not a drive goes by that I don't thoroughly enjoy. And teh 9k redline? Thats just frosting on the cake!

 

while i don't argue that the MY04 may be better in overall performance, there's just something not so special about a bigger engine, lower redline....i mean if all we wanted was performance wouldn't be all be driving a z06?

 

Not me. Way too big and heavy. Sucks too much gas too .

ron

 

blah blah blah.. they are just making excueses.. for this stupid upgrade... whatever...
japan and europe don't even have ...
yeah keep telling urself it's better ba...
no wonder they changed it just for the north america...
2004 S2200.. hahaha.. water down verson

 

so is this correct?

europe does not get the f22c, but only the f20c with the new body

japan is offering up both the f20c and f22c with the new body

usa only gets the f22c with the new body

 

I think the Corevettes might possibly have better or almost the same gas mileage as us. But in terms of the 04, im not making any comments till I drive/see one myself.

 

[QUOTE]blah blah blah.. they are just making excueses.. for this stupid upgrade... whatever...
japan and europe don't even have ...