Ok so about 3000 miles ago I replaced my oem clutch with a competition clutch stage 1. And im very unhappy with it so far. It makes noise when I let the clutch pedal out (which ive been told a pucked clutch will do). That doesnt really bother me...its the noises ive been hearing when the clutch is out and im driving that bother me....when im on the gas its fine but when I let off and let it wind down on its own its a very unique sound...like metal rubbing or something like that. Its only when im decelerating with the clutch still engaged. And my pedal feel changed very frequently...some days its still and feels like a twin disc and other days it feels like its a brand new oem clutch on a brand new car (very easy to puch down) It still grabs great no matter how the pedal feels...thats why im soo confused. I was having issues with my 5th gear not wanting to go in/stay in...but I have since cleared that up because I was unaware that you were not supposed to skip gears. (When I would merge I would floor it through say 2nd, get up to speed and just put it in 6th to cruise) I have stopped doing that and my 5th gear is working fine now. I just worry about the noises I hear. Could it be the tranny fluid? Or what else?

Ok now on to my second problem. I get a cylinder 1,2 and 3 and sometimes just 4 misfire code and a random misfire code every month or so. I notice no misfire...the plugs are about 3 months old and were replaced with oem s2000 plugs from honda. It usually happens after I either stall it out or come close to it. The car never misfires that I can tell at least. It runs smooth and doesnt seem to have any issues. I only have a aem cai and invidia catback done to the car....so its not like something crazy that would be making the car throw codes all the time.

So......Can anyone suggest anything for these problems? I knwo I havent been able to give the best descriptions but hey, I tried my best!

 

ALso can someone suggest what kind of fluid to use for my rear diff and my tranny. I know there are alot of threads on here that ask the same thing ut I want something that will hold up to some high speed spirited driving. And I have a VERY minor 4th gear grind that some good fluid would probably take care of. Thanks alot for your time reading this!

 

1) There's nothing wrong with skipping gears as long as you're not lugging the engine. That it pops out of 5th means either there's a problem in the tranny or you're not getting it all the way into gear.

2) You put a competition clutch into a street car. I'd expect it to act weird. I'll bet it's harsh as shit. Most of those puck clutches don't have springs to cushion engagement. I have a solution, put the right clutch back into it again.

3) The ECU thinks your stalling is a misfire is my guess. Don't stall it for a month and see what happens. I imagine you almost stall it because of the clutch?

4) You can't go wrong with the OEM fluids. My experience is there's little difference between OEM, MT-90 and MTL fluid for the tranny. I haven't tried the GM fluid in it yet.

 

Actually, skipping gears can cause synchro damage. check here: https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=237209

 

Like so many other things, there is a right way and a wrong way to "skip" a gear, and doing it wrong is asking for trouble. To skip gears without screwing up the transmission there are (at least) two options:

1) As long as you use all the synchros you don't actually need to engage every gear. For example, if you have accelerated to highway speed in fourth and want to go into sixth you start by partially engaging fifth gear so that the fifth gear synchros do their job, and then (and only then) do you engage sixth. If going from third to sixth, engage the synchros in fourth, then fifth, then engage sixth gear and release the clutch.

2) As an alternative (though I personally think it's a pain in the butt) you can double-clutch; It's easy enough because you're accelerating and don't need to worry about heal and toe. I'm sure with practice you can upshift skipping gears and get a quicker shift than you do using method one above (working all the synchros), but the speed of a short shift is normally irrelevant, so I just use the synchros.

Either way, as long as you don't over-work or beat the synchros you can shift from any gear to any other gear without worrying about screwing up the gearbox. Simply jamming the car directly into sixth from third or fourth is something I have to consider abusive, but I "skip" gears quite often. I just don't skip synchros.

 

Yeah, read that whole topic. Interesting and F'd up at the same time. One Comment someone made was that the '2k tranny was special because the mainshaft ran at crank speed. That's BS though because every other honda runs the mainshaft at crank speed too. Doesn't really explain why the synchros are so weak.. I knew Subarus had tranny problems. That's why I stuck with Honda. Funny.

At least the 2002 saw some tranny upgrades. Makes me want to find a 2004 tranny.

If you ever watch the BMI guys drive, they downshift through every gear. Every other driving book says "Driver's choice, skip if you want to". On the track I'll skip from 5th to 3rd. Never actually contemplated skipping going up though.

 

1) This is not quite correct. The correct statement would have been: "There's nothing wrong with skipping gears as long as you match engine speed with road speed in the next gear selected." Not lugging the engine is only to protect the engine. By not matching revs to the road speed and skipping gears, your are not helping the tranny much.

4) Unfortunately, there is no "OEM" rear diff fluid for our cars.

 

The competition clutch stage 1 is no a competition clutch...thats the name of the company that makes it. Its designed for lightly modified or stock cars driven in an aggressive manor.

 

Ek9 your givong some misguided information. Skipping gears while upshifting can cause syncro damage. Skipping gears while downshifting will also cause syncro damage. The "BMI" drivers or any good driver will rev match when downshifting, this matches the engne speed to the new gear and alows smooth downshifting without syncro wear. So when rev matching as long as you dont over rev the motor any gear is ok.

 

I got it. I read the whole topic, this one and the old one about MY00 tranny's breaking. S2000's have weak synchros and can be damaged by skipping gears.

Honda should have either designed it so, skipping gears does no damage or prevented people from skipping gears. It's a design flaw. I'm sure in the back of their heads, Honda designers are thinking "Wtf's up with these stupid Americans not being able to shift right"?

What I should have said was, "in most car's skipping gears doesn't hurt anything but, because of poor design, the S2K tranny can be damaged by it".

What's not clear to me is whether this is still true after the 02 and 04 tranny updates.

My point about the downshifting is only that there are two schools of thought on downshifting. One school works it's way down the gears even if it would be more efficient to go from 5th to 2nd, while the other school goes directly from 5th to 2nd. The BMI guys ALL shift through the range of gears. I suspect it's because of the SMG gear boxes most of them use on the track.