Has anyone replaced the final gear in the tranny with the ATS FINAL GEAR ? (it is at the bottom of the page) Pairing it up with a J's gear in the rearend would be interesting? Any thoughts or would it just be so low geared that it wouldn't be beneficial.

 

I don't think it is correct to call that a "Final Gear". It looks like it replaces the Secondary Reduction gear. I don't know why anyone would want to go that route, when they could do a new ring & pinion in the rear for much less money. Seems to me that this would also put MORE stress on the rear end, where a lower ring & pinion puts LESS stress on it.

Combining this with J's gears would be extreme over kill. You would spend way too much time shifting.

 

Randy, a long time member has done both. With some searches you should be able to find his posts.

 

Yes, I have done both and probably the only one.
As soon as I took the delivery of S2000 on the September of '99, I planned on doing the final gear modification to suit my everyday driving.
There was two options back then, Spoon's ring and pinion same as J's now and ATS secondary gear swap. Spoon had 4.3 but the cost was up in the stratosphere in the neighbor of $3000. So I looked into ATS and with aid of MG Racing's Mr. Giampiero he hooked me up and got me for $1600 ATS gears which would give me approximate 4.51. ratio.
Of course I was really turned off by the difficulty of the installation but I bit the bullet and went for it because there wasn't much choice for me out there for what I want to accomplish.
The thing I wasn't prepared to see was that these gears would generate noise and later was admitted by the president of the ATS himself.
The gear whine really was alarmingly loud at the initial stage but subsided greatly over time. The effect was great, and I was very happy.
a year and a half ago, another Japanese tuner named Jet's Integral Kobe was came out with ring and pinion final gears identical to Spoons 4.3 ratio for mere $950 and that sort of intrigued me to try it and see how doing double final gear change would feel like. So I did it( you can search back and see but pics are no longer available when photopoint went belly up).
The aftermath was interesting, the difference was noticeable and though it lurched forward with gusto, I had to deal with lack of traction problem. With those gears in, I was able to achieve 14sec flat 1/4 mile hitting rev-limiter twice(you can't imagine how fast the engine speed climbs) and remarkably only reving upto 2K rpm and spin tires.

Anyway I would recommend anyone to try avoid ATS gear(well I don't have to cause it cost too much anyway) and go with J's ring and pinion like Gernby is suggesting, specifically 4.44. For cost(still way to much compare to other cars) and simpler installation.