danwebster

Hello folks, I'm Dan and I picked up my first S2000 last thursday so i'm a week into ownership now and enjoying it so far.

I'm a bit of a car nut (understatement) and have owned a couple of interesting cars. I've always done my own spannering too so i'm reasonably handy under the bonnet.

In 2004 I built an original mini from a bare shell. It was 640kilos with a full tank of fuel on board and had an all steel twin cam 16valve A series - it produced 160hp at 7600rpm. It had a pair of webers hanging out of the bonnet and a straight cut dog engagement gearbox so it made a pretty distinctive noise....I drove this thing daily for a couple of years, people always looked on slightly bemused when I pulled up to meetings in my suit in this thing....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W-1P...e_gdata_player

While I had the mini I bought a MK3 MR2 and very firmly got the rear wheel drive bug. I did 20k miles in 11 months in the MR2 before changing it for an Elise Sport 160. I actually test drove two S2k's before buying the elise but at the time the driving position put me off and I didn't feel the dynamic experience offered enough over the toyota despite being much faster.

In the meantime i'd started to rebuild the mini but lost interest after getting the lotus and broke it and sold the parts (the engine alone sold for 7k!).

I loved the elise and had it for two years. Being a sport 160 it was quite a bit quicker than a standard car and once i'd added an LSD to the box and uprated the dampers I was pretty much set. I did 11 or 12 track days in it over the course of two years and 45 thousand miles. Again it was my daily driver and I loved every minute of it.

Then my dream spec elise came up for sale - sport 160 with 190hp K series on throttle bodies, straight cut box and all the right bits under the skin so I managed to sell mine in short order and bought the next one. It turned out to be quite a rare little car - originally supplied to Mr. Quaife (of the gearbox company) and used as a company demonstrator. I really loved this car but sadly due to changing jobs I had to get rid of it so that I could have a car that met the stipulations of my employers car policy (I couldn't afford to run two cars). In the 12 months that I owned it I did 17k miles and a couple of trackdays and spend a couple of happy days driving around wales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmHyO...e_gdata_player

At 710kilos and 190hp it was a quick little thing, albeit rather noisy - not the best when you're taking someone out on a date but hey ho...unsurprisingly I stayed single for a while!

Next up was a renault clio 200. I bought this car last december to comply with work...it was the most fun car I could find that would fit the criteria and to be fair to it they are great little cars. I even did a track day at Oulton in it, but ultimately I missed RWD so much that it was genuinely starting to depress me....luckily my employer changed their policy recently and thats where the S2k comes in...I still have to have something relatively new, but other than that its fairly open.

I looked at 350z's - nice to drive, nice engine but a big heavy car and I didn't like the look of the roadster (i'm also a big fan of roof down motoring).

I also looked at clio V6's - lots of appeal but that interior....euuurrrggghhh.

So I decided on an S2000. I started looking last week and found an 08 model with 11k on the clock for what seemed like the wrong price...I went up to have a look at it on thursday morning and by lunchtime it was mine. So far i'm really impressed, the engine is great and its really well put together but i'm still not over enamoured with the driving position so i'll probably end up doing something with the seat rails, however compared to the clio it feels OK - they have a really high seating position despite having excellent Recaro seats. I've already ordered a CAI kit and I can see myself going down the supercharger route one day....the signs are good that i'll keep this car a little longer than the renault!

Apologies for rambling!

gbduo

Well impressed with the Mini! I have just been rebuilding a Classic Mini with my mate, it now has a stage IV Minispeed MPI engine, we are just running it in but already looking at TwinKam and supercharging it, haha! Your Mini sounds amazing, I have just put your video on my mates facebook to try and persuade him it is worth spending £8-9k to do it!

Welcome to the forum and ownership of the S2k, although I must say, I am more interested in your Mini, haha!

Graham

Hedropsforglory

I found myself hankering after an original Cooper just the other day (it was my first car) and did some idle research into a classic mini build as a winter project, so I'd be interested to hear about it as well!

Welcome

danwebster

The mini was a great piece of kit, I miss it a lot actually. The engine was an absolute work of art (strangely enough it cost as much as a work of art as well!) and the day I started it for the first time was a great feeling, being the first engine i'd ever built from scratch.

My brother still has a KAD engined mini, 600kilos and 185hp...thats pretty special too.

I'll throw a couple of pics up when I get back home.

stew-t

Hi Dan, welcome to S2Ki. Funny you should end up here.

Stew-t from seloc forum. Wanted to buy your black S160 when I had mine(S160) but it didn't happen.

Pie_n_Chips

Hi Dan, Nice car progression I'd love to do anther mini, but I wouldn't fit in one now

Backyard special rails will go a long way in sorting the lofty seating position on the oem seats or you can "modify" the pans with t'ammer


Welcome to the forum

danwebster

Hi Stew! Small world...

I spotted the backyard rails...seem expensive but it might be something I go for. We'll see.

S2K Tuning

Hi mate. Im from Kidderminster. Look out for threads regarding the West Midlands meet. Enjoy the car.

Andy

danwebster

Hi Andy, my sister lives in kiddi - she's floor a red s2 Elise, you'll see it parked opposite the mare and colt if you ever drive past there..