i was at Auto RnD in milpitas a few days ago and got a chance to speak with the owner (cool guy).


In our conversation, i asked him what he thought about a low boost FI system on an s2000 ie nothing over 10lbs of boost. Thats when i got a suprising response. He started laughing, i had an idea why, and he told me that every FI s2000 owner hes talked to, has blown their motor.

I asked , "All? "

he said , " ALL!"

I said , "okay..."


Being on this board for a few months, i got to read some threads on people running comptech and vortech SC's reliably all day long. So imagine how confused i was when an owner of a speed shop told me those kits would blow an s2000 motor.



So heres a question for you FI guys, Can I run an FI system( lets say 8lbs of boost) reliably or is the owner of this speed shop misinformed?

 

Maybe he's just talking to owners that got their kits installed at his shop...

 

Not to mention, people that have FI and their motors dont blow, dont really have a need to go into a shop. He probably just gets a couple people with FI coming in that have blown their engines and assumes everyone does.

Ryan

 

Here my IMO on FI.

I have friend that run a Comtech blower. He basicly install and drive it.
And it's very safe(He's Honda Tech,BTW). Once you run the smaller
pulley up the PSI(and the list just start)The S is high revs engine and if you put more pressure on her, over time something gotta give. But there is alots of FI-S2000 running nicely.

Just when you go FI- make sure you have a deep pocket to cover it when someting going wroing

 

IMO, this motor was not meant for boost. People will debate this all day long. Its a proven fact that any boosted motor will not outlive a NA motor. Common sense. Its going to decrease your engine life regardless of how you drive it.

I know of a few guys that have had no problems and I have a few friends that had nothing but problems. Its all about installation and tuning with this and the use of proper parts.

I wouldnt do it but then you always get guys that come back at me with well I wouldnt spend $4000 on brakes. Then I say I wouldnt either . I am sponsored remember?

Its up too you. If you run the 6 pound pulley you should be fine until certain parts give out on ya (clutch, diff, etc). You can always prevent some parts by upgrading the diff/cryo treat, upgrade your clutch, etc. Then you should be fine. Hope you have a deep wallet though.
I still remember 1Randyc. Hes an OG member on this board with the Comptech SC and over 100,000 miles. He said he stopped modding his car at 80,000 miles because he knew parts were just about to start going. But his was great for like 80,000 miles.

Good luck though.

 

He obviously doesn't know what he is talking about. There are a lot of supercharged S2000's running around that are fine. Some with very high mileage.

 

mine blew but i don't regret doing it one bit. I'm sure if i took all the necessary precautions and not take her to 140+ all the time it probably wouldn't blow. Btw if i were you i'd keep it at the standard boost. Like everyone said make sure you have deep pockets just in case you need a new motor

 

Hmmmm...well this is a couple firsts....first I've never heard cool guy ever associated with the owner....sketchy yes...shady yes....cool never. Never met the dude but that's just what been on the wire.

The fact is the guy doesn't know what he's talking about...and if I were you I'd be pissed off because almost certainly the dude was trying to play you....

Here's how the game works(from a salesman's point of view). He want to make a sale...he know's you're at least a potential big ticket customer(come on FI is at least 3K+ often 6k+....good bit of money there). The saleman either doesn't carry the FI products you want or they just don't have the margin that other products they carry do so he's going to want to push you into buying other 'go fast parts' He'll say oh you don't want to buy what you think you want because it's really dangerous and risky...it'll give you more trouble that it's worth(i.e. if you buy FI it'll blow your engine on you). Salesmen know you don't want something that's going to cost you alot of money(i.e. blown engine), so they'll play on your fears.

After telling you that it's dangerous and will cost you much more than what it's worth, he'll sneak in ooooh...but we have these other NA go fast parts that are MUCH safer for you car than FI and will give you good power. He'll propose the which do you want something that will potentially blow up your car or something that won't give you quite as much power but will be much safer. He'll probably overstate the NA gains that can be had with it(as EVERYONE does) and even offer to cut you a 'good' deal on the parts.

But in the end the result is the same....you just got played for paying too much for a part with marginal improvement to your car and the salesman walks away laughing about the great sales he just made.

The fact is the VAST majority of shops out there don't know shit about this car. They may be great wrenches and they may have a bunch of experience with other cars, but the S is really different. Honestly you have to remember when going to these shops that part of their job is to sell you. IF you can find a shop that actually know's what they're doing and they're actually not trying to sell you things you don't need, stick with them and support them, they're rare.

 

Ok now onto the real issues/facts etc about FI on the S. The reality is with a properly built, designed and tuned system, an FI engine can get 95% of the expected life of an NA engine. In reality you won't really be able to tell the difference in engine life. 95% of 200-300k miles you won't miss the extra 10-15K miles.

That said how many systems out there are properly built, designed and tuned? Not many for the S. The Comptech/Vortech systems are nice, well designed and well built systems, but even with them I'm mildly concerned about tuning. People have shown that they tend to run a little lean....not dangerous but leaner than I'd like. Still people have been running them for 80K stock no problems so you can't complain too much.

Now for turbo's I don't think there's been a single kit that's been shown to be long term reliable yet. We'll see if that changes. Tuning is even more critical with turbo systems because of how soon and how often you're in boost.

Personally I wouldn't trust a custom turbo kit built by just your average turbo kit builder. This engine is different than your standard 8-9 compression POS. A system that'll be fine for them won't work for us. RRFPR isn't good enough for this engine even at low boost(too often the system just runs too lean).

Lean conditions is what will kill the engine. Proper tuning is a must. If you get a system tuned properly then you shouldn't need to worry about it too much. I play to go FI at some point, but no matter which system I put in I'm going to put an AEM in it and get it properly tuned down in SoCal.

 

[QUOTE=CrazyPhuD,Apr 19 2005, 11:11 AM] Ok now onto the real issues/facts etc about FI on the S.