UPDATE: went out to TI tonight and did some painting.



Hello Bay Area S2k owners,

I recently acquired a near-mint condition 2003 BB AP1 with <29,000 miles on it. I've been looking for a couple of months, doing a lot of research, and s2ki.com has been a TREMENDOUS help. Thanks everyone who contributes. In fact, at one of my test drives, a sales guy asked me how long I had been looking for, I'd say about 15 years, because I've wanted an AP1 ever since they came out in 2000, but at the time didn't have the funds to get one.

I'm very happy to finally own one. It's a stock AP1, with no mods on it. It was a big deal for me to find one with no mods, because I went through that phase in my life with my 99 EJ8 Civic, and I'm done with that. These days I prefer the original design, and Honda engineering.

A little bit about myself:

I'm in my mid-30s. I'm an aviation geek. I've been in the aviation industry all my professional life. I'm a certificated aircraft mechanic (although I no longer wrench these days), flight instructor, and aircraft dispatcher. I work at OAK airport, instructing and dispatching.

On my off time, I like to spend my weekends with my family (I have a 5 year old daughter), making photos with them, or go whitewater kayaking. I'm a Class 2 or 3 paddler, depending on the season. I used to be an avid road cyclist, but with the increased cycling traffic and accidents these days, I've elected to stop cycling and pursue other passions.

I look forward to meeting some of you in the future. Hopefully I can make a meet or two, if my busy schedule allows it. I really want to talk to people who know about this car, because I keep reading about all these quirks; it would be great to get some face to face explanations.

Thanks for reading.



David from Castro Valley

 

Welcome

 

Welcome David. I met another S2K owner last weekend from Castro Valley while riding out and about at Redwood Road. Cool to see these stock AP1s out there. Enjoy!

 

Welcome to the club.

 

Welcome! Enjoy Redwood Road but watch out for the few nasty dips, you'll see the scrape marks from other cars.
Been about a month since I went out there so I'll be zipping through soon.

 

Thanks everyone. It's kinda weird to talk about it now, but I used to cycle Redwood Rd all the time, and now I'm daydreaming about driving it on my AP1. But I guess even when I was on my bike, I was daydreaming about owning an AP1 and driving it on that very road.

Another item I researched quite thoroughly was whether I could drive my 5-yr old daughter around in it. Apparently I can, although not recommended in the manual due to airbag deployment and possibility of injury. The DMV driver's manual has no restrictions on carrying a kid as a passenger on a 2-seater, although, again, not recommended due to the airbag issue. So I decided to give her a ride last night to a skate party in San Ramon. We took Crow Canyon Road, which, like Redwood Rd, has a few dips here and there. Her seating position was actually better than mine, as I had slid her seat all the way back to the rear stops, and had a booster seat in place. I stayed at or below the speed limit, mainly because of traffic and the dips on the road. A few dips were fairly steep, cringeworthy, but I heard no scrapes, so I breathed more than a few sighs of relief.

She was apprehensive about riding in the AP1 at first, but after we got to the rink, she said it was the coolest car ever!



P.S. I remember driving hard on my lowered EJ8; it was lowered 2" in the front and only 1" in the rear, but it scraped like crazy.

 

A photographer friend of mine and I decided it was time to go and get a photo of my new S. We first went up to the top of Lake Chabot, but couldn't really find a good place there, as the sun had already set and we were losing the light fast.

We grabbed some dinner, and then drove out to TI, where we did a portrait for his Civic back in January. The place had changed a bit, as a large part of the island appears to have been fenced off. However, we were still able to find an area where we could get a nice backdrop of the Bay Bridge.



We used a 15 second exposure at f/5.6, and lit the scene with a flashlight, having him walk around the car during the 15 seconds. The only issue we encountered was the humidity in the air was causing the windshield to fog. Had I known this was going to happen, I would have brought a microfiber cloth with me. Oh well, nothing's perfect.

 

Looks gorgeous! Reminds me of mine when I picked it up. She only had 20,000 miles, if you get a chance you should come out to the concord meet tomorrow to check her out

 

Hello!

I'm from Castro Valley as well. I'll be in a NFR cruising around town. Pretty sure I've seen your s2k couple times already lol.

 

Nice, that's cool. I'll be looking out!

EDIT: There's a small chance I might make the Concord meet tomorrow. Small.