Northbay

Hey guys, just rebooting my 15 year old account with a new build thread, because after many years, I own an s2000 again. I've had a couple previously, but at periods of my life where I was either fresh out of college (with an irresponsible car payment) or in the midst of a career transition - the common denominator being a lack of money at both times, obviously.

So, onto the car that will be the subject of this thread. This is my 2001, which was previously owned by my brother, who is responsible for some pretty nice parts having already been installed. He purchased it from the original owner with 90k miles 5 years ago, and it included the OEM hardtop. We ended up swapping cars, with me giving him my e90 m3. During his ownership, he frequently tracked the car, and it was modified with that goal in mind.




Some details and highlights, at the time that I took over care for the car:
-101k miles
-JRZ RS Pro coilovers
-Blacktrax/Kingpin complete bushing package (a note about these: you'd be very surprised at the lack of NVH they cause, or at least I was)
-AP2 rear subframe swap, AP2 rear UCAs
-SBG Wilwood "Track Day" front BBK
-SBG "Competition" rear brake kit (utilizing RX8 calipers + Mustang rotors)
-SBG oil cooler
-Recaro Pole Position seats on PCI mounting hardware
-Hard Dog double diagonal rollbar with retained/trimmed interior plastics

In addition to those, there were a number of smaller items, including upgraded oil banjo bolts/sprayers, AP2 retainers, Billman TCT, Spoon rigid collars, EVS diff collar, Hardrace engine and trans mounts, a rebuilt OEM shifter, and more.

My plans for the car:

While I've done a number of track days in other cars, it's not a bug that's ever really bitten me. I might take the car out to a few events (especially as we're in the process of relocating from Portland back down to Northern California and I'll have access to a lot of interesting places), but primarily, this will be a street driven car that I modify to my aesthetic taste. I'll be removing and keeping some things already installed on the car for potential future use, but mostly I'll be building on what's already here, since I do not find the car to be uncomfortable or overly compromised in its current state.

I'm glad to be back!

saving4one

Welcome back, by saying Northern California, would that be anywhere around Mt. Shasta? Great roads in that area for sure!
But realistically, California has so many great roads...

Northbay

No, although I agree that that's a nice area. I'll be moving my family back home to the Sonoma/Napa area.

noodels

Some nice bits on the car

Northbay

When my brother and I finalized plans to swap cars, I did make one advance purchase. I called Matt at ICB and got a set of Regamasters in 17x9.5 +50 on order. This is the fitment designed for BBK clearance. They'd been sitting in the garage for a few days before the car got here, and then they sat next to each other for a few weeks thereafter.



I then got a set of 245 width RS4s on order and had them mounted up. I was on the fence between 245s and 255s (like most people, probably). I was worried about how much negative camber I could get.

The car has the aformentioned Blacktrax sphericals in every location, including the front UCAs, and they're tack welded in. After exchanging some messages with @Feezy on IG, I ordered an extra set of OEM front UCAs with the plan to run offset bushings in them, while retaining the ability to swap back to the arms with sphericals in them if I do decide to start doing track days again.

The car already had Hardrace offset balljoints without the roll center shims on them in the front, so I decided to set a slightly lower ride height and chuck the wheels and tires on to see where we sat. In the end, the car achieved 3.1/3.4 degrees of negative camber L/R and in retrospect, I could've easily fit 255s. I plan to do so in the future. I may also still go the offset bushings route, but for now, this seems fine.



Oh, and then I had to install the wheel decals, which I suck at.

Northbay

Continuing on to catching this up to where the car is now, I removed the HKS dual exhaust that was on the car:



All of the exhausts that exist for this car have been talked about to death, but the HKS is pretty nice, all things considered. The drone with an HFC was more or less non-existant, and it looks good, with the exception of the second resonator (which was painted black with hi temp paint for that reason).

I decided to waste money on hotboi parts though, so this was removed in favor of a a used Toda exhaust that I found on FB marketplace and had shipped to me from the east coast. I had opened the box and briefly looked at it, thinking everything was good, except when I pulled the driver side muffler out of the bottom of the box this is what I found:



I immediately removed this and went back to the HKS, as there's no way I could live with a muffler that looked like that. After selling it for a big fat loss, I found a Spoon n1 locally that I could see in person before purchasing. Everything was great, so I grabbed it:




Looks great, needs a bumper cap. With an HFC, the single doesn't drone in a way that I find unacceptable, and it's genuinely not that loud, especially compared to some exhausts I've owned previously.

.Boston.

Saw this thing listed up for sale on the FB track page...
Super nice car but short lived build thread lol.

Northbay

Idk, I think its probably staying, haha.

Carbon Blue

Looks great! Does this wheel have a lot of clearance to clear the caliper? I’m curious if it’ll clear my stoptech trophy’s with a 328mm rotor

RicerRabbit

I had fond memories of tracking my old S2000 at THill, Sonoma, Laguna Seca, and even down at Buttonwillow. I also had great memories driving the S2000 top down at the various mountain roads in NorCal.

I'm in an EVO VIII right now and am currently enjoying it, but there are some aspects of the S2000 that I do miss and I do see myself in another S2000 someday.

I do like the Portland area in the few times I've been there. Great food and outdoors.