My S2000 Weekend/Track day warrior

[Toddxxx]

everything sorted for H nats?

[eskimo_firefighter]

everything sorted for H nats?

My bad, car was far from ready. Been a little occupied with other things.

Nugget Nationals organised a dyno day so I took the S2000 just for a laugh, good day out seeing nice cars and catching up with mates. I have dyno'd here before and made roughly about 120-125kw ATRW a few years back. It is a bit of a heartbreaker dyno at Weltmeister for RWD.

Results are as below.

Dyno guy was able to load the N/A run of 122KW from a few years ago into the graph. 4 runs were completed with the front hood down. Power remained consistent which is great!



Bonus pic of the S2000, despite the lack of track time it is actually still driven quite regularly. Soon the madness begins as I attempt to prepare the car for its next track outing.

[iwearmoccos]

So unassuming.

[Toddxxx]

Updates please!

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

[eskimo_firefighter]

Honed Developments Fire Extinguisher Bracket.

Fancy fire extinguisher bracket from Honed that replaces my old dodgy piece. This bracket bolts onto the front of the passenger seat. A quality piece that fits perfectly, which also enables the use of the OEM seat rail sliders
.


New Clutch Setup

The OEM clutch held the new supercharger power fine on the street and on dyno, however the previous shakedown showed that the OEM would slip after less than half a lap on the track.

I decided on the parts below.

- ACT Heavy Duty Pressure Plate + OEM AP2 Clutch disc

This pressure plate + OEM Clutch disc combo is apparently rated to hold more than 500whp according to the internet, whilst retaining similar feel to the OEM clutch with no chatter, this was a necessity for me as it is still a street car.



As the gearbox was coming out to do the clutch a few other OEM parts were hoarded to replace as many serviceable parts even if it wasn’t necessary.

- Pilot Bearing, that sits in the flywheel.
- Release Bearing
- Fly wheel bolt washer
- Clutch pressure plate bolts
- Rear Main Seal

DIY Clutch Swap at home



By far the most extensive DIY I’ve ever done on the car. The Honda Helms manual is great; it would have been close to impossible to do this without it. What made this a giant pain was a few gearbox bolts were extremely hard to reach, this required the subframe/engine assembly to be lowered a few CM’s in order to reach those bolts.
These bolts were right against the firewall with no way to reach it but to lower the engine assembly to access the bolts with a combination of many extensions and a ratchet.





Success.



Rear Main Seal Replacement.

While the gearbox was out, it was recommended to replace this even if the old one wasn’t leaking. This was a little scary to remove as scratching the surface of the block/crankshaft can cause permanent leaks. These seals are wedged on tight and required a lot of persuasion to remove. In this case, I resorted to drilling two holes into the old seal, then screwed two screws into the holes then proceeded to yank the seal out with vice grips onto the screws with A LOT of force.



Replacing the old seal requires slowly tapping the new seal that is well lubricated with a piece of wood.

Old clutch disc.

Surprisingly the old OEM clutch disc had a heap of life on it. I would say 60%+, despite doing about 55k km with quite a lot of track time.



New clutch setup installed + machined OEM AP1 Flywheel.

I had considered a lighter flywheel, but it probably wasn’t a good idea with the supercharger. Plus, it’s just cheaper to just machine the stock flywheel. Stock is about 7KG or so.



Stoptech ST-40 Big Brake Kit




The OEM brake setup I felt was approaching its limits in N/A form at the track, in addition the pad and rotor consumption was bad. Generally speaking, a set of PMU HC+ would last me about 3-4 track days. With an addition of a bunch of power this solidified my decision on purchasing a BBK.

The ST-40 kit takes into account of the OEM brake balance, by matching the piston sizes according to OE specs to maintain similar brake balance, despite the brakes being double the size of OEM caliper. The kit uses a staggered piston size setup as shown below.









The kit comes with two piece 328x28mm rotors with aluminum hats.





Stoptech pads vs OEM.

The stoptech kit uses a Porsche size pad which is readily available with many options from different brake pad manufacturers. The pad has a much larger contact area and thickness than the OEM pad.



Not a fair comparison obviously as the OEM pad is used.



ST40 Installed

The kit was easy to install. The OEM dust shield so that has to be removed. The caliper has two bleeder valves which makes the bleeding process slightly longer.



Brake Clearance with the Volk Racing CE28N 17x10+44 – Lucky to have these wheels at the front as the +45 would not clear these brakes due to the different face design.





The car is now all back together and I have driven it on the street. The clutch and brake pedal feel is solid and firm. The clutch feel is slightly stiffer than OEM which is great. First impressions so far have been excellent for both the clutch and brakes but the track is where the real test is.

[felixR]

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[eskimo_firefighter]

S2000 Wheel Alignment #1519059516

The wheel alignment was off due to dropping the front subframe and disconnecting the steering shaft to the rack.

Previously I had opted for less camber to increase straight line stability, ever since adding more power to the car the car felt a little unstable on the straights. However this compromised cornering grip. So I went back to old specs of roughly -3.0 at the rear. The car is a tiny bit squirmy but should be much more stable on the corners, which is worth the trade off in my books. Fine tuning the alignment is something I definitely want to look into more, and the best way to go about this is to learn on how to do wheel alignments myself, it's essentially free and gives me the flexibility to change the alignment on the fly whether I want to experiment a little or change it up depending on track, etc.



Toe specs were set accordingly for better front end turn in and rear in stability. Caster maxed out as usual.

Stoptech ST-40 brake test

Went for a very nice Sunday drive to bed in the brakes and clutch. Clutch is holding up well and I am going to give the car the go ahead to resume track duties.

I can confirm the brakes are awesome. The brake pedal feel is solid. It feels like I have much better control/modulation of the brakes, once again though the real test is on the track, but so far extremely promising.

[Toddxxx]

Car is looking great Peter!

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[eskimo_firefighter]

Nugget Nationals – Winton Track Day 25/10/2018

Leading up to this day, I was supposed to get a surge tank installed. Unfortunately, the supplier sent the wrong surge tank so I had to make do without it.

I had done my best to prepare as best as I could, yet I was quite nervous heading into this day with a DIY clutch job at home, new BBK and no surge tank. To avoid surge as best as I could I had filled up 3 20L jerry cans to keep the tank full at all times, ripped out the passenger seat and stored in the passenger well.

The weather was clear and in the low 20-degree range, it was PB weather but coming into this day I only wanted to shake the car out and just get the car back home safely.


Photo Credit - VJ

Back at the track – Shakedown #2

Session 1 – Finally I was able to go full throttle thanks to the ACT HD clutch. A few pulls on the straight got me excited and giddy being able to utilize all of the power felt great. The clutch feel is slightly firmer than OEM which is perfect and the gearbox was nice and smooth. Then after 1 lap of going full throttle I had lost all power..

I then coasted the car in immediately parked it and popped the bonnet to find that a boost pipe had popped out.

Didn’t take a picture of the pipe disconnected but this is what popped off for reference.



Session 2 – After a minor set back after only doing 1 full lap in the second session, I quickly checked to see if power is back, and it was indeed back. So I proceeded to go full throttle once again, then after another full lap I had lost all power again! Coasted it into the pits and looked for another loose pipe. Another one had blown off! At this point I was getting pretty over it.

Pipe for reference.


Session 3 – After driving my mates 2ZZ equipped MR-S, which was a lot of fun. I jumped into my car a little discouraged after the first two sessions of setbacks. But I persisted and finally I had a full session without any issues, and a minor PB to boot! 1:33.0

Stoptech BBK review

As this session I was able to get a good run I was able to test the brakes thoroughly. These brakes are incredible. No fade no matter how hard I pressed on them. Good modulation ability at the limit and control and the pedal and braking performance remained consistent throughout the whole session after beating on them. The pads did not offer huge initial bite but that is probably a good thing as it allowed me to modulate the brakes a bit better. With this newfound braking power and control, I found that I was definitely over braking into many corners with similar pedal strokes that I used when I was on the OE caliper setup, but with more track time and understanding of how these brakes work at the limit I should be able to adapt to these brakes quickly.


Photo Credit - VJ

Session 4 – After an awesome 3rd session, I had realised that the car never had any surging issues but a slight misfire from the spark plugs due to not having the correct heat rating and misfired once it got too hot. This was risky so I opted to only to send it for only one more hot lap for the day.

Then PB! 1:32.7540!

In a separate post I would like to do a more in depth analysis of the lap, areas of improvement and potential of the car. But the car in its current form exceeds my driving capabilities and there is plenty room of improvement for myself to drive it better as I am clearly down in cornering speed compared to when it was N/A. Despite this I was over the moon with the result considering we’re still early in the supercharged stages of this car.

In the final session I just took it out for a few fun laps, short shifting to ensure that the engine doesn’t misfire and learn the car a bit more.

Lap times for the day.
1:54.4750 1:54.5340 1:50.6910 1:36.2180 1:54.3080 1:39.0360 1:36.4440 1:35.3680 1:51.4380 1:36.0100 1:59.9140 1:34.8870 1:33.6520 1:56.1660 1:49.0770 1:33.0300 2:07.6820 1:33.6950 1:32.7540 2:18.1220 1:47.3760 1:39.8300 1:37.4990 1:39.5170 1:53.2170 1:47.0220 2:02.8270

It’s gratifying to see that all the hard work that has been put into this car paying off, it totally feels like a new car and hopefully I can bring out most of its potential and that it does remain reliable. With so much to learn and new limits to find, it should be an exciting journey.

It was a great day, thanks EXE/Nugget nationals crew for the good company and organisation of the best track days out.


Photo Credit - JQ

[felixR]

Just amazing Pete. Well done.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Just amazing Pete. Well done.

Thanks Felix!

[eskimo_firefighter]

HKS GT S/C vs N/A PB laps analysis.

As I was curious to see the quantifiable difference between the speed difference between the N/A PB (1.33) and SC PB (1.32), I over layed the lap data and both videos and combined it into one using Racerender + Racechrono.

This way I know exactly where I can improve on and where the S/C excels at. And clearly the S/C has a huge acceleration advantage.

Areas to improve on in terms of driving.
- Drive smoothly, oversteer is cool and exciting but it is slow.
- Clearly down significantly in cornering speed everywhere, especially at the sweeper where I am not confident in taking 4th as hard as I was compared to my previous N/A setup.
- Experiment with 3rd gear at the double right handers leading onto the main straight, with access to more midrange torque/power the car should carry enough momentum to still make this gear usable.
- Get on the power early, the power isn't that scary anymore. The car + tyres have the capacity to handle it.
- Modulate the new big brakes better to not overbrake the car into corners, compromising speed.

Areas worth looking into in terms of car setup.
- Engine is currently limited to 8800RPM. By increasing the limiter back to 9000RPM, I can potentially save a shift into 5th before entering the S, therefore only requiring one downshift from 4th to 3rd through the S BEND.
- Seems to be more understeer? Perhaps due to the added front weight of the S/C kit + slightly worn front tyres. Maybe look into a softer front sway or decrease damper stiffness.

Fix to misfiring engine - New sparkplugs
As the car had a slight misfire from the last track day due to suspected overheating spark plugs. I purchased new sparkplugs with a higher heat rating.

Judging by inspection of the spark plugs, the tip is slightly white which indicates that it was running quite hot. AFR's were stable through out the day so I'm confident there wasn't any situations where it leaned out.





Previously I was using NGK (7772) PFR7G-11S Laser Platinum with heat rating 7 then got them gaped to accommodate for boost and added power.

New spark plugs are the NGK Laser Iridium IX BKR8EIX which have a heat rating of 8 and were pre-gaped to 0.8mm which is suited for boosted F20C's.





Hopefully this resolves the misfire issue/ If so I should have full confidence to push myself and the car more so for the next day out.

Keen for another Winton day soon, while it's all fresh in my mind on what to do. 31's next time out I hope.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Impromptu track day

Saturday morning an entrant as part of the Track For Days Winton event had posted an EOI for his spot as he wasn’t able to make it due to car issues. This was 7:30AM on the track day. There were a few things going against me this time around.

- Rear brake pads were dangerously low – roughly 3mm left.
- No time do the standard check over of the car.
- No tools or track parts such as the wing was on.

Despite this, I offered to take his spot. I had been extremely keen to head back asap as a result of the last track day, as I knew what I needed to improve on as a driver after analyzing the data and video. With the new colder spark plugs installed, there should be no reason for me to hesitate on the throttle anymore as the misfiring issue should no longer occur.

By 8:00am, I had installed the wing, checked the oil, pumped up the tyre pressures, packed food/drinks and filled the three jerry cans full of petrol to survive the day as I still need to run the car full of petrol to avoid fuel starvation.



03/11/2018 – Winton – Track for days.



Arrived at the track around 10am, weather was looking to be on the warmer side of things. Roughly 24 degrees, still PB weather.

However, in the parking bay a mate pointed out there seems to be a leak between the brake master cylinder and booster…. The brakes are working perfectly and it seems to be a very common issue with the S2000, with old age and abuse. Kept a close eye on it and proceeded anyway, haha.

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Leaking brake fluid had started to eat into the paint of the brake booster.

By utlising the notes I took from the past track day I was hopeful that a PB would be a result of it.

With a little tweaking of the tyre pressures and damper settings by softening the front and stiffening the rear dampers to promote better turn in based on the handling of the car from the last track day.


Photo Credit: Track for Days Media

I had pushed the car a lot harder than the previous track day especially through the sweeper, according to the data I was now going through it faster than when the car was N/A!

Another change made to the driving, on the main straight where I was shifting into 5th and having to downshift twice for the S bend, I had now left it in 4th to avoid the upshift. This required a slight limiter bash + lift into the S which isn’t ideal, there are a few workarounds to this. The current redline is 8800RPM.

Then on the 18th lap of the day everything was pieced together and a 1:31.97 popped up!!

Very satisfied with the laptime. Right now I feel like a 31 in its current form is as good as it gets for me, the optimal is a 1:31.6. The Kumho V70A’s are approaching its limit. But there is always improvements to be made. A cooler day would help too.



We are now entering the sweeper over 150KPH. It was scary fun.

The Tein monoflex after 5 years of ownership I feel are starting be slightly inadequate as I think the suspension could benefit for slightly stiffer rates to cancel out some of the front end understeer under compression This is noticeable at the second half of the sweeper. More adjustability would be nice as the dampers are almost maxed out.

The potential is unreal with this car, were still early in the development of the S/C setup.

What I have in store to better this car for the next Winton outing sometime next year.
- Surge tank, ability to run 30KG+ less weight and run E85 without any risk of fuel starvation.
- Flex Fuel Sensor for E85. Potentially bump the power up from 235RWKW to 250KW+. The engine should also run cooler, lower temperatures all round.
- Raising the limiter back to 9000RPM from 8800RPM! Improving my gearing issue potentially for the main straight. Skeptical about this as 200RPM in the scheme of things probably won’t change much.
- More GRIP. A050 softs or Hoosiers.
- Somehow decrease more weight from the car
- Improve engine bay cooling. On the PB lap towards the end of the lap the engine lowered the limiter to 8600. The Elite ECU had set this as coolant temps were increasing, this is a great safety feature that CMSPerformance put in place to avoid my carelessness from nuking the motor.
- Look into better front end aero.

Next year will be exciting, but this year’s track season is not over just yet, there is one more track I plan on attending before the end of year.

Preparations are underway for the next event in a few weeks, but it’s not looking so promising.

No rear brakes. Pads have totally disintegrated. Here’s a chunk of it. New rotors + pads required.



Clutch master cylinder is leaking also. This needs to be replaced or I may lose all functionality of the clutch.



And of course the Brake master cylinder needs to be addressed.

Thanks to the Track For Days crew for organising the day and to the stranger I’ve never met for giving me a last minute spot for the day.

Fun times.

[iwearmoccos]

This is excellent progress in the world of SC Nguyen!!
Well done Pete! I'm excited for the future.
Hoosier A7s are fast, though I'm unsure of their current length of life.
It is also incredible how many rocks they pick up driving around the pits, definitely not a tyre you can sneak up to the track on!

[eskimo_firefighter]

This is excellent progress in the world of SC Nguyen!!
Well done Pete! I'm excited for the future.
Hoosier A7s are fast, though I'm unsure of their current length of life.
It is also incredible how many rocks they pick up driving around the pits, definitely not a tyre you can sneak up to the track on!

Thank you Rhys. I am also excited for 2019, this car is really fun.

Hoosiers will probably be put on hold for a while, I've yet to purchase a brand new set of high grade semi slicks, I believe this will really speed things up. Did someone say A050's?

Once that is maximised, then Hoosiers should be under consideration. I am aware of their lack of ability to drive on the street, so the dream is to somehow devise something to bring another set of wheels with the S2000.