My S2000 Weekend/Track day warrior

[eskimo_firefighter]

CMS Performance Tune #2 - Flex Fuel 98/E85 tune.

Once again back at CMS Performance for the tune. This time a flex fuel tune to enable me to run E85 and 98, to back home from the track.

Packed 60L worth of United E85 for the tune.



Went to CMS peformance with about 1/4 worth of 98 still left in the tank. First a base run was made and it made a similar power figure to what it was dyno'd at before. Then Shane tuned a few different blends of Ethanol mixtures such as E20, E40, E60, etc.

On 98 it made 235kw.

In the end we ended up with a final figure of 272KW ATW, a 37kw gain over the 98 tune. Which totally surpassed our expectations.

Seems like the 98 tune was quite knock limited and the ethanol allowed a lot more timing which pretty much moved the entire graph upwards. More power everywhere essentially.



I had also advised Shane to kick things up a notch by increasing the rev limiter from 8800RPM to 9000RPM. This didn't increase power but it will help at the track with gearing.

A huge gain from a fuel change, no changes to boost with roughly around 10ish PSI as the HKS kit is rated at. Gains are all entirely thanks to by playing with the timing.

We will finalise the tune some time soon, as right now this figure is based of an E60 mixture. However was advised that beyond this mixture we should not see much gains as it seems like were nearing its limits on this mixture, but we shall see about that soon enough as I cycle more ethanol in the tank to increase its ethanol rating.



Huge thanks to CMS Peformance for the work on this car again!

All I can say is the car is fast, and I am looking forward to driving this thing on the track again!

More changes to come soon in conjunction with this power increase which should speed things up considerably.

[Toddxxx]

Excellent stuff Peter! Keen to see the impressions on the eibach away bar. If the doesn't work out I'd like to test it out also haha

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[eskimo_firefighter]

Brand New Tyres Finally! Dunlop Direzza DZ03G M5.



After many years of buying used and crusty old tyres on clearance sale. I was given a fantastic opportunity to run a set of Direzza DZ03G’s sponsored by a mate at Dunlop. These are not just any DZ03G’s, this is the M5 compound which is a relatively new compound offered by Dunlop which sits between their soft and medium compound, which is perfect for time attack and hill climbs. This is Dunlop’s equivalent to the ever popular Yokohama Advan A050.



I’m excited to see what the difference is between a fresh set of semis and the 7 year old Kumho V70A’s I’ve been using for the past two years.




Continuation of the S2000's ethanol tune.

The initial tune was done on E60, I had used up the remainder of the tank in the lead up to this tune and refilled it with E85. The highest ethanol content I was able to get was E79. E85 from the pump is not as pure as advertised. Ethanol % content can be viewed via the Haltech CAN display gauge or the laptop connected to the ECU.

Judging from other people’s experience, E80-E82 is as good as it gets from the United E85 pump.

Car on the DYNO.



After a few runs on the dyno, CMS did a quick gauge on the cars tune on the E80 content then a a small issue appeared. The fuel pump was struggling slightly to deliver the required fuel as it was slightly leaning itself out at higher RPM. With that in mind, we had to change to a higher flowing pump.

I borrowed a mate’s car (thanks Kev), went to the local shop to pick up a new Walbro 460 fuel pump.

Out comes the old DW200 (255LPH) and in the Walbro 460, thanks Shane for wiring and installing the fuel pump in the carrier. (No pics, poor form.)

Tuning continues, AFR are stable and the tuning continues.

With less than hour on the dyno, the S2000 did not pick up any more power and seemingly maxed out with the previous E60 tune. Today it made 273.5KW, virtually the same as the initial 272kw tune.





The ignition timing was basically already maxed out with 6-7 degrees worth of advancement, adding more did not yield much gain at all.

The important thing is that the flex fuel setup is fully complete, with the mixtures and fuel system all good to go. The engine is given the green light for some laps in anger.

With the injectors at 84% max duty cycle, the injectors are near maxed out so this is as good as it gets as far


Spoon front inner Compliance Bushings.

The previous Winton track day had me complaining about front end understeer and slop. After a recent checkup of the suspensions health I had found that the main front LCA compliance bushing was shot.



I ordered some Spoon Bushings. It is a lot stiffer than the OEM counterpart as the insert is fully filled with hardened rubber, where as the OEM had holes and softer rubber for more compliance.

I removed the arm by unbolting the RCA/camber adjuster, caster bolt, camber bolt and sway bar endlink bolt. Went to a friend’s place to press in the new bushings. Reinstall in
reverse order.

Arm out with original bushings. Hard to see from the photo but the inner collar were hanging onto the soft rubber by a thread.



Spoon bushings pressed in.


I had marked the camber and caster bolts with texta to ensure when reinstalled the bolts go in the same orientation as before to retain a straight alignment.

Test drive after install.

Massive difference, the front end seems to have less roll, more feedback and more responsive. With the bushings replaced the front end should maintain its alignment better at the limit, therefore hopefully adding more front end grip and is more forgiving on the tyres as there is less deflection within the suspension.


Fuel Surge Plate

Initially wanted to go with a Surge Tank Setup, however I wanted to avoid this as this is still a street car and for safety reasons I wanted to minimise adding this massive failure point within the car. I opted for this anti fuel surge baffle plate from the U.K.



The concept is simple, the plate is placed on top of the fuel pot, it is secured using tabs on the plate which are bent over the fuel pot.

OEM Fuel Pot within the fuel tank with no baffling.


It contains the fuel slosh to be kept within the vicinity of the fuel pick up point in the fuel pot
under high G cornering, particularly left hand corners which usually causes the fuel pick up point to be starved, even for Naturally asiprated S2000's this is an issue. This issue is far worse with boost, with a much higher fuel demand than before the risk of starvation is greater.

Baffle installed within the tank.
[/url]


TLDR - Summary of all the changes over the past 4-5 months.


Power gains
98octane (235kw) --> E85 (273.5kw) - 38.5 RWKW gain

Weight Reduction
SSB Lithium battery - 7kg weight reduction.
Fuel Surge Plate - Potentially 20-30L reduction in fuel if the plate does its job properly.
Eibach Sway Bar - 4kg reduction.

Estimated 31kg-41kg in weight reduction.

Handling/Braking Upgrade
- Spoon Inner compliance bushings for front LCA. – Significantly providing a lot of added front end stiffness.
- Eibach Sway Bar
- New winmax W5 brake pads front and rear with new RDA rear blank rotors – Far better bite over the Stoptech Sport pads that came with the ST-40 kit.
- Brand New Dunlop DZ03G M5 2016 spec, replacing the 2012 Kumho V70A's.

More power, Less Weight, More grip, Better braking power, Better Handling. Every performance aspect of the car has been improved.

It’s all up to the driver now.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Track Prep

With the bushings installed I required a wheel alignment as despite marking all the alignment bolts with a texta, the camber still appeared to be off.

Tyrepower Reservoir Wheel Alignment + Dunlop tyre install.

As always Ray is my go to guy for wheel alignment. I request a spec and he aligns it perfectly as requested. The specs are as below.



Trying a little bit more camber than usual, I think the extra camber would help as the geometry isn’t all over the place now thanks to the new Spoon compliance bushings.
Toe out front for nice turn in response and toe in rear for a bit of rear end stability. Max caster as usual.
This is what -3.7 looks like with the new Dunlop DZ03G’s mounted. These are a chunky wide tyre compared to what I’m used to.



New Sparco raceboots, the Monza GP. This is my first pair of raceboots which provides a lot of feedback with the pedal feel and flexibility.



This would be my first track day with the E85 setup, so I loaded the car with 80L of E85. I was aware that E85 would burn around 30% more so I had to cater for that. I filled the tank full with E85 which roughly holds around 45L. The plan was to drive up to Winton on E85, use up all the jerry cans with E85 if necessary on the track and fill up on 98 to drive the car back home. The flexibility of the flex fuel sensor ensures no matter what the car will be able to make it home.



For a few months since getting this Haltech Can gauge, I finally got around to getting a gauge pod and installed it in the location below. It doesn’t block the speedo for me and it allows me to still see the temps in my peripherals, allowing me to focus on the driving.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Winton Nugget Nationals 2019 RD.1 – 31/03/2018

It’s been a while since attending a Winton track, almost 6 months. There was a lot of anticipation as there were many small changes done to the car in the past 5 months of which I thought would really pay dividends if it all came together.



Session 1 – As usually first session should be treated as a warm up session to get accustomed to the track conditions and in my case get used to so many changes. However I started to push the car in the fourth lap of the session I was loving how the car was feeling and got carried away slightly…. PB 1:30.4940!!!!!

Straight off the bat wiped off 1.5 seconds from the PB! The car was feeling fantastic.

Session 1 - 2:12.5640 2:04.6800 1:38.9240 1:31.5340 1:30.4940

Feeling great from the first session I was confident that there was definitely a 29 in the car. Warm up lap followed by a hot lap, NEW PB 1:29.6930!! Long term goal achieved with the car. Anything here on out is a massive bonus. At this point I was already stoked, it’s still early in the day but let’s keep pushing as I know there is more in it.



Session 2 - 2:12.1770 1:29.6930 1:33.1090 2:04.2880

As the 29 goal has been set, I started to experiment a little with gearing.

Gearing.

Due to the extra midrange power from the E85, new found grip from the Dunlop DZ03G’s I felt like I was able to use a higher gear in some sections. The last left hander at the M section and the right hander entering the main straight. Previously I would stick to 2nd but now I am able to use 3rd! With that in mind another PB of 1:29.4620 with traffic!! At this point I knew the car had a 28 in it.

Session 3 - 1:49.7820 1:31.4980 1:29.4620 2:04.4030 2:03.5670

Carrying over from what I’ve learned in session 3. I pushed and without any traffic this time, another PB of 1:29.1200 popped up!!!! So close.

Session 4 - 2:02.1350 1:29.6970 1:58.6890 1:29.1200 1:52.3140


With lowering the tyre pressures to 29 hot, I went out in session 4 with a lot of aggression in my driving. And then…….. NEW PB 1:28.7930!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Session 5 - 2:11.7040 1:28.7930 1:28.8480 1:58.6120 2:01.2290

The last few laps of the day were just fun laps with the roof down. More than satisfied with the results.

1:50.7950 1:38.2750 1:37.1960 1:56.4390

The second lap the car had snapped out on me at the end of the M/Boobs section which costed me about 0.4. If that didn’t happen it could have been a 28.3 or so….

Despite that I am absolutely over the moon. The initial goal since supercharging this car of a 1:29.XXX has been smashed. A 28 was never a consideration but somehow this car has done it. A lot of work and analysis has been done in the past few months to get the car to this point. These small changes in conjunction has totally transformed the car to the point of chopping off -3.2 seconds off its previous PB of 1:31.97.

Review of all the changes done to the car.

E85 Tune – The power gains were awesome, the stats and graph shows the acceleration difference, in addition to that the engine is more responsive and ran much cooler. The car not once overheated with water temps skyrocketing, previously on the 98 tune it would overheat ¾ way of a hot lap. The extra power also made it more challenging to power out in the corners, over applying the throttle will cause the rear end to slip and lose time. A lot more finesse is required now to keep this car on the track.

Comparison on Racechrono between the 1:31.97 and the new PB of 1:28.79 in speed.



Dunlop DZ03G – The tyres worked from the get go providing ridiculous amount of grip to match with the new found power. When the tyres were approaching the limit it provided a lot of feedback with its stiff sidewalls which allowed me to correct it with steering and throttle inputs quite nicely. The tyres were extremely consistent all day long and never shot off entirely despite the abuse it had received. With a lot of tyre data mined from today, the tyres like to be at 29-30PSI hot, which is roughly around 22-23PSI cold. Never did these tyres snap out on me. To prove the tyres consistency in grip, the PB of 1:28 was also followed by another 1:28 lap.



New bushings + Eibach Sway bar + lightweight battery – As predicted the front end turn in has improved, with less weight at the front axle and a softer front sway bar compared to the previous white line sway bar allowed the front end to grip better with less roll stiffness, initial turn in is neutral with a hint of understeer which allowed me to still enter corners with a bit of aggression. Once corner entry phase was done, planting the throttle allows me to rotate the rear at easy and point it at the right direction for full throttle acceleration out of the corner and onto the straights. The new bushings removed a lot of the sloppiness from the front end which improved feedback and steering response.

The Winmax W5’s front and rear - Performed flawlessly all day long. With a lot of bite, it allowed me to confidently brake into the corner, a lot of feedback and consistency with these pads which the Stoptechs did not offer with its lack of initial bite required for track work.

The fuel surge plate enabled me to run less than half a tank of fuel without starvation. This gave me the confidence to push the car hard in corners where it would previously surge. With less weight on board it contributed to the better cornering and acceleration speeds.



To achieve that goal set when I had supercharged the car took a lot of patience, research, trial and error but along the journey I had learned more than I ever thought. We’re still very early into the supercharged stage of this car. 9 months ago it attended its first track day in supercharged form with a slipping clutch with a laptime of 1:36. Then a few months later a 1:32, then a 1:31. Now a 1:28 A lot of progress has been made in a relatively short time and I believe there is more to be shaved off.

This has been the best track day I’ve ever attended so far and that is saying something.
Huge thanks to Lok from Dunlop for supplying the tyres, CMS for the support and work on the tuning, Nugget nationals crew and friends for being awesome to hang out with as usual.

Driving has never been more enjoyable.

[air23box]

Wow awesome time. it was total 10 sec ahead of my pb 9 years ago. great job well done bro~!

[Toddxxx]

Awesome stuff Pete!
Time to start aiming towards a 25.x now!

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[eskimo_firefighter]

Wow awesome time. it was total 10 sec ahead of my pb 9 years ago. great job well done bro~!

Thanks mate, this car has definitely come a long way! First track day 5 years ago it did a 1:43! You should get back out there!

Awesome stuff Pete!
Time to start aiming towards a 25.x now!

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Haha, thanks Todd. 1:25.X is probably a bit too ambitious, haha.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Spare F20C motor with damaged internals.

I purchased a spare broken F20C motor off a friend. Not much is known with it butfor the price I figured it was worth the risk. There's no holes in the block or any notable damage from the exterior of the engine.



I went into opening the engine with the strong likelihood that the engine was beyond repair, if the motor was in decent enough condition to be rebuilt, then it would be a huge plus otherwise it would just be a fun learning experience.

Engine on the stand.



Removed valve cover. Head looks good. No bent valves or anything out of the ordinary.



First I removed the oil pan, inspected the oil and found some copper. Copper usually comes from bearing material from the crank/conrods.





Removed the OEM girdle/baffle plate. Gained access to the conrod caps and it seemed to have a bit of play.



Removed the head.





Block exposed. Nothing out of the ordinary, pistons had a lot of carbon build up but no pitting. Cylinder walls look smooth with no scoring.



Removed the bottom block girdle, that holds the main crank bearings in place. This was a tough one to remove.

[/url]

Engine fully disassembled.



Main bearings looks good.



Conrod bearings not so much. All looks like it has overheated and conrod #2 has copper material shearing off it, indicating it overheated and then eventually spun the bearing, almost certainly causing knocking noises. Seems like the owner shut off the motor immediately as the engine overall is still in relatively decent condition. #1 piston being the front of the engine and #4 being the rear of the engine.





Crank seems to be in reasonable condition. Will need to be measured to see if it’s within spec. No serious damage to the crank, there are no deep scratches on the journals.





Cleaned the pistons rid of the carbon build up. Will weigh these up to see how balanced they are from factory and after use.



Piston rings were still in one piece. These will be replaced.



Overall seems to be in great condition. If all measurements are within spec, cylinder walls will be honed, crankshaft machined, main bearings and conrod bearings replaced, few seals and headgasket, headbolts and probably a few others I haven’t listed will also need to be replaced.

If all goes well this will be kept as a spare motor.

Also I am totally winging this with the Honda manual with self-learning and internet resources.

[wpg81]

I have watched this car grow and grow! It has been great to see, also awesome to see you trying to expand you skills and knowledge more and more. Honda's and boost really work well when tuned well. Nice score with the engine just make shore the oil passages in the crank are cleaned and checked twice!

Congrats on the car and I look forward to see future mods, maybe built motor and more boost or even come over to the dark side of turbo!��

[eskimo_firefighter]

I have watched this car grow and grow! It has been great to see, also awesome to see you trying to expand you skills and knowledge more and more. Honda's and boost really work well when tuned well. Nice score with the engine just make shore the oil passages in the crank are cleaned and checked twice!

Congrats on the car and I look forward to see future mods, maybe built motor and more boost or even come over to the dark side of turbo!��

Thanks for following mate! I just love to expand on my knowledge and skills where I can. Thanks for the tip, I plan on being quite pedantic with the engine build, ensuring that clearances, torque specs and everything else is checked thoroughly.

Might sound like a bit of deja vu, but I don't plan on doing much else to the car, haha (early in this blog, I had stated I'd stay N/A is best forever)! I am quite content with the cars capabilities, reliability and potential right now so I wouldn't want to go down the costly and risky road of building a motor with a turbo setup!

The money can be better spent on another project that I would love to have a crack at. Something mid-ship RWD.

The main thing that I am focusing on for 2019 is just maximum fun track time!

SMSP, Wakefield, Phillip Island, The bend, Broadford and Sandown are on the cards.

[wpg81]

"Might sound like a bit of deja vu, but I don't plan on doing much else to the car, haha (early in this blog, I had stated I'd stay N/A is best forever)! I am quite content with the cars capabilities, reliability and potential right now so I wouldn't want to go down the costly and risky road of building a motor with a turbo setup!"
Lol I remember saying this so many years ago!
"The money can be better spent on another project that I would love to have a crack at. Something mid-ship RWD."
Even funnier is that what I am doing now. Keep at it its a great read!

[eskimo_firefighter]

"Might sound like a bit of deja vu, but I don't plan on doing much else to the car, haha (early in this blog, I had stated I'd stay N/A is best forever)! I am quite content with the cars capabilities, reliability and potential right now so I wouldn't want to go down the costly and risky road of building a motor with a turbo setup!"
Lol I remember saying this so many years ago!
"The money can be better spent on another project that I would love to have a crack at. Something mid-ship RWD."
Even funnier is that what I am doing now. Keep at it its a great read!

Haha, thanks mate. I will definitely do my best to keep this blog updated.

Yes, the engine placed in middle is where the party is at. Love the challenge that these midship cars can provide.

White bumper painted New'ish Formula Red.

The S2000’s rear bumper has remained white ever since the track day last year where the OEM red one burned/melted. Its been almost 6 months since I’ve kept it white, with a long weekend it was time to get the bumper painted. DIY style at home.



Being the cheapskate I am, the paint on the car overall isn’t flash to say the least so I thought I would give it a crack as getting it painted at a shop was about $400-$550.
I purchased some sandpaper, primer, red new formula red (R-510) basecoat from Supercheapauto and a clear coat.



Total was about $55 thanks to the 20% off SCA sale.

Procedure as below.

1. Cleaned and sanded the bumper.
2. Taped the bottom black valance section.
3. Primed it 3 coats, letting it dry between each coat, sanded it more if there were any drips.
4. 3 Base coats.
5. 3 clear coats.
6. Cut and polished the rear bumper.


Results are as below. It’s acceptable from afar, at least its red. Up close it isn’t so flash, the clear coat isn’t great and hasn’t given it that shine as I would have liked. The paint match was quite close surprisingly. If I were to do this again I believe I could do a much better job.



Lessons learned from this DIY.

1. Take your time.
2. Don’t cheap out on the Primer, ensure no drips occur next time by spraying the can upside down until only the gas comes out. This decreases the chances of blobs from occurring.
3. Buy a better acrylic clear coat. Spray as many coats of this as possible.

The bumper had to be painted as my next track adventure will probably be the biggest one yet. It involves an a few interstate track days in a short time frame.

This was so not worth the effort – Smashing rear sound deadening.

I had purchased some dry ice that made this job quite easy. Then used a chisel and a hammer to bash out the sound deadening then used a bit of thinner to clean out the residue glue that holds the sound deadening in place. Saved a bit of weight, didn’t weigh it. I don’t even want to know at this point, hahaha.

[stienerv2]

Should have left the sound deadening for the road trip lol

[eskimo_firefighter]

18/05/2019 – Haunted Hills – Nugget Nationals Round 2.

Haunted hills is a very challenging hill climb track that has very small margin for mistakes. A slight off here can mean big damage, the daily Renault Clio was meant to be the car of choice. However, I made a late call to send the S2000 with a very promising weather forecast of 19C and Sunny.





It was my first time driving the S2000 around this track. This small hill climb track has it all, blind crests, elevation changes, tight and sweeping corners that takes no prisoners if a mistake is made. In addition to this, there are no warm up laps so you had to drive on cold tyres for the first section of the lap, which made it even more dangerous.

All of this adds to the thrill of driving.

I had told myself to not get carried away with chipping away at lap times, this wore off quickly. By the second session after getting the hang of the track and was quite surprised that the car is quite manageable. This made me happy as it seems the overall package is nearly where I wanted it to be.

Notes taken from this hill climb day.

• Run slightly higher pressures than the usual track day. It’s very difficult to get heat in the tyres. 26PSI cold worked well.
• Oversteer is slow, try overwork the front tyres to get the car to understeer on corner entry, and power out as early as you can. Don’t be afraid of a bit of oversteer though.
• Short shifting into third in some sections is required, staying in 2nd limits precious acceleration time. Midrange of third has enough power/torque to keep pulling the car through.

The car ended up doing a laptime of 58.79 on the Figure 8 course. A time I was pretty proud of as it’s not too far off the class record. It was a very enjoyable day.

All photo’s courtesy of Swainvisuals. Follow his Instagram on https://www.instagram.com/swainvisuals