My S2000 Weekend/Track day warrior

[eskimo_firefighter]

Car Prep and maintenance.

Previous update had me discovering a leaky brake/clutch master cylinder and totally destroying my rear brake pads.

A mate had a wrecked S2000 with fresh looking master cylinders and offered me to swipe them, and so I did. Cheers!

Leaky Clutch Master Cylinder – 159K KM

Truthfully this is due to my negligence of not regularly changing the clutch fluid.



Fresher Clutch Master Cylinder

No leak, with a sludge of grease behind the cylinder. Install was straight forward, bolt in and bleed the clutch line with ATE Superblue fluid.



Brake Master Cylinder Replacement.

Old one was removed and clearly has signs of internal leakage with corrosion occurring on the BMC and booster.





Fresher BMC with no sign of leakage.



As my booster was quite corroded, I opted to take the booster also from my mates wreck. Thanks again!

Here is the replaced BMC and booster. Bled the whole brake system again with ATE Blue fluid.



Suspension Inspection.

Last track day I was complaining of some front end push at Winton, particular at the sweeper. As I thought the suspension was maxed out under compression. The remedy was to look into upgrading the spring rates. Bit of a band-aid fix.



I then made the discovery that the spring rates on the Tein Monoflex set I have were actually 12/10kg according to the spring part number. Not 10-8kg as I was advised by the previous owner 5 years ago, haha. I measured the spring length anyway just in case that I wanted to purchase new springs and inspected and cleaned the coil over.



I then made another discovery that the front lower control arm bushings were totally ruined, particularly the front compliance bushing, which may explain the front end slop. A deteriorated bushing definitely has a big influence on the wheel alignment which is possibly causing accelerated front tyre wear and the front end push. Replacing this is a good idea.



The front tyres were showing accelerated inner wear, which is odd as I’ve been running these alignment specs for a long time and I’ve never seen camber wear like this. I opted to get the tyres flipped to maximise these tyres life.



Rear brake pads were pretty much dead and on the backing plate. These were replaced with PMU B-Specs, which were my spares I had laying around.



Haltech CAN Art Gauge.

Finally I have a method of viewing my temperatures of some of the cars vitals. I liked this gauge as it is low key and it is the one gauge to view it all, it enables me to view every parameter from the ECU. IAT, water, oil, knock, boost, injector duty, etc. It is configurable via a phone app and displays 4 parameters at a time with the ability to configure over 8 different pages of data.



I haven’t bothered to properly mount it yet as it was getting close to a track day I wanted to attend. So I opted for the trusty Repco duct tape. Solid job.



Questionable modifications to the S2000 - JDM Rear crash bar – Weight Reduction.

Replaced the rear crash bar with the JDM version. JDM = 1.8KG, AUDM = 5.4KG







3CLab Carbon Cooling Plate

It looks cool, it covers the gaping hole at the front while supposedly providing better airflow to the radiator.



With everything completed, it is ready for another track day. Next stop Phillip Island GP Circuit.

[icebox]

Amazing setup so far!

Im curious to find out where you manage to find the Amuse bumper from? been searching everywhere but no luck

[eskimo_firefighter]

Amazing setup so far!

Im curious to find out where you manage to find the Amuse bumper from? been searching everywhere but no luck

Cheers!

It's a replica, I bought it off a mate that imported a few of these in many years ago, he doesn't import them in anymore unfortunately.

[mlracing]

Amazing setup so far!

Im curious to find out where you manage to find the Amuse bumper from? been searching everywhere but no luck

If you're interested in a genuine one we (Moonlight Racing) can supply that ex-Japan

[eskimo_firefighter]

PIARC Sprints - Phillip Island Track Day – 18/11/2018

It had been two years since the last visit to Phillip Island. Not sure why I don’t visit this track more often as it’s quite a exhilarating track to drive on, with high sweeping corners, elevation changes and a smooth grippy surface. It is really a world class track.

The last PB this car has achieved in N/A form was a 1:48.2466 set back on the 26th of June 2016!

Significant changes to the car has been made since then obviously, with a bunch more power with the addition of a supercharger.

Weather forecast was looking great with a top of 24 degrees or so.

The morning drive.

The standard morning drive was nice and peaceful, up until 5 minutes away from the track the electronics started to play up on me. EPS light came on, then the ABS light came on, then all the lights on the dash started to dim. I had stopped over to the closest petrol station then the car completely shut off on me.

The alternator had failed on me, was quite disappointed but after so many years of driving this car to and back from the track, should I really be complaining at all?

Probably not.



To confirm if it was the alternator or not I had called up a mate that was attending the same track day to bring a multimeter and a battery pack. Charged up the battery slightly and it started up fine, multimeter shows 7V which is means the alternator is not charging the battery as suspected.

At this point I was pretty certain it was time to call the tow truck, then my mate Jono discovered that the alternator cable was kind of loose. He tightened it then checked the voltage… 14V!!!! Car is fine, all good, time to track. My fault for not tightening that nut enough when doing the clutch install, haha. Simple fix and mistake so no big deal.

Big thanks to Jono for rescuing me and bringing the required tools to get me going!!

With the car working as required it was time to continue on with the track day.

Supercharged PI track time #1

Being 2 years since driving this track, I had to take it easy in the first few sessions or so. It was a bit daunting driving a high speed track like this with a huge power increase for the first time.

Despite that, the first few sessions were quite frustrating for me. Getting clear traffic at a huge track like this is more difficult than it seems. A huge laptime variance of cars in the groupings made it almost impossible to get a clear run.



The power increase felt amazing as expected at a track like this. The car is definitely more of a handful to drive at high speed with a lot of steering and throttle input correction required to keep it in check. This made it a lot more engaging and fun to drive which I was excited about. I knew the car had insane potential here, it was just the matter of getting it all linked up.

First three sessions with no clear runs, the laptimes were not reflecting the cars potential. Despite that a huge amount of fun was had.

2:31.8154 2:12.1067 2:09.4206 1:51.8964 2:26.8099 1:57.2391 2:17.4138 1:51.5898 2:22.1242 2:38.1514 1:54.4154 1:51.6155 2:20.8273

Fourth session as more people started to leave for the day, the traffic eased up a bit which got me a PB, still wasn’t a clear run!

2:16.7532 1:48.6640 1:47.8545 2:11.2110 1:58.7919

Fifth and final session, another PB! Still not a clear run as a car had compromised me coming up to lukey heights.

2:44.0440 2:20.8506 1:47.2645 2:10.8192 2:01.5094

Coming into the pits, excited for another session a track marshal approached me that my bumper was loose and damaged. I said, oh thanks. I’ll fix her right up with some tape. He then advised me you’re going to need more than that…



The bumper had come off and landed on the exhaust and completely melted the rear bar. Wouldn’t be surprised if the bumper caught fire a little as it got too hot, the exhaust popping flames probably didn’t help. That was my day over, one more session would have been great but I opted to fix the bumper with a little bit of duct tape to get me home.



Despite the car issue in the morning, burnt rear bumper and insane amount of traffic, it was an awesome day. The supercharger was well suited to a power track like phillip island, rear end traction was a bit of an issue but with 6 year old Kumho V70a’s that have done a fair amount of street driving and track days, it was to be expected that they are starting to go off.



With Racechrono showing the theoritcal/optimal laptime into the 45’s, I know the car has very high potential. I do believe it can go much faster with a fresh set of tyres and more track time here, with that in mind I am very excited to see what we can achieve once everything ties together.

Thanks to Xtian for all the on track photo's in this post.

[eskimo_firefighter]

The bend Motorsport park 15/12/2018.

This was quite a last minute decision. After quite a number of successful track days at local tracks at Winton and Phillip Island this year with the supercharged setup, I now had a lot confidence in the car to tackle an interstate track.

As soon as I saw some in car video of the track, I knew I had to try it. So I made a pretty gutsy last minute decision to book the day with a few mates.

To do list

Fix the rear melted rear bumper from the last Phillip Island day.

Good guy Ben had given me his spare AP1 rear bumper. Obviously it is the wrong colour (GP White), I had chased up quotes to get it painted and it was $400-600, I did not want to pay that so I opted to leave it white as it didn’t look too bad.



Plan is to learn how to spray it at home when I have more free time over the Christmas holidays. I had secured the rear bumper, dare say more securely than OEM, by using 10mm bolts, washers and nuts, pretty huge cable ties to hold the rear bumper in place.

Oil Leak

A late discovery was found with a small oil leak from the oil sump plug. I felt pretty confident it was the sump plug washer as it had not been replaced for quite a while so I drained the oil out and replaced the washer, thanks to Rhys (iwearmoccos) for providing free washer. This fixed the oil leak.



With all that done the car is now ready for the adventure to The Bend Motorsport Park.
As the week approached for the track day I had checked the weather forecast every day, in the event of rain or if the temperature was forecasted to be too high, I can bring my spare track car. The Renault Clio 172 Sport, excellent car by the way. I won’t blog about that thing in this as I might go on forever.

The weather was forecasted to be 26 degrees with nil chance of rain so I locked in the S2000 for action.

The track from Melbourne is roughly 650 KM away. About 1 and half hours away from Adelaide CBD. The drive up for the first two hours was horrendous due to the Melbourne wild rainy weather, considering these KUMHO V70A’s are approaching 7 years old, and have a treadwear rating of 50 it was relatively drivable, as long as you avoid standing water, which wasn’t always possible. This made it for a sketchy ride. Other than that it was smooth sailing.



Drive up Friday, Track Saturday and then hopefully drive it back Sunday? The Bend Motorsport Park – Open Day

The Bend Motorsport park is a 7.77KM track, the layout that is used for the majority of the time is the international layout which is 4.95km which consists of 18 corners. A lap around here in a street car would be 2min 20seconds so this was going to be the ultimate test on the S2000’s reliability. Don’t do anything overly stupid, we still have a 650km drive back home.


Track Layout, Courtesy of The Bend and mcnews

Initial impressions.
The track has a huge variety of corners which challenges your driving and the car to the fullest. With a combination of high sweeping corners and tight corners all linked up one after another, this is actually a technical track that requires a lot of bravery and finesse to get right.

Going to be somewhat detailed here for my own sake, given it is the first time here and I want to visit here again soon for another crack. Post track day notes for analysis are important for me to improve for the next visit.

Track analysis.

Despite the track difficulty, the track has plenty of run off and I don’t see many high risk corners as I do with PI and Winton, so with this in mind I was able to push myself and the car a bit.

Main straight to T1 – T2
The main straight is very long, on a good run I was able to get about 225 according to the S2000 dash speed. T1 has a very hard braking point with a few downshifts from 5th to 3rd. Turn in aggressively into T1 and go flat all the way to T2, make sure to use the ripples as they are nice and smooth quite handy to keep the line short and sweet.

T3
Brake hard, keep it in 3rd. Can experiment here a lot, turn in early as possible and power out early as possible as there is a lot of space on the outside to utlise then I can swing it back in for T4 where I am flat all the way to T5.

T6-T7 – sharp left hander. Downshift from 5th to 2nd. Keep it nice and tight then punch it as soon as the track straightens out. Utilise the outside inside and keep it flat over T7

T8 – Slight lift or tap the brakes a bit then get right back on the throttle. Sway towards the outside of the track to prepare to turn in for T9.

T9 – TAP THE BRAKES. Keep it in 4th, then turn in, use the curbs. (high risk corner of coming off)

T10 – TAP THE BRAKES. Keep it in 4th, then turn in, use the curbs. (high risk corner of coming off)

T11 – TAP the brakes. Back on the power. Might want to experiment here a little with carrying more speed. Keep the car straight to prepare for T12, downshift into 3rd. Then boot it as early as possible as it leads onto a small straight.

T12 – One of my favourite corners here, it cambers and elevates a lot. Heel-toe down into 3rd and power out early, shift into 4th on the small straight.

T13/T14/T16 – Downshift into 3rd, clip the first apex then drift towards the outside to prepare to apex T14. Using third all the way, keep it pinned down through to T16 using 4th on the small straight.

T17 – BLIND CORNER! This is a 2nd gear corner, not third. Double heel-toe downshift from 4th to 2nd and really use the curbs to your advantage. Blooper here was made thinking it was a 3rd gear corner then I shot off the track once I realized it was too late.

T18 – coming in hot into top of third. Dab the brakes, then full throttle flat out onto the main straight, can almost go full throttle before clipping the apex if I am feeling brave enough. It’s OK to commit, as there is more run off here than expected.

Video has been overexposed, spot metering was on but the camera was pointed too downwards towards the dash. Shame. Video also includes a few bloopers. Which includes the car coming off the track at high speed and me getting a little aggravated with traffic then immediately followed be an off track adventure haha, no hard feelings Commodore driver I just get fired up on track sometimes.

Unofficial Racechorno PB 2:16.61.



My only gripe with today was the amount of traffic I had encountered. No clean laps were done due to this. Despite this I had a great time. Optimal does show a 2:10.35, I believe on my next visit I should get into the 2:10’s, or perhaps even dip down under 2:10 which would be awesome!

Awesome track, great facilities. It is now easily my favourite track to drive on. It has such a nice variety of corners that blends together that will keep you on your toes for the whole lap. It’s a long lap but you won’t have much time to rest between corners.



The car was faultless all day, only issue with today was the surge was a high risk here. As the car drinks petrol at quite a fast rate with the track being so long and tough on the engine it limited my hot laps before the risk of surging was imminent. Surge tank is a must the next time I attend the Bend.



Made it back home to Melbourne on the Sunday, without any issues. This is the best car.

Was an awesome weekend and safe to say that’s it for track work for the S2000 for the year. It has earned a well-deserved rest. Thanks to fellow CITR member Chaumeh for making the trek down, was nice to catch up after quite a while! Thanks to some of the Melbourne crew for tagging a long for the adventure, it was a memorable weekend.

[chaumeh]

Great to see you and the crew Pete! and awesome post-analysis write up.

Having followed this entire thread for almost 5 years since Page 1, it was exhilarating to finally watch this pb-slayer in its natural habitat on the track

Bloopers in the video was entertaining haha

[butter]

Good write up Pete! It was a memorable weekend for sure.

Also, nice meeting you chaumeh. Hopefully next time I won't be so preoccupied so I could have a proper chat.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Great to see you and the crew Pete! and awesome post-analysis write up.

Having followed this entire thread for almost 5 years since Page 1, it was exhilarating to finally watch this pb-slayer in its natural habitat on the track

Bloopers in the video was entertaining haha

Thanks Thanh! Thanks for actually reading my blabbering of fun S2000 things. It's actually cool to hear that people actually still read this blog, despite the lack of forum activity these days I hope that I still can keep this blog going. I do enjoy writing about it nowadays, it's also really funny to look back at some of the comments I've made in the past. Such as I would never supercharger this car, or do things I wouldn't be willing to do to a street car such as removing AIR CON for a street car which I have since done in the name of weight reduction. *FACEPALM*

Good write up Pete! It was a memorable weekend for sure.

Also, nice meeting you chaumeh. Hopefully next time I won't be so preoccupied so I could have a proper chat.

Cheers dude. Thanks for coming along and carrying the giant voltex wing, fuel economy was great without it haha.

[eskimo_firefighter]

2018 overview.

We had a very slow start with this car in the first ¾ of the year with work commitments and putting the supercharger package together. To be honest, I initially was having doubts at the start whether it was worth the effort and money to get the car to this point, but I had learned a lot about cars in the build process, I took my time but I am glad that I took the approach that I did. As it turns out, it ended up being one of the best years of ownership of this car. Which is saying something as all the previous years were a heap of fun. This chapter has made me a better tuner and better driver overall. And I plan to keep developing the car and myself as a driver and a tuner as much as I can. There’s always more to learn and something to improve on.



2018 Successes

- Bolted on a supercharger with a zillion more failure points compared to OEMISBEST
- Installed a new clutch without dropping a gearbox on my face.
- 2 x Winton days with a PB of 1:31.9
- 1 Phillip Island day with a PB of 1:47.2
- Drove 1500km interstate to a new track (The Bend Motorsport Park)

I can safely say now it was definitely worth it and we’re hopefully on track to achieving the goals I had set for this car in 2019. Motivated and enjoying driving more than ever. There is still plenty more potential to unlock. More grip, more power, less weight, further optimising the suspension and then drive it better!



Despite the somewhat lack of track time in the S2000 this year in comparison to all other years. I still made sure I kept at it with the driving.

Drove my standard daily Civic that I’ve owned for 6 years or so to H Nationals Winton in standard form with the lend of wheels/tyres from YB. This car was terrible to drive.



Did my first rally cross event. Heaps of fun and learned a lot about driving, skills learned here is transferable to circuit driving. I did another autocross event in the Civic then sold the car to a mate for dirt cheap, ha-ha..... Rallying is something I’d love to focus on in the future. The S2000 will never go near anything like this though.





Replacement Daily/track/Hillclimb/rally warrior.

First non-Honda motor vehicle I bought, the Clio Sport 172. Cheap, ugly, well equipped, light, efficient and relatively quick but probably unreliable. Has done a hill climb and motorkhana event already. Great fun.



Finally, thanks to everyone who make this money pit of a hobby enjoyable as it is. EXE, Nugget Nats crew, Honed and of course CMS Performance for the tune and work. Reliability was my biggest worry bead from this supercharged chapter of the S2000, but we still have maintained 100% reliability rate over 5 years of worth of ownership and track days!

Soon we will get started with making the S2000 faster than ever for 2019.

[EFR9180]

nice write up peter!
the bend motorsports park track looks amazing and man that is a long ass track!
need carbon doors and run 18's with a 295 tyre for maximum grip hehe

[eskimo_firefighter]

nice write up peter!
the bend motorsports park track looks amazing and man that is a long ass track!
need carbon doors and run 18's with a 295 tyre for maximum grip hehe

Cheers mate! The Bend is the best, it's a long lap but it really keeps you on your toes the whole way.

As much as I'd love to run Carbon doors and 295's, it kind of goes against my ethos of keeping it as a street car, I still enjoy taking this car out for the occasional drive in the hills and grocery runs.

Moving to 18's is something I've contemplated but in my books it's only worth the gain if I were to able to fit 285mm wide tyres and above, which OEM guards won't allow and I refuse to install overfenders on this car. Although the Voltex overs are somewhat acceptable looking, I still prefer not to ruin my this car more so than I already have, haha.

[Toddxxx]

Looking forward to 2019 and where the car goes Pete!

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

[eskimo_firefighter]

Looking forward to 2019 and where the car goes Pete!

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

Thanks Todd, I also look forward to your progress this year. Hopefully we'll meet again at a trackday or so this year.


2019 Preparation

2019 track prep is in full motion, the aim is to get the car in its most capable form possible in the lead up to the next track outing. Everything I have learned, experience I've accumulated all over the years of driving this car will be put to the test. The next few months I will take a no compromise approach with the current setup I have with the hope that the goals I have set in mind for this car are achieved.

A general description of how I plan on optimising the S2000's current setup includes.

- More power (E85)
- More RPM (8800rpm to 9000rpm)
- Less Weight
- Finally much more grip as I have been cheaping it out on buying old stock/used tyres for the past 3-4 years, this should net me the most gains.

Combining all these small changes should net some great results as long as the driving is up to scratch.

Whiteline FSB to Eibach FSB.

The Eibach sway bar was lent by a mate who had this laying around as he is now using an AP2 FSB.



Comparison as below.

Swaybar Whiteline Eibach
Weight 8.2KG 4.2KG
Diameter 30mm 32mm
Construction Solid Hollow

A net weight saving of 4kg in just a sway bar change alone.

In theory as the Eibach is a softer sway bar than the Whiteline, this should decrease roll stiffness and allow the front end to grip/turn in better. However there is a risk of increasing OVERsteer as the front end grips more with more roll which ultimately is the slower way around the track in my opinion, although more exciting. The only way to find out if this change has made a positive effect to the car is to drive it on track, on the road there is no noticeable difference. Note to self: bring the Whiteline Sway Bar to the next track outing in case the change is horrible.

The aim is to increase turn in response, decrease understeer but retain a little bit of understeer for stability and ease of control in the turn in phase of the corner.

I am always wary of changes to the suspension, so only minor changes I have allowed myself to do in this department to ensure that the changes being made have done anything positive. On the contrary I have learned to NOT be afraid of change and to try new things out. Reverting a change is simple, however it costs time and money.

Fullriver HC20 - SSB Lithium ION battery

The full river weighs 8.2KG, the SSB Lithium is 1.7KG. There are no drawbacks from this modification. Big advocate in weight reduction now as it should improve acceleration, cornering and braking. Ever since the installation of the S/C the front end turn in is definitely not as sharp as it used to be when it was N/A, with a total of 10kg in weight reduction at the front and a softer sway bar, it should help with increasing front end grip and sharpness.

Although these changes are minor, combined we have lost 10KG at the front axle which should help the front end grip better.



Winmax W5 Front and Rear brake pads.

As the rear PMU NS400 brake pads were already low after 3 track days, it was a good opportunity to opt for a more track orientated pad.

The Stoptech Sport brake Front pads that came with the ST-40 big brake kit was good, but it wasn't excellent.

The initial bite was lacking, however I did like the ease of modulation of the pads at limit. They were not noisy and had little dust, these were biased more towards to being street friendly.

I decided on the Winmax W5's, these are more of a track orientated brake pads that have received rave reviews and feedback. As long as they proide good bite, controllability, durability and consistency I'd be happy. Noise and dust is not a concern.

Just for my reference for part numbers.

WMP719 - ST40 brake pad winmax fronts, the same shape used in Harrop kits, some Porsche 911 models and other high performance cars.

WMP273 - OEM S2000 rear brake pads.

More changes coming up soon.

Also to add into this blog, a PI day was scheduled for Jan 21st but I wasn't able to attend due to my rear calipers seizing up. I have since fixed this with regreasing the rear caliper pins. No big deal, there's always a next time! Use Silicone based grease for sliding caliper pins!

Shame on myself for using plebby phone camera spec photo's for this blog, I'll be less lazy next time around.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Flex Fuel Sensor Install - E85 Ready

Got around to installing the Flex fuel sensor.

The sensor is installed where the brake proportion valve is, its located under the car on the passenger side. A few Proflow fittings had to be bought to fit this in the fuel system. A new rubber E85 compatible return line hose was also purchased as a replacement.

The sensor was installed on the return line of the fuel system. The fuel pressure regulator line -> flex fuel sensor -> back into the return hardline back to the main tank.

Install was relatively simple, with a nice bracket made by a friend that uses OEM bolt holes to mount the bracket, specifically the bolt that holds the brake proportioning valve. I got a harness plug made up, pinning 3 wires. Ground, power and signal that is pinned directly into the ECU harness for the Haltech Elite.

Now with this installed the car is now ready for its flex tune.