LG John

When I got my S2000 you'll be aware that there was a lot of personal soul searching as to why it was apparently not that fast a car and why it got pretty much nailed by a clio cup with some mods. I was accused of not being able to drive, of imagining things and of not realising that 0.5s in a magazine cannot be noticed on the road.

Well, as I suspected the problem was releated to the cars breathing system. When I first got the car it had an induction kit that sat in the engine bay sucking up the heat. I changed it back to the standard airbox and fitted a spoon carbon snorkle to feed it a cold air supply from the grill in the bumper and she is much happier now

The car now pulls much better throughout the entire rev-range and really gets its smoke on in 3rd and 4th gear. I had an incident with a golf R32 and I passed him despite having roof down drag, I also kept up with an EVO 6 with the roof down and a passenger and she quatered in 14.3 @ 99.6mph with room for improvement in the 60ft times. In all its bloody rapid and particularly so from 60 upwards.

Now I realise my ramblings and quest to uncover the truth may have rattled a few cages but they were worthwhile IMHO. The car is much better and I am much happier with it now. My advice to anyone that feels there car isn't up to par is to start to work through what it might be in a methodical manner until they find the guilty component.

My advice to vtec owners is to be very mindful of induction kits and vtecs because my S2000 was ruined by one and I've been in a CTR that was much slower than stock with a £400 I.K.

And before Neil starts I still don't think it could beat the cup. The cup is just too accelerative in the lower gears although I'd expect the S would pull away at silly speeds now.

Fabioso

Glad you sorted out the problem Saxo. The S2000 is a fantastic car and for a while was very underated. Its nice to see that a few people have decided that it isn't all about turbos and torque. Mind you having gone the other way to turbos and torque, I really now can see both sides of the fence

LG John

I do crave the scooby brutality for a straight line I must admit but the S2000 is such a better car to moderate in the bends on the power. Its a bit like Carlos vs Rivaldo at free kicks.....carlos will give you something hard, fast and entertaining to watch as he most likely knocks a defender out. But Rivaldo is more likely to score

NotoriousREV

You'll be less likely to blow it up now too, Kenny

LG John

In theory Still got a years peace of mind........which is nice

Dark Blue Mark

Although it sounds great with the lid off the airbox, it significantly affects the power.

Leave well alone...!

Might sell my HKS zorst too

MB

LG John

Mark I've considered nearly every exhaust for the S2000 and met some sort of dead end on nearly every one of them:

Amuse, too expensive and doesn't sound different enough from stock
Single exits - all look gay
HKS, cheap, sounds the nuts, loss of power
...and so on.

However, I can't see anyone levvy much complaint at the Invidia bar the extreme loudness of the unit. Having had a decat scooby I can't imagine this would be a problem and you have the option of fitting the silencers if you wish. It looks the *****, doesn't cost silly amounts and seems not to lose any power and maybe even gains 1-3bhp. It also sounds pretty throaty - win win as I see it and when I have some spare cash it could be a purchase

cheddar bob

Saxo Boy you should consider a Spoon N1 + B Pipe system, build quality is excellent and they sound good enough on the ITR (plus doesn't look OTT), also I'd never consider an induction kit as all your getting really is increased sound and less performance in most cases. Stick with the standard airbox and use a Spoon drop-in replacement filter.

Dark Blue Mark

Not sure the HKS loses anything (bit of S2k heresay), but its not that well designed. I couldn't bear anything louder, its a far different sound to a scoob!

MB

brickboy

The Aussie online mag Autospeed.com did an excellent article on S2000 exhaust mods a while back, I think you can still find it on the site but it's pay-for access:

http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_0911/article.html

IIRC the stock back boxes are quite restrictive, they got an extra 20bhp by putting on new boxes. They might have replaced a section of pipe ahead of the cat too, which has a restrictor in it to heat up gasses entering the cat. Can't remember now.

They also did a another test on Honda ITR induction mods, and found that pretty much every deviation from the stock airbox setup LOST power ....

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

This is the things with exhaust/induction mods...they sometimes claim to increase power, but in many cases do abolutely nothing.

A rule of thumb is if you think your having problems, revert it back to stock and work from there.

Exhaust systems are usually teh worst curlprit, I seen "performance" exhausts, which although have straight-thru type silencer boxes actually use sharper bends and in worst cases bores which are either too small or far too large (loss of too much back pressure). Both of which may give 1 or 2 bhp at certain revs but loses 5bhp everywhere else.

I spent half of yesturday tuning up the carb on a tweked smallblock V8, got it running perfect at 3.0% CO, 1.05AFR and 150ppm HC. Then put the air filters on and found it shot up to 7.8%CO, 0.8AFR and 500ppm : - I couldn't adjust the carb with the filter on either - but in theory it "shouldn't" make any difference...yeah right!

Jap2Scrap

That almost sounds like the filter was full of crud! In the past I've passed MOT's simply by taking filters out of airboxes for the retest. The filters I've removed have looked good as new so I know where you're coming from.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

It was a K&N pancake, I suspect it may have been re-oiled too much. Actually not sure if was a genuine K&N...plenty of copies going about these days (cotton, green etc.). By rights, it should only make a marginal difference.

But that's the thing I probably could have stuck a paper element on and it would have been more or less ok - if I had one on the shelf...doh!

Type R

Said this for years now, don't **** with the Intake on the Honda cars, its pretty much spot on as standard.

SideShowBob

Mines not too bad with the airbox lid off, actually feels slightly quicker and more immediate.
Seems some feel quicker with the lid off, others seem to suffer significant losses.

Johnny50

Have to admit, my honda has benefited greatly from a DC Sports short-ram induction.
It made 175bhp on the rollers, mods were the short-ram, DC 4-2-1 headers, and decat.

Not bad for a 1.6 Civic.

Adam M

there is no way on earth that changing the back boxes of a highly tuned NA engine will take it from 120 to 130bhp/litre!

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

I had a DC Sports cold air kit on my CTR, which sat down in the bumper well out of the way of warm engine air but a little too low therefore offering potential for water ingress. Sounded awesome and certainly didn't harm the performance at all.

The Blitz Sonic on the other hand had a detremental effect to the performance even with the bonnet open and a fan pointing at it (ish) on the RR.

Johnny50

Mine still sits in the engine bay...just above the original intake.

LG John

IMHO they probably seem quicker because they sound so much louder and meaner. There is probably merit in the sytems that locate the filter right down in the bumper but when the engine is in the region of £8k to replace with a new one I don't fancy giving the Scottish rain even more oppertunity to ruin my life

Dark Blue Mark

Johnny, tell me the surface area of that filter is larger than stock, and that mild steel soaks less heat than plastic!!

MB

Johnny50

i know i know...but still got better results.

Dark Blue Mark

MB

Diablo

Just caught up with this thread.

Glad you've god the problem sorted Kenny - the car looks good (shame about your recent troubles with ******* and wing mirrors )

Its been said above, but it needs repeating. As standard, the S2000 has 120bhp per litre (almost)

It has intake and exhaust designed to rev (freely) to 9,000 RPM.

Honda engineers are, probably, the best in the world.

The type R engines are hand finished and hand built.

The standard intake and exhaust are tuned to allow that output, enable free breathing to 9000 rpm and still meet emissions regs.

That is no mean feat, and suggests huge amounts of resource involved. Its safe to say that the standard kit is probably more effective than the average (and not so average) aftermarket "performance" kit many on here will see gains with on other marques. Something to take note of perhaps.

And yet people buy a £50 induction kit (normally of 1 type fits all) or a £200 exhaust and expect power gains on Vtec engines.

There is a reason why the spoon and mugen kit costs £000's not hundereds - and even then, the gains are maginal at that.

An exhaust may make a little performance difference, but not as much as to be noticable on a road car.

Certainly not the gains some have reported (as adam has pointed out)

Great car Kenny - looking for one myself

CJAF7R

great cars, revvy as ***! only encounter iv had to date (in my old clio 16v 14.0@99mph) was with a bit of a posing git with his roof down sat 2inch from my **** all through town, he attempted to overtake on the DC, but couldnt get past at all up to 120 when we both slowed (private DC of course) he wasnt a happy chappy, as he did a bit of dangerous overtaking coming off the sliproad and some smoking tyres in order to stop at the end!

Ace cars tho, look smart as ***!

AS90

I took a full sebring exhaust off my mk2 golf gti when I bought it and replaced it with the standard one. It now feels quicker and sounds a lot better

LG John

Cheers Diablo I've learnt quite a bit about vtec engines through reading up and trial and error - as you say with 120bhp per litre a poxy induction kit isn't going to give a gain. I now run a spoon snorkle which feeds the standard airbox with a cold air supply from the front of the car and it seems much happier. I plan to fit an Invidia exhaust but that won't give much/any power gain but by god will it sound good

Fortunately I managed to get the marks off my wing today. It took me 45 minutes with tar remover, loads of elbow grease and then wax to get it back to perfect condition. The car is all waxed up outside now and looking great again so I'm a happy saxo tonight. Another recomendation for 'Wax it Wet' by the way - I was so sceptical because usually anything that makes life easier is sh*t but turtle wax have nailed it with this stuff. It looks wet shiny all the time and water beads like a ***** See....

Type R

Note to all said this for years Induction, bolt on filters do f all to Honda engines, leave as standard, change the panel or cone (S2000/DC2) filter more often and you will notice the difference.

Dark Blue Mark

One v v important thing to note when talikng BHP on these cars is that improving PEAK BHP is a hard thing, and would require good headers and mapping etc.

Improving the BHP below peak on the curve can be done and makes the car fly. Ive been in ITR's that have had breating mods and remaps and they are extremely quick over standard.

If you look at the curve, 240 bhp is at near max rpm, but look a couple of k revs down, and its quite a lot less. Thats where to improve and there are ways of doing it, but its expensive. The cheapest mod is a Supercharger, which im looking into, and then you're talking 340bhp at the wheels

You have to question if its needed though, its a quick car in the right circumstances - but the blower gives what it lacks, and thats pull without droping down a lot of gears if you're just coasting. On the move its fine...

Its easy to think in Subaru language where bringing overall BHP up is easy business.

On an open road these things are bloody quick - it still surprises me that looking at the power / torque curve, it looks as though it shouldnt be massively quick.
I had a guy keep up with me in one when I had my STi5 and it had just been mapped, and it was in the wet. And I can drive quite well

So lesson is, yes it has 240 bhp, but its right at the top and is tricky to improve without extensive mods. Breathing mods and mapping can help lower down.

All IMO of course

MB

LG John

Agree with you mark - I had this argument in a thread on s2ki where I was maxing the point that hitting vtec isn't some magical ticket to ooooober power. From 6k--7k (in vtec) the car makes markedly less power than from 7900--8900k limiter.