~DrEaM~

currently thinking of a 2 door conver. RWD for summer

really like the looks of the S2000 and its Jap

can anyone tell me how good/bad are they?
how many version are there?

specs?????

thanks
kevin

Fabioso

I owned a MY03 for about 9 months. The sound on full VTEC chat under bridges with the top down was great

I did find it a bit of handful having never driven a RWD car b4,

Would I have another one ? U bet I would!!!

Do a search on "Saxo Boy" or "Dark Blue Mark" posts and in there u will get the real low down on what an S2000 is like to own. Both have owned 'various' performance cars and are regulars here and at S2k.

I suggest you also just get a test drive in one, some turbohead's don't get the high revving nature of them and so feel disappointed with the lack of "a shove"......... I wouldn't blame the car though meself

Enjoy the test drive.....

LG John

Having gone from a 275bhp scooby to an S2000, albeit not directly, I would have to say its the most complete and enjoyable car I've ever owned. Running costs are very reasonable, performance is excellent provided you are 100% committed to releasing it, handling is exceptional and fun factor is right up there.

I like to think of it as a true every day elise. Not quite as good a handler or quite as much fun but much more 'every day' useable. They are completely different to scooby's. There are many scooby owners that have tried them and just can't get on with them - generally I can't fault people that have given it a fair crack of the whip because some cannot get to grips with the loss of the turbo shove. It took me a few months to get used to that and I do crave it from time to time.

Mines is currently up for sale as I'm looking to pull about £6k out of my 'car fund' for other purposes. That'll leave me with £8-10k to play with which means I'll probably get a scooby again (full circle). I'm quite excited about that as it'll be fun having 4wd, crazy b-road performance and the turbo push. But I'll miss how the S2000 makes me feel a little more than how the scooby will make me giggle at the stupid things it can do without crashing! It's hard to describe the drive - you just have to try it for yourself

Specs:

240bhp, 6 gears, 0-100 in about 14.5 seconds, 2.0, redline a bawhair short of 9000rpm, etc. Comes in two versions 'normal' and 'GT'. GT has the hardtop which I personally think is a waste of time and money as with a 6 second roof and excellent heating I like taking advantage of topless driving throughout the winter as well.

There is no traction control (unless you specify on 06 version) and with a kick (vtec) at 6000rpm you can find yourself in trouble if you get carried away in wet/poor conditions. Brakeaway can be sudden, violent and must be dealt with camly so be VERY careful if you get one coming into or during winter.

There's a lot more I could say but I'd ramble forever. Feel free to ask questions

Shark Man

Make sure you drive one extensively, as they do have an initiall novelty factor when you first drive one, which may or may not wear off, depending on your inclination.

Good fast car...but it needs a supercharger for some real world usable torque.

I personally can't get on with them, but I can't get on with Turbo cars either.




....I'm a performance car dealer's nightmare

~DrEaM~

thanks for that

vtec kicks in @ 6000rpm? thats abit late?
once the car is rolling and in dry how does it compare to a 280bhp classic?

tell me more about them

Shark Man

Yes, 6k. The Vtec is the main reason I can't get on with it (or CTR/ITR). I'm just not into jumping 2 or 3 gears to get back into the powerband and holding onto 1st and 2nd all the time. It's either on or off.

I found it annoying when compared to the NSX, which will respond well at any revs and any gear without the need to the use VTEC. Which I might add, if you can spare the extra cash, would be a more interesting car to buy (biased )

Out and out It's not as quick as a stock classic Impreza, and tbh outright pace is not what its about imo. but it has more sensation and more comunitive steering and brakes, so it feels quicker. It also has more correct handling dynamics and give better confidence to drive and place on the road, barring traction (in which case: learn how to control the throttle...4wd makes you lazy with the right foot ).

LG John

I personally think 1/4er mile trap speeds are a good indicator of rolling performance especially if you draw comparisons with the trap time. My scooby was doing the 1/4 in 13.4 seconds at 102mph and the S2000 13.7 @ 103mph. The 4wd provides a better trap time but the S2000 is perhaps ever so slightly quicker on the roll. In real road terms you'd never notice any difference but you can drive the scooby at 90% and keep up with a flat out S2000. Drive the S2000 at 90% and you'll be left for dead by a flat out scooby. Drive them both at 100% and its even. This should give you an indication of the game - maximum attack all the time or don't bother trying (i.e a-b mode). That for me is the appeal - there is no pussyfooting around. You either hunker down and squeeze everything you can from your own ability and that or the car or you buy something else. Driving a scooby at 75% makes you feel like a hero. Driving an S2000 at 75% exposes that you are 25% deficient. It forces you to seek perfect technique and that's the appeal. Perfect gearchanges, perfect heal and toe, leaving braking until the last possible second, etc, etc. A scooby is not like that IMHO - it prefers to reward bravery

6000-9000rpm is the making progress range. That's 3000rpm to play with A classic shape scooby (standard) is at full boost at 3000rpm and starting to weaken at 6000 so its not that different. The fact its higher up the rev range isn't really relevant you just have to drop one cog more and that's not difficult - any gear is selectable pretty easily at any speed. 130mph, select 2nd gear and you will probably die when you lift the clutch. Therein is another message - whilst the car rewards 100% effort from the driver it also punishes mistakes (although IMHO not at bad as people say)

LG John

That really depends on the test!

0-60mph: Scooby
0-100mph Draw
60-100mph: S2000
100-vmax: S2000
top speed: S2000
low rpm to high rpm in one gear: Scooby
Most c roads: Scooby
Most a roads: S2000
b-roads: depends how twisty and bumpy
1/8th mile: Scooby
1/4 mile: Close
1/2 mile: S2000
Moistening Panties: S2000

It comes down to what you want out of car. If you want to be fast in nearly all circumstances you can't beat a scooby/evo and if you have a 355bhp one of these as your info suggests then the S2000 will be markedly slower in nearly all measures. But its the experience that has taught me its not all about outright speed. If it was can anybody in the UK really look beyond an Impreza or Evo? Seriously is there any faster car for our roads than an sorted scooby/evo? Doubtful IMHO.

If life was fair I'd have an MR340 with 400bhp an S2000 and a 335d with a f430 for runs to the shop. One the basis you can usually only have one you must decide what you want from driving

Fabioso

I can't think of anything else to add, SB has covered all the angles.......I see your motor is on PH m8 ? Are you looking towards the dark side for your next round of thrills ?

LG John

Me? Initially I was looking to get an Evo and mod it to around 400bhp but getting engaged, doing up my flat and replacing the beater with a better beater is going to stretch my finances too much so I'll have to get a lower value car. As I said above a scooby looks quite likely given the bang for buck. My car probably still is on PH but I've not updated the price to reflect the current market - there is no point trying to seriously shift it until spring IMHO.

aldilover

any ****** knows you should get an Aldi A4

LG John

An MIceland is better

The Chief

I would suspect a 280bhp scoob would pan an S2000 in every way bar top speed 0-60, and 0-100 plus 1/4 mile.

An S2000 0-100 14.5 seconds - well my 280bhp Classic does it in 12-12.5 seconds which may not sound a lot but is on an open road.

I could only imagine an S2000 getting close at 120-130 plus speeds, but how often does that happen?

Husaberk

Excellent comments from SB here, I own a late MY00 Wagon and a mate has just swopped his MY01 S2000 for a MY06. He's been nice enough to let me have a go in both and SB's comments reflect what I've felt about them. Scoob is better fit for my needs/likes but the S2000 is a great car when you're on it. After having a go in a WR1 yesterday I'm saving for a 06 STI PPP though.

LG John

The cheif is correct that I'm not being entirely fair. A 100% standard S2000 would fall back to 280bhp classic but not by much on the roll. My classic (~275bhp) was about 12.5 seconds 0-100mph and my S2000 (mods: single exit decat exhaust) is about 13-13.5s. Consider the 1 second 0-60mph advantage, which is derived from the 4wd launch and you'll see its very close and that my car is possibly fractionally quicker on the go. A standard S2000 would trail a 275bhp scooby from say 20-120mph by less than a second.

Most standard S2000s can 1/4 in 14.0 seconds at 100mph if you get the launch right (not easy). The extra 0.5s quoted in most mags is because getting the launch right is not easy. 0-60mph is either 5.5s because you get your launch perfect or its 6.3 because you only got it 95% correct. It's very unlikely to fall in between at say 5.7 or 5.8 because you either get it exactly right or you don't. Sort of in keeping with the all or nothing nature I was telling you about.

My best experience of 280bhp classics was at crail vs a member of SIDC with a decat STI-5 (probably a little more than 280bhp). He took me off the line but by 2nd gear he stopped pulling away and we stayed the same distance appart for the whole strip and if anything I was inching in at the end. His ET was 0.3 better and the trap speeds were the same.

To be honest the cars we are discussing are too closely bunched in straight-line performance measures. Better to compare the S2000 to say a standard 225bhp WRX where I can confirm it wastes them even with the roof down or with say a 320bhp classic or a Spec-C, both of which would nail the S2000.

Again I must stress it comes down to what you want from your car. For a lot less than the price of an S2000 you can get a scooby that will be far faster. I was interested in the overall package of the S2000 and the drive and feel I made a correct decision. My priorities look to change as will my budget and as such a scooby will make more sense again. It's like buying a house - you'd not buy a plush 1 bed house for a family of 5 - you'd buy a more run down 4 bed house

Edcase

LOL

RRH

Excellent write-ups as usual SB

As many of you may know, I had a new S2000 for a week on extended test drive.

Loved it to bits but found it lethal; whereas in a TD, the Saab or the Impreza I can floor it and overtake- in the Honda it really took 120% concentration to remember that the power doesn't live in the same place as the other cars.... I did have a couple of panicky overtaking moments desparately working the box trying to find the power.

Once you find the sweet spot its away like its **** is on fire.

I must emphasise that this was not the cars fault- the S2000 needs you to be really tuned in to make progress. The chassis is beautiful, brakes are pretty damn good, the whole package is a gem.

I toyed with the idea of a Z4M roadster for when I (happily) wave goodbye to the Saab in Feb, as the contract hire quotes were quite similar from the S2000 and the BMW.

The BMW seems to have been a blip- a one off cancelled order that was being moved on at a ridiculously low rate, so I'm seriously considering the S2000 again. Not sure if I'd bother with the GT- I can't see the hard top ever being on it, and I really don't want to store it, but appreciate that it probs wouldn't do the residual any good.

One point worthy of mention- after driving an S2000 for a week, you have to be real careful when getting back in to an Impreza, as they don't seem to keen on revving to 9000 revs

The Chief

Good write up SB and i'm not for one minute slating the S2000 (i've considered one myself)


What are the tuning options (without going silly with Turbo's) for these Hondas????

I personally love the Integra DC5 - very very hardcore


Also check out the 400bhp+ S2000 in this months jap performance

PPPRob

Reading this with interest as I'm gonna be on the look out for 1 in the new year for the missus.

Heard/read about the tail-happiness and the 'unusual' power delivery and have seen many for sale that are Cat D, any correlation there???

A friend had an 03 plate for sale which was also a cat D which put me off, and as such is still for sale after 3 months

Great input Saxo Boy, thank you

LG John

This is the big problem and where you have to go into ownership with eyes open. If you buy a good late STI-6 with low mileage then about £1500 more (spent carefully) will get you a full decat, 3-port, better TMIC and a remap for 315-320bhp. £1500 on an S2000 will get you a good twin exhaust that might make you 1-5bhp and save you 15kg in weight. For half that you could get a cheaper exhaust but it'll probably lose you power! I went the single route which gains power and is much lighter but you do lose the balance of the rear end looks wise.

For £2000 on N/A mods spend carefully you could probably thicken up the vtec torque curve enough to take 0-100mph down to 13 seconds dead. The car would sound great and be ultra responsive though Realistically the best improvements are to be had from supercharging (which retains vtec characteristics (i.e. performance all at top end)) or changing the final drive ratio (the diff). The later costs around £1500-2000 and can make the car quite a bit more accelerative BUT you do have to live with it reving higher in each gear and having a lower top speed.

DBM (mark) is the best for advice on supercharging. The more simpler of the kits is a pretty easy bolt on with a piggy back to adjust the ecu fueling/ignition, etc. The common consensus is that this kit would get you around 320bhp at the fly and will cost you several grand. The real problems come when you have to consider getting remaps as it seems you have to fork out massive money for a stand alone ECU and then more money to have it mapped - assuming of course you can find someone in the UK you trust to do this work on the s2000, which you'll struggle with. Sadly the S2000 is another case where the yanks are lightyears ahead of us in the tuning stakes - every other s2000 over there is supercharged with various different pullies and other components.

As for the overtaking comment I had that difficulty to start with as well. Like everything you get used to it and I instinctively know the most accelerative gear at any speed. I very often change down whilst waiting for the chance to pull out as well. I've seen times where I've been holding 7000rpm+ for several miles waiting for that slight gap to nip round. The car takes it and it doesn't sound thrashy just solid and well engineered.

LG John

Yeah, they get crashed a lot!!! I find the car quite predictable and manageable but then I have spent a lot of time over the years fannying around building my knowledge and experience of cars. I've had the car kick to the side at 60mph+ when changing up to 3rd gear but have trained myself to calmly correct with a very slight lift (or none at all) and steering input. Most new S2000 owners gut reaction is to panic and lift (or worse brake) and then over-correct with the steering. The nose dips, the sliding rear gains more momentum and if they overcorrect they load up the rear end anti-roll bar and she snaps off the road in the other direction. Panicing is the absolute worse thing you can do but the car reacts so quickly that your first human instinct is to panic. That IMHO is why they get crashed. The first 50 times the back end in mines wriggled is because I made it do that on wet roundabouts, car parks, straight roads, etc. The 51st time it happened when I didn't expect it but it wasn't an alarming sensation because I was used to it.

Rob mines is effectively 'for sale' just now and up until it sells so if you want details let me know. I'll be making no effort to actively advertise it at this time of year though as the market deflated until spring.

LG John

This thread started by Mark is worth a read if you are interested in tuning S2000's in the UK. I'm pretty sure all of the basis are covered at some point. The only thing to note is there seems to be a bit of a seceret-santa thing going on with some tuning options whereby those in the know aren't imparting that knowledge freely on the internet. I guess if it's business to them then fair enough.

Tobisausage

What about the ITB tuning option? Is this more expensive than the supercharged route? I also thought that supercharging does not really do much in the way of flattening out the torque curve due to the type of superchargers available.

I have seen a few examples os S2000's with ITB and they sound absolutely unreal.

LG John

ITBs seem to give good mid-range torque but with hardly any peak improvement. The area under the curve over the useable range is increased by a useful margin and that car will be quicker but I think they are quite expensive so bang for buck not that good.

Supercharging retains the character as I said earlier. If you floor it at 5000rpm it'll still be dog slow compared to a turbo or big cc car. You still need to be right up the rev range with a supercharged S2000 but the difference is she'll fly from 6000-9000rpm compared to stock.

Foz (used to post here) is the guy to talk to about ITB's as he had these on his racing S2000 which I'm pretty sure he sold to someone on the VX220 forum.

The guys have a group buy going on the Comptech supercharged (here) for £3,600. Fitting it yourself is fairly realistic so that should be your total cost. Allow £400 for contingencies and thats about 80bhp for £4000. That's £50 per bhp and this is about as cheap as it gets for the S2000. To compare many tuning options on scooby's an Evo's figure to be about £15-25 per hp. Take a classic scooby and add a full decat for £350, dawes for £35 and a self made FCD for £5 (J Banks posted schematics years ago) you get 50bhp for £390 or £7.8 per bhp!!! Add a boost gauge and knocklink for safety and it's still around £10 per hp.

This is what I mean about going in eyes open. If you want anything more than subtle small improvements then you are going to have to pay for it!!!

The Chief

Sorry to hijack this thread - no really i am, who would you say are the people to deal with when it comes to NA tuning stuff for Honda's??

Cheers

LG John

That's really a question for Mark or S2ki.com (uk forum). I've never investigated it much because I knew I wasn't going to invest large sums of money in an n/a project.

Tobisausage

So the supercharger is the way to go if you just want to improve overall straight line speed and acceleration but ITB's are better for developing a more responsive car because it reduces the 'wheres the torque man....oh **** vtec just kicked in yo'

It's all very interesting seeing as how cheap S2Ks can be had for now.

PPPRob

Thanks for the offer mate but in true woman fashion I've been instructed to 'only look for a black one'

TBH we didn't have quite that price in mind and as so are looking for a slightly older car with a few more miles..... And you're almost the other end of the country as well

Thanks anyway, I'm sure she'll sell when the suns out again

LG John

You do realise black is a nightmare colour to keep clean and swirl free - that'll end up being your job in exchange for having your tea cooked for you of an evening

~DrEaM~

excellent write up...

i am def getting one .... excatly what i wanted for summer