Half-shaft Cv-joint vibrations, bump steer after offset changes or car lowering and MeganRacing solutions for you.

Anyone having an s2k for over 100.000km has been familiar with a strange vibration under acceleration that starts to become apparent as the car gains milleage.

This is due to the rear half-shaft cv joints hurting the cv joint bucket. 

This will become apparent if you run the car lower or with larger offler rimms, changing the geometry slightly... making it what!? 70% of s2k owners?! maybe more.

The solution is to change those parts... or you can just shift the buckets from left to right (you don't really worry about a small vibration while reversing... and add a cv shaft spacer like the one from megan racing.

The same goes for the bump-steer kit. Drive your s2000 lowered or with bigger offset wheels, and you'll find it very twitshy when it comes to road irregularities. Again, negan racingnhas a bump-steer fix kit that corrects the steering rack angles by adding 2 metal pieces underneath the setting rack mounts.

My car is not lowered but the 5Zigen Proracer GN+ weels are a huge offset difference that gets even more noticeable with the Toyo r888 tires.

So:

Evidently, more parts are in the mail... and soon the s2k will have even more inprovements to report.

Stay tuned.

Timing chain tensioner... no more issues... like forever.

The s2000 has a known issue with the timming chain tensioner. It has little spring strength and after some heat cycles it starts to loose strength progressively, until you hear a rattle while idling. 

This means that, unless you're pulling it and passing oil pressure throught it, it's not producing enought force to counter the slack that the chain gains over time.

This becomes more evident if you drive with thinner oils or on warmer climates.

The solution ia to replace the load spring with something... well stiffer. However, assempling it back is a pain in the ass as the parts need some sort of force to counter the auto adjustment screw, but, the original part, has this as a sinple retainer and that is just a no-go.

Solutions? you can evidently replace with oem, and spend your life doing it every 30 to 50000km. You can transform the part yourself, or you can just buy a track ready part from TODA Racing engineering. Guess what I chose? oem parts out, racing parts in ...the usual!

Install is easy and you can do that in 10 mnts.

The rattle is gone, but that again, a factory part would be the same for a while...it's the future that will tell.

lovely! 

Time to work on that old organic clutch. Friction improvement part 2.

Hi everyone 

So the car is back on the road, after years stopped at the garage, and some issues arose instantly.

1- the clutch... it slips midrange.

2- wheel bearings are shot.

Evidently, I instructed the mechanic to replace the bearings with OEM parts, but not the clutch. That, I took under my care as, again, I believe that OEM is always a compromise, and an s2000 should be a no compromise car.

As such, after looking for several alternatives, ai decided to go for: Competition Clutch.

Stage 4 to be precise, and since we are to open the thing... flywheel was an easy hoock-up, so, UltraLight flywheel is ordered too.

I'll update the post with new images as I get the parts, but for now, some ebay screeshots will do.

1- ultra light competition clutches flywheel

2- stage4, ceramic 6pad  spring'd competition clutch with 300% clamp force pressure plate 

Stay tuned... but this mod will make the already amazing mid-range (AEM V2) extend rigth into vtec range as rotational inertia is reduced and High flow (decat) will improve high-end delivery.

Response should also improve, but i'm cooking a diferent approach for that one... depending how the PUMA ST220 itb project goes, I may create a killer recipie that doesn't bankrupt you, for s2k's

Update: WOW

The car feels a lot more rev happy. And if you lift-off (or reverse) it sounds like a grinder, but hey machanical noise is part of the fun... this is why I hate comfortable and filtered-out cars in the first place.

Under vtec is seams quicker to gain revs and evidently it's a hitch in slow traffic. The engagement is close to all or nothing and with about 8cm pedal travel...but the worse is that, unless you plant the back of your foot on the car floor and leverage, the 300% more clamping force makes you stall the car or spin the tires. So yeah, slow traffic if bad, but the s2k was not built to live on a traffic in the first place. 

The first day of rain made me spin 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (under vtec), and fortinately I heel&toe for years now, else the first shift down would have been... bad... bad is the word for locking your reqr wheels mid highway exit.

Very good upgrade, but DO take the driveability impact into consideration if you don't have a dailly driver alternative to your s2k.

The difference in weight between the oem cluth assembly (spring, plate and flyweel) is considerable. The car will stall easier and the speed to gain or loose rpms will also be quicker.

In my case, with an AEM v2 CAI and a decat job you can clearly feel a stronger vtec kick.