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Too Soon Junior: 2005 S2000
Yup, I did it again. Another impulse buy, this time with a little bit of a story. I have been shopping for an EK Hatch for the last couple of months. I got it in my head that I really wanted the Honda experience for a track car, and I love the EK hatch in general. Definitely an icon of it's era in a way. However crawling Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace was pretty quickly making me give up. There are two problems with the EK hatch as a platform. The first is probably pretty obvious, go and try to find a clean one. They. Don't. Exist. Nearly every single EK hatch that popped up for sale was just beyond roached. Purple peeling tint, blasted interior, hot air intake, cut springs, straight piped, mangled fenders. It was so bad that in 3 months of searching I didn't even go look at a single one in person. They were all so bad I didn't even want to bother. The second problem with the EK is the price. My brain is stuck in like... 2012 pricing, when you could find an E30 for $800 or a clean EK for no more than $2000. But as with everything else cool these days, the prices are through the roof. So I would have needed to fork over far more than I was willing to pay for a destroyed project.
Unappealing at best.
So the story goes, I'm at lunch with a couple of friend's when I get a text. "Want to come look at this S2000 with me?"
Can't, busy, best of luck. Didn't give it another thought. Then a couple hours later I get some photos. My friend bought it to flip (regardless of what you think about flippers, had he not done this I wouldn't be posting right now).
Suzuka blue (my favorite S2000 color), bone stock, well taken care of. And the thought creeps in. Why not get one of those instead of an EK hatch? Yes they're more expensive outright than an EK hatch, but they also drive a million times better out of the box. And given the S2000 market these days, even if I **** it, I don't think I can lose.
"Let me stop by tomorrow and take a look at that thing"
The rest should be obvious by now. I drove it, fell in love, we argued on numbers for a bit, and the next morning I ran to the bank to bring back a stack of cash. I started the week half-heartedly continuing my search for an EK hatch, and ended the week with an S2000 in my name. I'm not even mad, it's funny how things work out sometimes. The details on the car are pretty interesting too. I am technically the third owner, the first owner was a woman in Scottsdale who owned it from 2005-October 2020. Her contractor bought it from her last year, had it for about 6 months and decided it wasn't for him. During his ownership he seems to have dumped a bunch into refreshing pieces. The car is bone stock, the fenders aren't even rolled, a rarity in the S2000 world from what I understand. It has a brand new OEM soft top, pretty clean interior and a clean title to boot. It does have high mileage, 151,000 on the clock. But given how well it was cared for, I can't really complain. There are some cosmetic flaws, it looks like the front bumper was used as a curb feeler, a fender was resprayed at some point for unknown reasons, but the car is straight as can be. It also is kind of in the sweet spot for me. It's an AP2 so you get less revs but slightly more torque, but it's also a 2005 so it has the AP1 style cable throttle (instead of drive by wire). It's kind of the best of both worlds all in one car. For my purposes, it's perfect. It's nice, but not TOO nice.
Also: if you don't like that blue interior, I'm sorry but you're wrong. It's the best.
A small photo dump from my first few days of ownership. I just started driving it around daily to see what it needed and what I wanted to do. Side note, this thing has killer AC, it gets freezing cold in the cabin if you want it to. I've driven S2000s before, but they never really resonated with me until now. I'm not sure if it was because of the specific ones I drove were heavily modified, or just I was in a different head space then, but I find my little Suzuka Blue S2K to be much more enjoyable. To start, I realized I needed to knock out some basic maintenance.
This morning I knocked out a few basic projects. I added axle spacers because the car had the infamous S2000 vibration. I'm sure these are original axles, and the buckets have just worn themselves. Rather than fussing with flipping them, I just ordered some spacers. They should help when I eventually lower the car as well. I also flushed the trans fluid, and added a magnetic drain plug. At 150k I figured I rather be safe than sorry, as the trans and diff are known weak points in the S2K drivetrain. That said, looks like it wasn't even necessary, the fluid that came out of the transmission was brand new. I didn't get to the diff today, turns out my 23mm wrench up and walked away, and after 30 minutes of searching I figured it could wait just a bit. I also replaced the coolant reservoir, as the old one was cracking. Beyond that I still need to do a valve cover gasket (it has a small leak), and a valve adjustment (will likely just have the dealer do it, turns out it's cheap). Also, I want to flush out the brake fluid with something high temp. I drove it around the block after all that, and axle shake cured, and transmission was shifting better than ever.
So what are the plans?
To be clear: the M3 is still my favorite as of the time of posting. This car is cool, but it doesn't quite give me the same feels as the M3 and I don't think it could ever replace it. With that in mind, I have some big changes coming for the M3 and frankly don't want to go crazy on yet another car. Plus, seeing as how original and preserved this S2000 is, I don't want to be the one to ruin it. I'd really like to do some track days/autocrosses with it, as I've been itching to go for quite some time but never confident enough with the m3 to run it. This is pretty much the perfect platform. I'll run it stock to get seat time and comfortable with the car, and then I think it's really just a matter of some basic changes. I'd like to do the normal wheels, suspension, etc. just to make it look a little cooler and dial it in as I progress with the car. I've already ordered a seat drop bracket from BackYard Special, and a Spoon Shift Knob (strictly because the stock one is disgusting to touch). But those are both back ordered, so I'll be rocking it as is for a hot minute.
Much like my wagon, I created a thread in case things escalate, and just to log my progress as I own it, but don't expect greatness out of this thread. Just photo dumps and small projects as I go along.
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