The Lowdown on "Honda S2000 Tuning"

The S2000 was the fun sports car produced by Honda and really shows what can be done when a car company puts their minds to it.

Honda made the S2000 to celebrate its 50th anniversary and to create a pure driver's car that would appeal to enthusiasts.

The S2000 was designed to be lightweight, agile, and responsive, with a focus on handling and performance.

Honda also wanted to create a car that would evoke the spirit of its classic roadsters, such as the S500 and S800.

The S2000's design was inspired by these cars, and it featured a similar front-mid engine layout and open-top body style.

The S2000 was a commercial success, selling over 110,000 units worldwide. It was praised by critics for its handling, performance, and value. The S2000 is now considered to be one of the greatest driver's cars of all time.

Here are some of the specific reasons why Honda made the S2000:

• To create a pure driver's car that would appeal to enthusiasts.
• To celebrate Honda's 50th anniversary.
• To evoke the spirit of Honda's classic roadsters.
• To offer a car with lightweight, agile, and responsive handling.
• To offer a car with a focus on handling and performance.
• To offer a car with a front-mid engine layout and open-top body style.

The S2000 was a success because it achieved all of these goals. It was a pure driver's car that was both fun and rewarding to drive. It was also a well-built and reliable car that was offered at a competitive price.

Production of the S2000 sadly stopped in 2009 but we are eagerly awaiting the release of the Mk2 or S3000.

The S2000 2.0 NASP engine has literally be tuned to virtual perfection by Honda making this one of the most efficient production engines around. It is nicely balanced and the heads are so well setup that even a professional gas flower will be challenged to make a substantial improvement to the head.

Valves can be a weak spot on the engine and these show up when the engines service history has not been kept upto date. Other than this the S2000 is both solid and reliable whilst retaining the essential fun element of an open top sports car.

So onto the S2000 tuning tips:-
There was only one choice of engine and as it was such a good one we can't argue with it. To improve the S2000 is a real challenge.

Due to its high revving nature the car is often criticized as having little low down torque.

To address this use a higher octane fuel. Fit stronger valves and alter the cam profile and timing a little to flatten the Torque curve. This will usually be at the expense of top end power but will make the car more accessible to non VTEC drivers.

To maximise your S2000 power peak get the head ported and polished and have a 3 angle valve job done. This will need to be done by a professional with full flow testing and diagnostic equipment. Increasing the compression of this engine will further maximise the power gains.

Blueprinting and balancing the engine will allow you to fully exploit the top end power of this engine and this will help to raise the rev limit above and beyond the stupidly high standard limits.

Other modifications you should consider for your S2000 engine. Fast road cams, air intake and sports exhaust (include a set of high flow headers on a 4 to 1 pipe rather than a 4 to 2 to 1) & then apply some port matching.

For the power mad you always have the option of fitting a supercharger or turbo but you will need to dramatically reduce the compression ratio of the engine to make this work well. Another option you may consider is adding nitrous injection kits, this alone can add 50bhp more power to your engine.

What other modifications?
Brake upgrades are a good idea and we have seen a lot of S2000 big brake conversion kits around. Fitting larger alloys will enable you to fit a much larger brake disk but use low profile tyres to keep the same rolling diameter on the car.

Handling mods are also worth considering for your S2000, we would recommend that you get fully adjustable suspension kits so you can set this up to suit your driving style. Some like the tail happy nature of the car but you can tame it a little with the right suspension setup.

Further reading.
We suggest that if you want a bit more information on Golf Tuning you consult the following sources. TorqueCars have a comprehensive S2000 tuning article and also a very active, friendly and helpful  S2000 forum.

If you have any tips to pass on please use our comments box below and we will update this article, after all we are all here to share knowledge. Please also let us know if we've missed out an engine or performance mod that you feel should be included in here.

This entry was posted under Makes and Models. Tags: honda, s2000
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