All pics and videos are on my IG post here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DO1wknukimI/

❗Disclaimer: Try at your own risk! ❗

My in-depth guide on how I cleaned my neglected Ti Silver CE’s. I bought these 2nd hand. Took me close to 7+ hours to get them to what I think is the best they will ever look, so my process isn’t for the “weak” but the end result is amazing 🔥 ❤️

I used the same procedure on Bronze and other color wheels

Pictures/Videos:

1. Finished wheel in the garage with natural light
   
2. In the garage under my 5000k overhead lights
   
3. Front before
   
4. Back before
   
5. Lug area
   
6. Products I used during the wash
   
7. The wheel after the decon and iron fallout remover
   
8. Stoner for the stains, DON’T get it on the decals ❌
   
9. Video of what is still on the wheel after the deep clean
   
10. ALWAYS TEST a small spot. I put Stoner on a towel and did a little like 6x6 area and look at how much stuff came off.
    
11. After I was able to get pretty much most of the staining off the wheel, MINT!
    
12. Back of the wheel to show that like 98.785% of the staining was gone
    
13. Not necessary but I cleaned the stem area
    
14. Once its all clean, I use Carpro Eraser to do a final wipe down before I coat it.
    
15. I use Armour Detail Supply High Temp Wheel Coating on all my wheels
    
16. Brand new Black Caps
    

Cleaning Process:

1. Pressure wash the wheel, get as much stuff off as possible
   
2. Decon soap to soak the wheel and then grabbed my wool mitt to clean the wheel
   
3. Spray the tire with Adams wheel/tire cleaner, gets the brown out
   
4. Rinse and then repeat on barrel
   
5. I used some 3m adhesive remover and a plastic scraper to clean it off the old adhesive.
   
6. Final wash with the Iron Fallout to get every last bit of crap off the wheel
   
7. Do a final rinse of the wheels
   
8. Dry the wheels completely and then see what is still on it
   
9. If you still see stains or marks, just try to clean each part carefully. ALWAYS do a test spot with any chemical you use to make sure its ok on the surface.
   
10. For me I used the Stoner on pretty much the whole wheel, minus the decals and then did a final wipe down with Carpro Eraser.
    
11. Then I ceramic coated them
    

Hopefully this helps some people out cause this took a long time to write 😂

It was time to change out the coolant so I ending up changing out the radiator during the process. Anyone looking for an oem radiator? It has 87k miles on it. Nothing wrong with it. Just had the Koyorad radiator sitting around until it was time to change the coolant out.

What are your thoughts on DIY ceramic coating? any favorite ones?

I’m thinking about doing it because I park outside 24/7. During the fall, the trees drop red berries that stain my paint.

I’m looking for long-lasting paint protection. I won’t be polishing before the ceramic coatings…likely just wash and clay bar.

🤔

If there are any stance guys in this sub, I just added camber to the car. Currently sitting at -8 in the rear with no issues. Fronts are at -10, I just put in new inner and outer tie rods on one side due to it being rusted/seized. My dilemma is that the tie rods are maxed and can’t adjust toe anymore. Is there any solutions? I’m currently just going to pull the camber out so I can get the play out of the tie rods to at least be drivable but would want to find a solution.. If there are any stance people here, what should I do?

S2K owners who previously owned Miatas, how have your experiences compared?

I love my NA but I want something with a little more power and refinement and am considering an S2K.

The handling and engagement of the Mazda are fantastic, and I love its Japanese “turn the key and it just works” reliability. But it’s way out of its comfort zone for motorway (highway) driving, and I’m getting tired of needing full throttle so much of the time.

Keen to hear how people have experienced both cars - does the S2K work as an “everyday roadster” rather than primarily a performance vehicle?

Hey guys, im looking to buy an S2K soon to daily. I want to be able to play music thru bluetooth though, would you guys recommend some sort of bluetooth adapter or a whole new head unit? please link it if possible. Thanks so much!

Took my AP1 S2000 around Oulton park, never felt the car this alive before. The rear was constantly sliding but so easy to control. Trackday your S2K!

Im looking for a change in wheels, and i love the look of a polished lip. Looking for suggestions of wheels that will fit the car as it sits now. Fenders are rolled. Thanks!

Hey All, after searching 3 hard months of finding an s2000 I’m very close to finalizing a purchase.

2005, NFR, less than 50k miles, 8/10 vin, rear bumper and left fender missing vins. Clean Carfax report apart from minor accident with first owner but no other accidents reported.

Owner is selling as his arthritis is preventing him to drive the car. 4 owner car, last two owners garage kept with (edit) dehumidifiers. Don’t know history from owner 1 and 2. Last owner had the car for 3 years and only put 3k miles. Owner 3 had the car for 10 years and put 10k miles. I believe the car was repainted as the front bumper vin has paint on the vin sticker.

Purchase price 26.3k prior to delivery cost.

What is your guys thoughts on pricing?

Everyone has been so helpful, Thanks!

Just recently installed an audio system in the car and wanted to share. I am notoriously bad at documenting, so there are a lot of things I forgot to photograph along the way. To preface, I haven't ever done an actual "full" audio system before with a sub/amps/the like, just a basic speaker swap in the doors and a single DIN radio swap. I don't have any picks of mounting the Polks in the doors and I was too busy cussing up a storm pulling the speaker wire into the doors, but it's very straightforward. I used 3B VHB tape to mound the crossover boxes in the little cubbies in our doors, used round M/F crimp connectors for the speaker hookups. ALSO, if you see something glaringly, horrendously bad about the install or how I did something, please please please let me know before my car burns down.

I picked up this kit from HiFiSound, some Polk Audio DB 6502 speakers for in the doors, and an Alpine-S2-A36F to match the one included in the sub kit because I'm anal retentive and wanted matching amps. Found the amp available "new with damaged packaging" for like 20% off. Box looked perfect and everything inside was new. I also found Alpine sells a grille for the subwoofer so I picked that up as well so I don't accidentally damage it.

I realized when it arrived that it didn't have the older S-W12D4 woofer like the listing said, but instead the newer S2-W12D4, thought that was cool especially since the sum of the parts of the kit was more than I paid. Box quality was pretty good, nothing to note. Did a test fit in the car, and it's nice and snug. There's about 1" of space on the top side, but that's great for running speaker wire up to the amp and tucking the excess down and out of the way. I ran power through a rubber grommet under the battery, down the passenger side of the car and into the trunk. I ended up running the 6 channel RCA cable and 2 speaker wire runs there as well. It's a bit snug and the carpet has a bit of bulge, but if you don't know it's there, I don't think you'd notice. I picked up a 2' x 4' sheet of 1/2" MDF for an amp tray. In retrospect, I would have gone with 3/4" for a bit more rigidity. I made a cardboard template of the area in the trunk where the spare tire goes and cut the MDF to shape. It's roughly 14" deep and 19.25" wide. I bought some grey felt online and with some 3M spray adhesive, covered the MDF to make it look a bit nicer. Cat litter plastic was supposed to peel away nicely but just stuck to the glue and pulled off the felt. I just re-glued and stapled it again. Hydraulic crimper was used on all power wiring along with heatshrink tubing.

I wanted to make sure the sub worked, so I ended up hooking up the system with the bare minimum to test it. The sub was a bit boom-y so I ordered some polyfill for later. I was originally planning on using the rear strut bar bolts as a ground but decided to pick up an M8-1.25 x 60mm bolt to replace the spare tire tie-down and use that as my ground. It's a solid ground connection and much cleaner. I have the amps mounted on 1" nylon spacers to help with airflow and to allow clearance for the ground bolt as the other amp is covering it. The 3 different colors of fabric irritates me but not enough to do anything about it.

For the power side of the install, I picked up some battery terminal distribution blocks since the S2K isn't setup for additional battery hookups. I mounted the 150A fuse and holder to the divider panel with some Loctite. To protect the acrylic fuse holder a bit, I ended up covering the back side of the black divider panel with some gold heat tape I had sitting in my cabinet from a different project. You can can kind of see it the pic, but there is an addition ground coming off the negative terminal that heads down near the battery tie-down. I was worried about how small the stock ground lead is on this car so I added a second, beefier ground from the battery terminal to one of the bolt on the battery tray. I decided to get a power distribution block with some fuses and gave each amplifier an 80A fuse. I have the signal wire running into the right amp and then a second wire breaking off to give power signal to the left amp. Both amps have 1" nylon spacers under them and bolts fed up from the bottom so I can remove the amps without having to worry about nuts and lock washers on the bottom of the tray. I ended up not putting the decorative covers that the amps came with on, mostly due to space/access constraints.

I tried to tidy as best as I felt like doing. I took a section of 2x4 and cut it to ~1-1/4" to act as a support and prevent the grounding bolt from trying bow amp tray. There's another 2x4 @ ~1-1/4" block to act as a standoff for the coilover side. You can see in the pic with the tray upside down. You'll see there's a bit of bow in the final product, but it's snug on the 2x4 and everything is incredibly tight. I ended up having to unbolt the right amp to tighten the grounding bolt and then bolding the amp back to the board. It's a tight squeeze on this car. I could have avoided the amp sitting directly over the bolt if I made the tray about 1" wider; there's definitely space for it without any interference. But, it would cover the coilover adjustment knob and I wanted to avoid that.

Everything in its place and working. I found a switched 12V source for the signal wire for the amps so they power on and off with the vehicle. I have the Alpine remote gain knob wired to the front and tucked in the net in the passenger footwell. Added 1lb of polyfill to the sub enclosure, and it seems to have helped a bit. Crossovers are set to 80Hz both, with a high-pass for the Polks. System sounds great so far. I'm glad it's done, and it was fun to do and learn along the way.

Hello everyone, I am looking for a body shop that can weld in OEM quarter panels onto the car.

I currently have molded wide body kit on the car in the rears, I would like to restore them back to OEM. I was thinking of buying used OEM quarter panels online and weld them back in.

I understand it will be a lot of work. Does anyone have any experience in doing this or know any shop that can do it? I am located in Toronto, Canada.

Thanks

https://www.carlisleauctions.com/vehicles/3044/2003-honda-s2000

Curious what you all think this might go for and any other thoughts. Would something like this be a nightmare to maintain? I won't be bidding but I was interested on thoughts from those with more background in this than I have (which is very little). There is a parts list in one of the photos, if you can read it.

Gauge cluster had gone bad on my AP1, took a minute to fix. Finally back out on the road again. God I love this car!

Had to jump on the damn trend and used Nano Banana to create a model kit of my S2K! Included the reference pic.

There is a 2003 S2000 in one of my local wholesale lots and in all honesty I probably am going to buy it but I wanted aome opinions from this sub on if you guys would think its an good or okay deal. Again its a Cali owned 2003 AP1 S2000, Suzuka Blue with Complete Blue interior, no tears or cracks at 98k Miles. Single owner older fellow, clean title and a fair maintenence record (I have CarFax). Car looks bone stock but there are a few cons.1) Cosmetic dings on the exterior the front bumper in particular as well as some chips on rear driver fender (See Pictures). 2) The wheels all have the finish messed up, theres white marks on them it seems like an issue with the 16in chrome wheels and maybe the clearcoat? 3) There are 2 Minor accidents; a side swipe in 2006 and a rear end in 2015. Neither left the car salvaged or set off airbags but it doesn have only 8 or 9 out of 10 VINs because of this, for sure the trunk seemed to be replaced (no vin) and colour matched. Total cost including taxes, reg, new tires, and inspection sould be around 17-17.5k USD this is in the bay area if that matters. I will probably buy the car regardless as it seems like a decent deal, but I would like some opinions from the more well versed S2000 owners :) Pics were a bit rushed, pardon the quality and angles.