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2004 S2000 Driving Impressions

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Old 11-02-2003, 07:02 PM
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2004 S2000 Driving Impressions

“We scheduled an appointment for a 04 S2K test drive last Saturday. I was the first to drive the car, and have to admit that I wasn't real impressed with the difference in torque. That said, my daily driver is a Miata, and we haven't had an S2K for about a year. I also noted that the VTEC cutover wasn't near as dramatic as the previous car. On the other hand, the handling is much improved. For anyone that drives the old car anywhere close to the limit, you're aware of the difficulty of keeping the rear end planted in a controlled fashion. The new car is a huge improvement in this respect. I took a couple of hard turns and an onramp at speed, and the car was much more stable. I also did a fairly abrupt lift of the throttle on the onramp, and the car was in my complete control. The ride is slightly more compliant, but I would in no way say that it doesn't handle as well.

As others have pointed out, the steering is slower. I also noted that the power steering doesn't work the same as before. It's very linear now. It no longer seems to change the stiffness depending on the speed. However, I don't think this is the detriment that others seem to think it is.

Ultimately, we purchased the car (traded in our Miata Club Sport for it.)

Now that we've had the car for a week and I've had the opportunity to drive it more, the torque difference is amazing! Whereas in the old car you had to keep the revs up to do any kind of accelerating, the new car allows you to easily be a gear higher for normal driving. I've found myself cruising around at 2500 rpm just because there is enough torque to allow me to speed up the little bits that I need to for normal street driving.

Before you think I'm a cruiser..... Keep in mind that we still only have 300 miles on the car. I don't like to drive around at the bottom of the revs, but until we get 600 miles on the car, we're staying out of VTEC. I'll report back once we've passed that mark to let you know what I think then.

Is the new car better than the old? In many ways yes. At this point I can totally agree and understand why people are upset that the 9000 rpm redline is gone. When VTEC kicks in on the older cars, your blood really starts pumping. However, for a daily driver, I think the new car is much improved.

As for all out driving, we are planning to run the car next weekend at a local autocross. Although we'll most likely be on street tires, this should prove to be a good opportunity to see how the new car compares to the old car (we'll have a couple other really good drivers in the older cars, including Joe Goeke in Gary Thomason's old car that won AS back in 2000.) My opinion may change after that, buy I'm willing to bet that the new car will be the car to have in BS next year.....”

Ron Bauer
2003 SCCA DS National Champion
http://www.bauerspeedracing.com

Last edited by Supercharger; 11-04-2003 at 07:02 PM.
Old 11-02-2003, 07:05 PM
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“I'm a first-time S2000 owner, but coming from a 93 RX-7 I'm still really impressed. Usable power, tight handling, more refined ride than my 7 (but feels firmer even). I'm looking forward to getting her out on the track once I'm done with break-in. I just spent about an hour in the garage staring...

The RX-7 was insanely fast -- the feel of the second turbo spooling hard was awesome, if abrupt -- but the 04 S2000 feels really refined and quick on its feet. And, well, it should be a lot more reliable. I spent about $10,000 in 4 years on maintenance alone.”

Last edited by Supercharger; 11-04-2003 at 07:05 PM.
Old 11-02-2003, 07:08 PM
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“Off the line the 04 S2000 finally feels like it really wants to go as soon as the clutch is released and you give it gas. This is what sells sports cars to the masses on a test drive. In my 02, I normally rev it up to 3-4k rpm for anything close to a solid launch.

In the handling department, there's not much to say. The 04 drinks corners like a baby consumes milk. No sliding, drifting or jeopardy of life. It handles exactly like the RX-8 I drove. No driving experience required, maybe some Gran Turismo; this makes it safer for everybody on the road. I redlined first gear (unintentional rev limiter again) making a right hand corner trying to step out the rear end, nope. So, the go cart feel is long gone. I had to work the 350Z to step out, but if you put your foot down it would step out thanks to 274 lb-ft of torque. My 02 S2000 wanted to drift every corner on the test drive. This was one of the biggest reasons I forsake my blue 350Z for the S2000. The 02 S2000 truly makes you feel like a pro race car driver. As you learn to drive the car - you actually obtain a great deal of driving skill/experience. Apart from how much faster you can run familiar corners, there won't be much of learning curve in the 04 and yes...that would probably make it the faster car....”

Last edited by Supercharger; 11-04-2003 at 07:09 PM.
Old 11-02-2003, 07:10 PM
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“Just returned from a road trip that took 13 hours of driving, mostly day time, some night.

I think the ride is just about perfect for these purposes. Lots of construction on 39. The ride is never jarring, but yet is not lacking in road feel. Obviously, it doesn't communicate like an MR2 Spyder or Elise, but complaints about a lack of road feel would be misplaced related to the 04. It's much improved.

Grip, grip, grip. Someone posted a review of the 04 saying that it's less planted than the earlier version. That claim is patently false. 245 rubber vs. 215 rubber. It's stable at speed, in rain and dry weather. I love these tires. No unwanted tire spin even in the rain. I'm talking about tight curves through construction as well as straight lines on the highway.

Above 80 mph it was hard to enjoy the stereo. I'm looking forward to trying this with the headrest speakers that are being installed today. Having said this, the car is definitely quieter at highway speeds than my Miata was. Not sure how this compares to the Boxster or others. But it was not unpleasantly loud. My wife did not complain about taking the smaller car, so this says everything about the cars trip worthiness.

I was greatly impressed with the relaxed hand position in this car. I almost never rested my arms on the door or center tunnel, and yet my arms did not get tired.

I continue to think that this car is a big improvement over the earlier versions, related to its purposes. The critics of the car speak as if they are MR2 drivers. You buy an S2000 because you want a compromise between immediate handling and comfort, with power. It has a power top! This is not meant to be a Miata. Having said this, though, I must say that the real world handling of this newer version is terrific. I don't know which car will handle better at the track, but in the real world the ability of the 04 to not become unsettled by rough roads nor to step its tail out in tight turns will be a great advantage.”

Last edited by Supercharger; 11-04-2003 at 07:12 PM.
Old 11-02-2003, 09:11 PM
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is that u or did u get that from someone else?
Old 11-03-2003, 04:48 PM
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A pet peeve I have is when people complain about not feeling the VTEC. VTEC ideally shouldn't be felt. It just means the low cam is much lower power than the high cam. I really don't want to feel the VTEC. If someone needs to feel the VTEC, then just lift your foot for a sec and that drop in power will feel just like the VTEC kick. Give a turbo guy a choice between totally eliminating lag in his single turbo setup by magically increasing the power before boost to match the torque curve after boost, or increasing lat to increase the feeling of the kick, I bet he picks bump up the low end and no lag.
The second cam is used to extend the torque curve into the higher rpms since the lower cam's power falls off. So ideally, if you could have a single cam that provided the same power from 0rpms up to 9K rpms, then there really would have been no need for VTEC, and people would be criticizing a company for needing to used 2 cams and how it was so obvious that there was 2 instead of being able to accomplish the power in the rev range with 1 cam.
Old 11-03-2003, 10:25 PM
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I like how the first review cites the VTEC engagement point, and then later on says "We're staying out of VTEC until we get above 600 miles..."

Give a turbo guy a choice between totally eliminating lag in his single turbo setup by magically increasing the power before boost to match the torque curve after boost, or increasing lat to increase the feeling of the kick, I bet he picks bump up the low end and no lag.
I would generally agree but out of the few car guys I know, two of them enjoy a neck-snapping break in power over a linear curve. Crap, one of the guys wants to get rid of his E46 M3 after less than a year because it's "too smooth and boring", wants something with a kick like his old twin-turbo JDM (and one deutsch) beasts (FD included).
Old 11-04-2003, 05:16 AM
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I see that Honda is making an already awesome sport car even better. I'd love to own one if I could.
Old 11-04-2003, 07:17 PM
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2004 S2K Autocross Performance

“The 04 S2K does not push when the alignment has been reworked. Our car came from the factory with almost 0 camber up front and 1.9 negative in the back. If that's not a recipe for push, then I don't know what is.

BTW, we didn’t use tire warmers. I'd like to point out that we were running on the stock Potenza RE050 tires. Additionally, although we had our car aligned to about 1.7 degrees negative in the front and 1.9 in the rear, with 0 toe up front and a little toe-in in the rear, we've done nothing with shocks or front sway bar. I think that the '04 will probably have some similar issues with running "race" tires that the earlier cars did since there is still a pretty large differential in size front to rear (215 vs 245.) That said, there seem to be more sizes available in 17s than there are in 16s, so it will probably be easier to find a tire combination that works better.

I really didn't notice much difference between the 8k redline on the new car and the 9k redline on the old car. However, the combination of the increased torque and the lower gearing were very obvious. Midway through the course, we had a fairly tight turnaround. We were able to do this in 2nd gear, and amazingly (remember we were on the stock tires,) were able to kick the back end out at corner exit. That shows the increase in torque. Additionally, on my final run, I was able to kick the rear out shifting into 3rd. The old car never would have done that.

The handling of the car seems to be much improved IMHO. Many have lamented that the car has been “dumbed” up for us American drivers, but I can tell you that the changes that were made have given the car a lot more controllability. The car will still oversteer at will, but now you have control instead of it snap oversteering.

BTW, the course was very fun! Once we came across the cross-over onto the access road, there was a 3 cone slalom followed by offsets. Done correctly, this could be done flat from the time you entered the slalom all the way through the finish. On my 2nd run, I looked down at the speedo to see 80 mph! Now you can see why it scared me when the car got sideways shifting into 3rd!

So, how did I do time-wise. Better than I thought I would. I had a cone on each run, but could have run faster without it. Ultimately, my second run was my quickest, but I think I could have run at least ½ second quicker. My second run time was only 1 second off of Greg Fordahl in a new Boxster S on Hoosiers. For those that haven’t heard of Greg, he’s a multi-time National Champion. He was also leading Pax for a good portion of the time. I’m not sure what he would have needed to run to win, so I’ll report back on that later. So, I think I could have been ½ second off of his time in a car that is probably prepared pretty well for National competition. Granted, we didn’t have any Corvettes there to compare against, and the usual suspects in S2000’s were missing as well.

My take? I think the 04 is noticeably faster than the ’00-’03 car. Probably enough to be competitive in AS. Whether the SEB will be willing to split the cars up is up to them. I’ll need to reserve judgment until we can run the car against other S2Ks directly, but at this point, I think the new car is easily going to be the better car…..

I ended up in 7th overall in Pax out of 134 drivers. I also had 2nd quickest time of the day.

My quick time was a 45.163, and to win Pax, I would have needed a 44.000 with the BS index and a 43.841 with an AS index. As noted above, I believe that I could have run a 44.5 or so on the stock tires, so with Kumhos on the car, it would have been pretty easy I think to have won with either index!”

Full results can be seen at http://www.wwscc.org/event_results/2003/SCCA03-8.html

Ron Bauer
2003 SCCA DS National Champion


The ’04 S2K is the ultimate road car for autox.
Old 11-04-2003, 07:36 PM
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Originally posted by mental pimp
is that u or did u get that from someone else?
Supercharger does not have a keyboard. He can only cut and paste text. Try using multiple choice questions next time and you might get a reply.

:D
Old 11-04-2003, 08:21 PM
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That yellow S2k is SICK!
Old 11-04-2003, 09:00 PM
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And just to be shallow...

... the minor styling changes and bigger wheels totally change the car for me. Never could warm up to the previous version -- kind of bland, lacked the "gotta have it" factor that led me to buy an M Roadster in 2000 and RX-8 two weeks ago.

'04 model's styling tweaks definitely push the car into my consideration set...
Old 11-06-2003, 12:21 AM
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“No previous S2000 experience, but I did get to drive a 2004 S2K in Austin, TX yesterday. Although the dealer did have a 2003 S2K on the floor, it was easier for them to pull the 2004 around.

Previous owned cars are BMW 325, 325i coupe w/sport, E36 M3 & now looking for a replacement.

The 2004 S2K was very tight and was as much fun to drive as my M3, but this could be the roadster effect for me. The gearbox was amazing, as was the pedal feel. The dealer let me get into it a little bit, which showed the potential of the car. Fit and finish were both excellent. The new 17" wheels look fantastic, although with many things this is a personal choice. The car was more fun to drive than the Boxster I test drove (non S). Coming from an M3, I did not think a non-German car would impress, but I think this car would be equally enjoyable without spending big bucks.....”
Old 11-06-2003, 12:51 AM
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very nice, especially in yellow and white. am warming up to the styling tweaks, but have to say still like the original look better. still grieving over the loss of the 9000rpm redline, the head-jerking vtec kick-in, and the original wild wild manners. but what can i say, it's still awesome
Old 11-08-2003, 05:18 PM
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There is a comparison dyno between the '04 and '02 S2K, and it is showing that the '04 is underrated by Honda. The '04 is showing 26hp and 21lb-ft more than the previous generations.

http://www.vtec.net/articles/view-ar...&page_number=2
Old 11-08-2003, 05:38 PM
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I like that under-rating that Honda does better than the over-rating of Mazda.

The '03 s2k and RX-8 were very similar in performance. I assume that the new S2000 will be faster now?
Old 11-09-2003, 08:41 PM
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The vtec.net article is written by one of our forum memebers - ChurchAutoTest.

Dynapack does not take into account of wheel/tire rotational inertia. The ’04 S2K has bigger and heavier wheels compared to an older S2K. I expect Dynojet results to show a smaller HP gain.

Last edited by Supercharger; 11-09-2003 at 08:43 PM.
Old 11-11-2003, 09:56 PM
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“When I finally knew I was going to get an S, I was loosing sleep trying to decide if I should order a '04 or get one of the 03's. I was really worried about all the "watered down" stuff. Since what I wanted was a no-holds barred roadster/F1 car for the road, I originally started to lean towards the '03. The '04 was worth the wait. I have not been disappointed at all. Since this will be my daily driver, the additional low-end torque is welcomed. The handling and suspension is still very aggressive (compared to virtually any other car).

I'm 6'3" and this thing fits me like a glove, and compared to pre '04 models, it does seem to have more elbow room. LOVE the cup holder cover, rims, tailpipe etc.

Had a chance to drive the car a little more aggressive today (still low rpms, but some fun/tight S turns). There are a few turns that I knew would test the handling of the vehicle - and man, am I impressed. I've not taken these particular turns with another S2K before so I can't do a fair comparison, but have been through them with other vehicles. The S was just incredible!

The turns are filled with mid-corner, car bouncing bumps, so I proceed to take them as if they were smooth . As I hit the apex and got back on the throttle, the car bounced, rear end stepped out and just as quickly returned back on line (just a hint of counter steering needed). I was very impressed.”
Old 11-16-2003, 09:45 PM
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awesome car, but it is not practical
Old 11-23-2003, 09:12 PM
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“I know that seat of the pants impressions about horsepower are highly inaccurate but I must say that having driven a ‘03 S2K and now experiencing the ’04 S2K, it sure seems as though Honda is under reporting the real horsepower and torque gain of the new S.

I had considered the 350Z and the RX-8 as well but the S won out due to several reasons.

The sheer joy of driving this light roadster is an experience the other two do not offer.

The build quality of the S is in a different league as well.
The S2000 is made by the same folks that put the NSX together in the same factory. The quality of the materials in and out and the fit and finish is remarkable. Having the benefit of comparing the S with my NSX, side by side in the garage, I can tell you that the S2000 has been put together with a high level of care and pride. The paint job is flawless, the leather seats are form fitting yet comfortable, the dash is well executed and the roadster is amazingly rigid! Not a creak or an unsettled feeling.

The S2000 is intended only for enthusiasts who truly appreciate a sports car for what it is without catering to the "masses" (hence no automatic, no-nonsense interior, a suspension tuned for performance, a gearbox second to none in the automotive world and brakes that are simply spectacular).”
Old 11-24-2003, 03:07 PM
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Saw my first '04 S2K on the road yesterday. Have to admit that if I was in the market for a two seater, it would be my choice. The '04 enhancements (styling and performance) make the car very desireable to me. Briefly considered the 2000 model, bought an M Roadster instead because the S2000 looked really bland to me. '04 model is hot! That said, I still love my RX-8 and I really need to extra seats!
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