Never Should Have Sold!

[wings&wheels]

Pretty much my favorite past car.

Found a thumb drive with pics of my 2001 S2000, the only pics I have of her. Thought they were gone.

I kick myself pretty much daily for letting this go, I sold it when I bought the Lotus. The S2K had ~17K miles on it then and was absolutely perfect, I had space but thought two modern two seaters would be redundant....

Man I have OCD about clean cars...

 

[Nick1994]

Very clean. Cleaner than my 4 week old Tesla.

 

[cpayne5]

I feel your pain. Sold my wife's about 18 months ago. Had around 40k on it. A neighbor bought it, so I get to see it often.

 

[ctechbob]

Yep, I've been the same about my track-prepped Miata here recently. Find myself looking at building an Exocet sometime in the next couple years.

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

That is one beautiful, VERY clean, nice car! What year were these pics taken?
Also, what brand of interior cleaner/detail spray did you use?

 

[RooflessVW]

Here's a photo from 2009:

Me in my '03 AP1, Silverstone over full red interior. Literally the perfect spec.

 

[CharlesInCharge]

Sorry for the lesson OP. Hope you can get another. Thankfully I've learned, from experience and MANY forums like this, if you have a carry XYZ (car, gun, heirloom, bike, whatever) never sell it. Keep it forever.

 

[CharBaby]

I feel your pain. I've sold cars that I should have kept.
I've driven older cars(winter/summer) when I should have stored them and driven them in summer only.

Wish I could have kept my dad's '60 DeSoto w/ Push Button Transmission & '61 Jeep w/4 spd manual.
PLUS:
I had a '68 LeSabre 2dr & '73 NewPort Custom 2dr that I wish I would have kept somehow/someway.

 

[diyjake]

S2K's are crazy how much they went up in prices over the years. It is one of the best cars Honda ever made so I could see why.

 

[wings&wheels]

That is one beautiful, VERY clean, nice car! What year were these pics taken?
Also, what brand of interior cleaner/detail spray did you use?

Hi, thanks. The pics were from '08.

I pretty much only use 303 Protectant on the plastics and vinyl and either Gliptone Liquid Leather Conditioner or Lexol on the leather.

 

[RooflessVW]

Missing from my response is my shared sentiment. My S2000 will always be "one that got away," along with my '92 750i and '04 Phaeton.

Don't you wish you could keep them all, or at least sprinkle wisdom on your past self? Next time I hear that little voice whisper "don't sell," I'm going to listen.

 

[wings&wheels]

Don't you wish you could keep them all, or at least sprinkle wisdom on your past self? Next time I hear that little voice whisper "don't sell," I'm going to listen.

Yes.

Whisper? It was a scream...

 

[DriveHard]

I feel your pain. Sold my wife's about 18 months ago. Had around 40k on it. A neighbor bought it, so I get to see it often.

Wow, I would feel totally different...like saying you get to see your old girlfriend with her new boyfriend.

 

[Cujet]

Here was mine. I purchased it for about $15K/32K miles, with an already installed turbo kit made by Inline Pro. The car was fun, but in the end quite a disappointment. Unsurprisingly, I destroyed the differential and transmission in short order. That's not unexpected with upgraded power output. What was a real disappointment was the flexible chassis, terrible Honda Civic brakes and twitchy handling. It was not a stable car, despite cranking in plenty of negative rear camber. And that issue was magnified to "glaringly obvious" with more power. A good part of this twitchyness is due to chassis and suspension flex, and of course, it's short wheelbase. But as anybody who frequented race tracks when these were really popular, a great many of them spun out during track days.

With all that said, I wish I never sold it, there is no viable alternative for any reasonable price. BMW makes some $60,000-$90,000 alternatives that are no better. I mistakenly thought I could find something slightly bigger, better and reasonably priced. I should have simply put bigger brakes, a roll cage, and re-done the engine properly.

The differential pinion gear. Ugh.

They were spin-out monsters. Google "S2000 spin out" and the list is epic.

 

[wings&wheels]

How much power were you getting?

 

[Cujet]

How much power were you getting?

It was able to produce 407 at the rear wheels. Unfortunately,operating the engine at that level of power was exceedingly difficult to manage, as the boost required to do that was right up against the ECU's boost cutoff. So 19PSI could make the power and the instant it touched 20, the engine shut off. Leading to a very unsettling series of bangs, as the minivan's drove by. And the boost level would vary just enough day by day to make that unworkable. Anything higher and the 3mm headgasket would blow.

So, the entire time I drove it at 15 PSI, which was probably around 300RWHP. Not enough to be really fast, or pull hard. But plenty laggy (about 2 seconds lag) to be annoying, again as the minivan's pulled ahead. It just was not a good setup.

I know my way around turbo setups very well, having been involved in turbocharged race cars from the late 1970's on. This one was installed by Inline Pro, and was their stage 1 system. Pretty awful. Bought the car that way. Just did not have the will to make it right.

 

[jhs914]

I sold my 2003 S2000 with about 30,000 miles in 2008 for $13,000. It would be worth at least twice that now if I had kept it. Nice car but the engine was gutless below VTEC range but pulled good from about 5,000 rpm all the way to the 9,000 rpm redline. But who wants to drive it that way all the time? And as someone said and as the video shows, it would snap around on your at the limit with the least little upset.