Ever’s newest financial mistake (PT 1)

If you’re an avid Functiontheory reader or know Ever personally, you’ll know my boy is not known for making the most responsible decisions. Whether it’s hammering a screwdriver into his ignition at the track because he forgot his key at home. Cutting body panels off his brand-new Gladiator. Or buying clapped out cars only to dump endless amounts of money into. Only to then realize he shouldn’t have bought such crap in the first place.

I’m sure by now you’ll have figured out that Ever has purchased the clapped out S2000 pictured above. But let me give you the backstory and a little insight as to how we got to where we are today… Back in early December Ever had accompanied me during my last track outing at Buttonwillow. On that day, there was a S2000 that instantly caught Ever’s attention. There was something about it that resonated deep in his soul and spoke to him. It said, “You need a S2000, RIGHT NOW!” He spent the rest of the day undressing that S2000 with his eyes. Licking his lips and joyfully rubbing his hands together. Just thinking of all the things, he would do if he had a S2000. He couldn’t stop talking about how he needed a S2000 in his life. He even went as far as to text our buddy John and see if he would sell him his.

Ever spent the rest of that day, dreaming about what parts he was going to get for a car he didn’t even own. On our long drive home from Buttonwillow he even spent most of his time searching marketplace, offer up, craigslist, and any other sort of classifieds he could find for a S2000. Obviously right now is a sellers’ market more than it being a buyers’ market and car prices are insane. For him, finding one that wasn’t more than 20k was proving to be a lot harder than he first thought.

After searching for nearly a month and sleeping on a few good ones that slipped through his hands. He found this clapped-out gem located in Vista CA. Unfortunately for me, I was not able to accompany him on the drive down there to pick it up. I was at home sick as a dog with Covid. I never even saw more than a few pictures of this car. From pictures I did see, I really did try talking him out of making the decision to purchase this jalopy.

Ever gets what Ever wants. When he is fixated on something there is no way anyone is talking him out of it. He would just end up getting it behind our backs. The car is a 2001, clean title, but it has 300k miles on it! The seller wanted 15k for it. For that much, there was no way I was going to let Ever waste his money… Let’s be honest, there are plenty of other decent S2000’s with quality parts in the 17k range. But for some reason, this specific S2000 really tugged on Ever’s heart strings. HE NEEDED THIS ONE! On multiple occasions I tried talking him out of buying this one, and kept reminding him… 300K miles dude, that’s crazy!

Ever messaged this guy back and forth a few times. It seemed like there wasn’t that many people interested in a 300k mile S2000 (for obvious reasons). In the end Ever ended up purchasing the car for 12k. Which for myself even seemed a bit too high considering the cars condition. But considering the current market we are in… this was “cheap?”.

So off Ever and John went, 350 miles south on the 15 freeway to Vista California. Ever saw the car for the first time in person… Despite the oil leaks, creaky/loud rep hardtop, worn out trans, completely bald tires, poorly trimmed rear bumper, poor fit rep voltex front bumper, and many, many other things… Ever handed this guy 12k and thanked him as he bent over and drove off with his newly acquired S2000. As he drove the car home 350 miles north on the 15 freeway to Las Vegas, John drove behind in Ever’s gladiator. Ever and John decided to put the car through its paces and really wind it all the way out. This way John could see if there was any sort of smoke, or smell’s coming from the exhaust that would hint towards the engine being hurt. I mean, after all the car has 300k miles on it. I know Honda makes reliable engines, but there was no way that an AP1 engine with 300k wasn’t tired. AP1 retainers are notorious for cracking and catastrophic engine failures. There was no mention of this one even having done the upgrade to AP2 retainers or anything else.

The whole drive home Ever was stretching the S2000’s legs on the freeway. Revving the F20c all the way to 9k RPM’s. Much to his and John’s surprise the car didn’t smoke one bit, not even the slightest. Strangely enough, Ever was even impressed with how well the car pulled and how smooth the engine was. Now, of course there were other vibrations and noises in the car. (Because the car has 300k miles), but when it came to the engine… It was running better than a jackrabbit on moonshine. After numerous hard pulls on the freeway the car still showed no signs of smoke. Was it possible that Ever had gotten lucky? Stay tuned to PT 2 to find out…

It wasn’t even until a two weeks ago that I first laid eyes on the car. Ever had brought it over to my house so we could get it all jacked up, take a detailed look at what he had bought. We could then get started making the laundry list of parts he would need to get this car up to par. As you’ll see below, the results of the inspection were WILD! In some ways it was bad, but in other ways there were a few surprisingly good secrets this car held.

Right off the bat the first good surprise was, this car had JDM OEM S2000 headlights. Now of course they have some cloudiness, but I’ll be able to polish them to a brand-new shine. Notice the missing orange plastic in the corner that all AP1 USDM S200’s have and… USDM turn signal bulb pigtails will not fit the JDM headlight housing, they are too small. So, in keeping up with this car’s half assed(ness) the USDM pigtails were held in with blue painter’s tape.

Currently, we are finding it extremely difficult to find the JDM pigtails. If anyone knows where we can source some from, please let us know.

A week later Ever had received his first wave of parts and we jumped straight in. Below documents the first stage (of many) of him bringing the car up to par. For the parts below I opted to not do individual DIY’s of how to install them. The installation of all these parts is straight forward and I will try my best to quickly explain the process below.

First things first. Works bell Rapfix GTC with a MOMO wheel he had taken of his sim.

Recaro SPG fitted to a PCI seat rail and the must have Ballade sports seat belt buckle extender. With how tight the S2000’s cockpit is, you’re going to need the buckle extender. There is no way you are getting your hand down next to the trans tunnel to clip in the seat belt unless you have the extender.   

On his maiden voyage home from Vista CA. Yeah, the one where he was driving the piss out of the car at speeds in the triple digits. He noticed some vibrations coming from the rear end or even the drive line. Upon further investigation with the car jacked up, it became apparent there was some rather alarming things he should have been concerned about.

Yep, that’s the axle where it bolts to the diff, and it is missing three of the six bolts that attach it.

It was only like this on one side. This leads us to believe that at one point there had been some damage to the driver’s side of the car. This also became more obvious when we noticed that the driver’s side rear brake dust shield was missing.

Since the axles on the car were trash, he opted to replace them immediately. As we pulled the old axles off the car, it became clear why three of the axle bolts were missing… The remaining three bolts were ONLY HAND TIGHT! We assume they were all hand tight. Maybe somehow during his 350-mile drive home 3 of them managed loosen all the way and fell out.

Spacers are a good modification for lowered S2000’s because when S2000 ride height is lowered, the angle of the axle with respect to the hub changes and slightly pulls out the axles. Axle spacers also help prevent premature bearing and CV joint wear. But lastly and most importantly. Axle spacers also come with axle bolts. Since three of his were on the 15 freeway somewhere between Vista and Las Vegas, rather than spend money on new OEM ones, he just figured that buying axle spacers was the best option.

To remove the axle, you start by loosening and removing the 36mm axle nut on the hub. Then loosen and remove the 6 axle bolts (per side). Ours were easy because on one side, they were hand tight.

Then pop the lower ball joint off of the lower control arm and pop the toe arm ball joint off the spindle. This will allow enough movement in the spindle to allow the axle to slide out.

We chose to remove the toe arm where it connects to the subframe. This was only because we are replacing the toe arms too (as you’ll see below). Normally, you wouldn’t want to remove the toe arm from the sub frame because this is where the toe gets adjusted. If you loosen it there, it will almost surely cause your alignment to be off when you bolt it all back together.

One thing you’ll probably notice in the picture below. The ball joint boot is torn, and to be honest the ball joints do have excessive play. Don’t worry, Ever didn’t skip this either, he did order buddy club roll center correcting ball joints. We just didn’t have time to press them out and in yet, but we will be doing it soon.

Another thing you eagled eyed readers might have noticed was… That cross threaded lower shock bolt nut that isn’t even tightly or securely attaching the coilover to the lower control arm. This car is full of half assed surprises like this. Of course, Ever has new nuts and bolts on order, they just hadn’t been delivered yet.

Another one of the cool surprises this car came with was Depo LED, sequential taillights. While normally neither one of us would change out taillights, it’s nice to have flawlessly clean taillights that function perfectly.

New axles and and axle (driveshaft) spacers are in.

Next, it’s time to install the EVS rear Anti Bump Steer kit. These are also a great modification to help increase stability under “spirited” driving conditions. Whenever the S2000 is lowered, bump steer is created since the angle of the steering tie rod has changed. You’ll notice that the car will pull left and right without controlling the steering wheel. These rear toe arms help eliminate that potential danger by allowing independent adjustment of rear toe, camber, and arm leveling.

Make sure when you install these that you try your best to make them the same length as the OEM ones you removed. This way, your alignment will only slightly be off, and you should still be able to drive to the alignment shop.

Really get your head in there and inspect for good measure… Yep, looks good!

Make sure you tighten/torque all of your ball joints 51-58 lb/ft, arms at the subframe 40 lb/ft, axle bolts 61 lb/ft, and make sure there are cotter pins in all castle nuts. (EVS doesn’t have torque specs for their parts, so we just went with OEM specs)

And give the axle nuts a couple of Uga Dugas or torque to 181 lb/ft, before staking the nut. Make sure to lubricate the axle nut with oil where it mates to the hub. This will ensure accurate torque reading.

The back is now as buttoned up as it can be for today.

Now on to the front. EVS offset camber joint are a must to help achieve more negative camber and replace a 300k mile lower ball joint all at once.

These are soooo easy to install. Simply loosen and remove the lower ball joint castle nut and separate at the lower arm. Then simply unbolt the X2 17mm nuts holding the ball joint on to the spindle. It doesn’t matter if you break the boot, you’re replacing it anyways.

Moments after getting the ball joint out, we stumbled upon the next bad surprise this car had in store. Yep, that’s a bent tie rod. Luckily, Ever had already ordered new inner and outer tie rods because he was assuming that a car with 300k would need them. He wasn’t wrong. This also more evidence that something happened to the car on the driver’s side. Most likely it slid into a curb, or something similar.

The new ball joints should easily slip in place. Simply torque the X2 17mm to 47lb/ft. Again, since EVS didn’t include torque specs we just went with factory for the lower ball joint castle nut. 43-51 lb/ft.

Make sure that the white EVS etching is pointing inboard, or the offset will cause you to gain positive camber.

New inner and outer tie rods. Make note of the length the ones you are removing so you can set the new ones to roughly the same length. This will help get your alignment in the ballpark of where it needs to be so again, you can limp it to the alignment shop.

And for the last upgrade of PT 1, we are doing the EVS front anti bump steer kit.

This too is a simple install, and at 90 bucks it’s easily justifiable. The X4 14mm bolts that hold the steering rack on are all easily accessible from the top. (As long as the intake is removed)

The only real major thing worth noting is… You will need to loosen both 10mm bolts on the steering column joint just next to the alternator. Since raising the steering rack means you will essentially be shortening the length needed for the steering column to reach the rack, loosening the X2 10mm bolts on the column joint will allow the column to slide into itself, effectively making it shorter. Make sure you retighten the X2 10mm column joints once you have tightened all X4 14mm bolts that hold the rack to the chassis. Also, you will need to reuse the washers off the OEM bolts. Most kits don’t come with new washers, only new longer bolts.

At the risk of making this post too long. (Ever says all my posts are too long and he loses interest). I’m going to end PT 1 of Ever’s newest financial mistake here. As you read this though I am already typing up the PT 2. Hopefully in about a month’s time we can move on to PT 3.

Coming up in PT 2 we will unveil the best hidden secret this car had. I’ll give you a little hint… It has to do with the engine and the seller had no idea.

Sure, there is a lot of work that needs to happen to this car. But in the end, they are only things that Ever would have replaced anyway, even if he had bought a S2000 with less miles. Ever wanted to buy a car that he can beat the shit out of on track. It would have been downright disrespectful to purchase an overpriced clean one, only to treat it like a redheaded stepchild. He had known this all along and is why he tried to buy the cheapest (clean title) S2000 available, this way it won’t sting as bad when he inevitably goes off.

The fact that this car has so many missing or damaged things is laughable to us and has now become an inside joke. Obviously, we would never take a car on a track under this condition. I’m sure in hindsight Ever wishes he wasn’t driving the car so hard on the way home after picking it up. Hopefully this helps bring more awareness for you and any used car that you are planning to buy. Because most likely It’s also missing a bolt or three. That is why it is so important to thoroughly inspect the cars you’re buying and really take time to understand that just because there are aftermarket parts installed, that doesn’t necessary mean they were installed correctly. Chances are, they were installed by some clout chasin noob that didn’t know what he was even doing. This is also a one of the reasons “one owner cars” are much more valuable. Because having one owner lessens the chances that someone forgot the tighten bolts, cross thread them when installing, or just flat out do it wrong.

There is a lot more planned for this car A LOT! Ever hopes to have it on track by April. Let’s just hope he doesn’t lose interest and end up buying something else.

As always, thank you so much for finding interest in my poorly written articles, about middle-aged men, that have nothing better to do with their life than aimless spend money on stupid hobbies that don’t even matter.

If you have any questions or comments, you can always hit me up on Instagram @Functiontheory, email me at Billy@Funcitontheory.com, or lastly just comment below and I’ll get back to you.