On January 8th, 2022, Ever picked up this “mechanics special” of an S2000. Over the past four months we have spent every Thursday transforming it from Jalopy to JDM gem. Due to our different work schedules, Thursdays are the only day we are both off together.
We start off every Thursday meeting at 8am at my house, from there we would get some “coffeine”, then come back and hit the garage. A normal Thursday is usually 12-15 hours in the garage completing major upgrades and checking off things form the laundry list of repairs needed.
It was challenging getting all the parts in a timely manner simply due to how crazy the world is right now. Sometimes this dictated what we were upgrading that Thursday and made it difficult to complete upgrades in a 12-hour period. Despite this, we had a strict policy to follow. His car had to leave my garage by the end of the night, so that my cars could go back in.
Despite the setbacks and short amount of time we had. We managed to get the car all buttoned up and ready to do it’s first day on the track. The maiden voyage was a Speed Ventures event on April 16th at LVMS outside road course. There was only fifteen Thursdays from the time he picked the car up, until he was set to debut it on track. This may sound like plenty of time but when you think about EVERYTHING we did to the car, we honestly could have used a few more Thursdays.
As can be read about in Part 1, This car was purchased for an amazingly cheap price. The downside to this however was the amount of money that we had to put into it just to get it back up to snuff. Obviously when contemplating buying such a cheap S2000, Ever knew there would be a large amount of money that would need to be put back into it. This gave him the opportunity though to really make some good upgrades and truly develop an amazing purpose-built track car (that can still be driven on the street 300 miles to buttonwillow)
If this is the first time you are reading about this build. Please take the time to review the seven prior parts of this build series. Doing so will help you to truly understand the mountain we had to overcome to complete this build. As you’ll see below, I will put the links to all seven parts so you can check em out.
Hopefully you took the time to at least glance at each one of those links to get a rough idea of just how much work went into this car.
In this, the finale post of this car’s transformation, we are wrapping the car, so it looks as good as it performs! Ever’s day job is working at a graphics/vinyl shop that does a lot of car wrapping and commercial window wrapping (for advertisements and business logos). So, for Ever, wrapping a car is somewhat of an easy thing to do. Ever does express, there is no such thing as a cheap wrap and that wrapping your car (the correct way) will cost just as much if not more than repainting it. Wrap also has a much shorter life span than paint and is best on cars that are garage kept and don’t see extended hours of direct sunlight.
The cost of vinyl in itself is pricey and for the amount needed to wrap his whole car (~20 yards), would cost anyone of us regulars about 1500 bucks. Obviously Ever didn’t pay anywhere near that since he was able to get it through his work. As you’ll see below there is also a lot of labor that goes into properly prepping the car for the wrap. This is also contributing factor as to why a wrap costs just as much as a paint job.
Hopeful and maybe a bit naïve. We pulled the car in to my garage bright and early on a Thursday morning and got straight to work (we didn’t even go for coffee). We knew we would be pulling off a miracle if we were able to completely wrap the car and put it all back together in one day. But this was just the deadlines we had to deal with… After all, the FK8 needed to be back in the garage for the night. That thing NEVER sleeps outside.
Headlights, taillights, hardtop, front bumper (two pieces), rear bumper, side skirts, mirrors, rear over fenders and trim pieces all needed to be removed to make the wrap look as clean as possible.
As Ever (and Rigby) started removing the taillights, I got the quick jacks all setup to get the car in the air so we could remove the wheels and get the car at a more ergonomically working level.
Taillights come out easily on these cars.
I’m finding it hard to take pictures and get the car jacked up because of the rate at which Ever is hastily removing the parts.
Below you can see the Quick Jacks have only just made it under the car. Meanwhile, Ever was able to remove both taillights and both rear over fenders.
Hardtop off. I will be polishing it back up to a mirror finish as you’ll see later in this post.
Window trim and door panels coming off. Door panels are coming off to gain access to the mirror nuts/bolts.
Trunk is fully stripped.
Rear trim around the “soft top” area must come off too.
Bumpers, over fenders, headlights, side skirts, door panels are all removed.
Ever can wrap the front fenders while still attached to the car. Opening the door and lifting the hood will allow us to get in all the crevasses.
With the car in its “naked” state you can clearly see why it was such a cheap S2000.
Good view of the rear end and what it looks like all apart.
Here you can see there is no longer a soft top in the car and we have removed the trim around the body line/roof line. Eagle eyed viewers will also notice that halfway through this post, the tires change, yet the wheels remain the same. More on that later.
It’s GO TIME! We start off by wrapping the rear quarter panels and doors.
Ever uses a glove to ensure the materiel doesn’t get scratched as he applies it. He also uses a vinyl squeegee with a felt edge to also ensure the materiel doesn’t get scratched as he applies the vinyl over the body panels.
Ever suggests starting where there is a body line on the car and then working outward from there. This helps ensure there are no weird stretches in the material and helps to make large sections of material easier to work with.
For many reasons, Ever decided to do both door and rear quarter with one big sheet. Normally he states, if you want it to look super clean you would do the door with one piece then another piece for the quarter panel. I only mention this because I’m sure some hater will call us out on this and say we don’t know what we are doing. Let me just remind you… This is a track car and not a show car and I guarantee you the way this car looks when it’s done, is better then what some “pro shops” do.
Below you can see how he has completed the wrap from the body line at the door handle and down. There is a small dent in the door which stands out like a sore thumb. But again, it’s a track car.
With the lower two-thirds done, Ever now moves to the upper one-third. You can see that he has left the material loose up there which allows him the ability to ensure it gets laid on perfectly.
It’s starting to come together. I’ll mention again, it would probably be best to wrap the gas door separately to ensure all the edges would be evenly covered. But again, track car.
Same applies for the door handle. If this thing were a show car, we would have completely removed the door handle form the door.
Ever’s steady hand has no problem making these precise cuts.
I begged Ever to put a piece of vinyl under the handle so it would all be one color. But he just shrugged and said “it’s a track car”
Door and door handle have all been cut out.
Time for a break to admire two beauties and Rigby!
Now on to the passenger side. You can also see just how large the roll of Vinyl he bought was. Since he roughly estimated that he would need about 20 yards to do his car, he decided to just get a full 25-yard roll so he would have extra.
Below you can better see the technique of using the body line. See how the body line has the vinyl securely pressed on and how above and below that it’s just lose. This allows you to pull tight the vinyl downward and upward because the highest spot is the body line.
With the passenger side done, we move on to the trunk.
Same technique is used here as well. Apply the vinyl to the body line that is the sharpest and work outward from there. Below you’ll see how the top part of the trunk is done and he then moves to the backside downward side of the trunk.
And the trunk is now complete.
Next, it’s on to the hood.
Windex can be used as a lubricant to help reduce the risk of scratches when using the squeegee (even when using the felt side)
A pro tip for anyone thinking about tackling wrapping your own car. Make sure you get air release vinyl. Yes, air release vinyl is more expensive, but it lessens the chances of getting air bubble when you apply it. It would also be a good idea to get 3M vinyl. Lastly, having an extra set of hands would be nice. This is helpful on large panels to help keep the vinyl taught as you lay it on the car.
The hood is usually easy on most cars, but it’s super easy on these.
Next, we are moving on to the fenders. We decided to do each side with two pieces rather than one big one just because of the complexity and intricacy of the flare on them. This means there will be a seam, but I bet you won’t be able to see it.
Another pro tip. When pulling/stretching the material make sure you don’t pull/stretch it too much. Doing this can distort the material and cause the color to be slightly different.
Make sure when using heat to not be too close. The material can only take so much before you burn a hole in it.
Told you! I knew you wouldn’t be able to see the seam. Ever is a pro. (obviously in person if you looked close enough you could spot it)
Things were moving along quickly, and we were making great progress. We had to stop though because we needed to get Ever’s new tires mounted. So, we piled everything back into the garage and headed to get the tires mounted.
When we returned from getting the tires mounted, Ever began installing vinyl onto some of the more tedious parts.
Because the rear over fenders do have a large vent in them, Ever again used two pieces of vinyl and seamed them together. Below you can see he applies a small square to the vent and then he will do the large piece of vinyl over the rest of the fender.
Not only is this picture beautiful, but it illustrates two important things.
- The sun is beginning to go down.
- See how he secures the large piece of vinyl to the table. This helps him pull it tight since the over fender is not secured to anything and moves around easily.
He can then cut it out. You can also see below the intricacy of the vent and why it needed to be done in two pieces.
Here is another shot of what I mean by laying the large piece of vinyl over the fender and having it attached to the table. Because it is stuck to the table, this allows him to lift the actual fender to stretch the vinyl on it and giving him access to cut the vinyl on the backside of the fender (because he is slightly lifting the fender from the table)
Now on to the front bumper. This bumper is a vertex rep and are two pieces that bolt together. This made it much easier to wrap instead of it being one piece. However, it soon became apparent that there was some sort of paint/primer on the fiberglass bumper that would peel as soon as you started to apply the vinyl in tight areas. There was just too much tension, and it was causing the paint/primer to lift off the bumper. This meant that the vinyl wasn’t going to adhere to it.
Unfortunately, this depressing blow marked the end of our night. We were so burned out, it was now 11pm and we just couldn’t go on any longer. Defeated, we piled everything in the garage and went to bed.
It was now early Friday morning, and we were back at it. Ever’s car HAD to be done and drivable by 1:00pm, because that’s when I needed to go to work. It was bad enough that the FK8 had to spend the night outside, but there was no way I was going to leave it outside all day unattended while I was at work.
We pulled everything out of the garage and began.
Got the car jacked back up and began doing the rear bumper. Because his rear bumper was cut, it was very flimsy. This would have made it frustratingly difficult to wrap on the table or the sawhorse. We reinstalled it to help keep it stable while we pulled on the vinyl.
Again, you can see how we attach the vinyl at the most raised body line and work outwards from there.
Once the bottom half is done, we move onto to the top half.
You might notice that from the picture above to the picture below there is a lot of stuff that took place. This is because when I woke up that morning and went into the garage, it quickly became apparent that my water heater had sprung a leak and flooded my laundry room. Once we had the car jacked up and everything situated, I had to make a run to Lowes to pick up a new flex line to replace the one that had sprung a leak.
During the time it took for me to run to Lowes and come back (maybe 45 min) Ever was able to complete the rear bumper, reinstall the taillights, put on the over fenders, and reinstall the diffuser.
If you look at the driver’s side corner of the bumper, you’ll see there is a rough patch. This is because for some reason there was some bondo/body filler used on it to patch some sort of whoopsie daisy that had no doubt taken place many years ago. Yes, we could have sanded it completely smooth and made it so you would have never known it was there. But we were running out of time and…. It’s a track car.
To make the roof look as good as possible I used a DA polisher with some menzerna 1000 compound, then moved to some polish, seal, and then wax. There are some very heavy scratches in the roof that just couldn’t be buffed out.
That stupid “stance works” sticker is burned into the plastic window. Guess he’ll be repping 4 lyfe.
We then reinstalled the rear roof trim.
I also polished up those JDM headlights to a near brand new shine.
We installed some APR mirrors (that also came as spares with the car)
We got the car as back together as much as we possibly could so he could drive it home. Boy, that dent in the door is very noticeable in this light. That is also another thing worth mentioning about wrapping your car… Wrap will highlight any sort of blemish or flaw in your car. That is why it would be best to prep the surface much like you would for painting a car. Sand everything smooth and flat, use filler to fill large holes/dents.
Those headlights look BRAND SPANKING NEW now. If you’re interested to seeing how you can make yours look this good, I have a DIY blog post I made a while back about restoring headlights. You can click the link below to read all about it.
The car is now as back together, as we can make it for now. I needed to go to work and Ever had to drive it home. We couldn’t finish the front bumper because of the paint lifting issue we were having, and we never even started the side skirts.
For the rest of the day while I was at work, Ever was going to remove all the wrap from the front bumper and sand it all down to bare fiberglass. This would allow the wrap to stick properly and not lift. He would also wrap the side skirts and install the bumper/side skirts.
Ever was on even more of a time crunch because he had an appointment to get his car aligned the next day. This meat the car had to be all the way complete so he could drive it across town.
DRUM ROLL PLEASE…
TA-DA! Look at how well that transformed the car! This thing could probably sell for 30k now in this crazy market we are in.
The camera can’t quite capture the true neon(ness) of the orange windshield banner
Take a look at some of the finer details that he also installed. Carbon duckbill wing thing, retro H badges.
Instead of having a rear-view mirror… Ever had to Ever(ise) it and install a review camera (like a race car) The review mirror in the car is actually a screen for the rear-view camera.
It’s a bummer that one of the previous owners decided to de-badge the trunk with a screwdriver and dent the trunk (or it was stolen). Again, you can see how the wrap will accentuate any sort of blemish.
Here we are at the Speed Ventures event. Unfortunately, during the second session of the day Ever had a catastrophic failure. He money shifted from fourth into first trying to downshift into a turn. Car died and had to be towed off.
Once it arrived back in the pits it was obvious that the engine was down on compression and sounded sick as he cranked it. At first, we were optimistic that it was a fuel pump (we had extra) or maybe there was too much oil in the sparkplug tubes (because the valve cover gaskets were bad and leaking). But after pulling the valve cover and manually cranking the engine to TDC (top dead center) We quickly realized that there was too much clearance in the valve lash (we are talking inches not just the .009 that it calls for). Yep, the valves were bent and bent bad. We didn’t even bother to do any other diagnosing.
For the one and a half sessions he had, he was super excited with how well the car preformed. The car was setup to be very neutral and very confidence inspiring. The brakes of course worked amazingly, and he didn’t have a single complaint about them. The KWs were of course mind blowing and made the car extremely easy to control, even going over kerbs. Obviously, the other suspension parts he had installed helped to play a role and it was not only because of the KWs.
The only compliant he had, which we believe ultimately lead to his demise was, the transmission that had 300k plus miles on it. Even during regular street driving it would grind into third, no matter how high or low in the RPM’s. It’s safe to say that the transmission was completely toast. I had even asked him how he managed to go back into first from fourth because I thought there was a lock out that wouldn’t allow this to happen. He said that it just fell right in with no excess force which is why he believed it to be in third.
If you remember from the some of the earlier parts of this series, this car came with a complete RDOT long block, and the motor was extremely healthy. The trans however, was VIN matching to the car and since the chassis had over 300k on it no wonder that trans was worn out. It’s super unfortunate that he blew up the RDOT motor, but it’s all just a part of tracking your car. There will always be that risk that comes along with it. Sure, depending on how you deal with something like this, it can really take the wind out of a guy’s sails.
Don’t worry though Ever has some thing already in the works.
Patrick has AAA and we had a tow truck come out to the event to tow his car back home. When the tow truck arrived (it was a flatbed) he told us that he couldn’t load it on because Ever’s Sabelt tow strap wasn’t rated to tow the car onto the trailer and that Ever’s car was too low. The tow truck driver took pictures of his tow strap and car and said to us “don’t bother calling another tow truck, you’re blacklisted”
The driver clearly didn’t want to tow this car. Rather than argue with the guy, only to have him intentionally damage the car as he loaded/unloaded it. We just towed it with Ever’s jeep later that night after the event was over.
Ever made the most of the rest of the event and rode along with Patrick and I until the event was over.
At the end of the event, we pushed his car outside of the gates (so it didn’t get locked in), then we drove to Ever’s house, picked up his jeep and drove back out to the speedway.
We hooked up the tow strap and flat towed it all the way back to Ever’s house. We drove down Las Vegas BLVD, to Washington, to Rancho, to Oakey then all the way up to Summerlin.
As many of you know, Ever already has a JDM K24 long block that he was originally planning to put in his MRS. Well, you guessed it… The S2000 is now going to be a K24. As of Thursday, we have already started the build of the K24 and have all the swap parts on order. Below, I will leave you with a teaser of some stuff we were working on this past Thursday.
Thank you all for following along throughout this 8 part series. Rather than drag this “Ever’s Newest Financial Mistake” series out any longer, It ends with this, the eighth and final instalment. We will of course be documenting the complete K24 build, and swap into his car over the next few months and we have high hopes that the car will be ready for fall track events.
I hope that you have found some sort of entertainment value or educational value in this 8 part series. I also hope that this build series inspires/motivates you to tackle your own project. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or anything else… Please don’t hesitate to reach out. Email me: Billy@Functiontheory.com, DM on Instagram @Functiontheory, or simply comment below on this post and I will respond. I genuinely want to help other like minded individuals that share the same passion for Hondas/Motorsports as I do. We are a rare breed and need to stick together.