CaterPillar's AutoHome

Torque specs S2000 AP1 Torque Specs for various bolts (in alpha order) These were all taken from a Shop Manual... they are all listed in lbf-ft and if says + xx* then tighten to the initial torque spec and tighten another xx degrees. Dont forget to tighten some bolts in an inside out pattern and multiple stages (such as head bolts, oil pan bolts, or lower block bolts just to name a few). This is not a complete list, but as much as I could handle. Alternator Power Nut - 9 Alternator Pulley Locknut - 81.7 Alternator Support - 33 Belt Tensioner - 16 (to block) Belt Tensioner Pulley - 31 Belt Tensioner Test - 19.3 Block Drain Bolt - 61 Brake Caliper Mounting Bolts - 79.6 Brake Hose/Line Fitting - 12 Cam Chain Auto Tensioner - 8.7 Cam Chain Sprocket Center Bolt - 36 Cam Chain Sprocket to Idler Bolts - 10 Cam Gear Nut - 86.8 Camshaft Holder Bolts - 16 Catalytic Converter Spring Bolts - 16 Clutch Bleeder Screw - 7.2 Clutch Line to Master - 11 Clutch Line to Slave - 22...

I have waited for a whole winter to do this rear diff fluid change. What was blocking me was the 23mm fill plug on the diff. I used every tool I could find and all my strength. It just didn't come off. I tried once in November last year and once last month. With the craftsman 3/8 inch drive ratchet I just cannot do this.. Then I used a 3/8 inch drive breaker bar along with my 23mm socket to try again. Normally the socket won't fit into the narrow gap there on the side of the diff but the one I bought on Amazon fit quite well inside. Finally on Sat I managed to loosen the fill plug. I felt a sudden movement. It was luckily not breaking the thread. It came off!! The next steps were naive. The 24mm plug on the car was really loose when I got it off. I really ran a change of spilling rear diff fluid everywhere before that! And it was quite dirty.. (not that bad in fact...). I used AMSOIL 75w-110 Severe Gear.  By the pump with hose I pumped 0.7~0.8 quar...

When I went to Steve last time for the alignment, he found that my passenger rear tire was 28psi, way below 32psi I set months ago. I did not drive the car a lot since then so I thought it might be leaking somewhere. I did a search on the tire tread and found this: I was still not sure if it was due to this nail. I used some dish cleaner plus water and sprayed it on the whole tire surface. Only this spot was bubbling! Then I wanted to fix this on my own. I bought the repair kit: A plier and the plug kit! The process was 'easy': first get the nail out, then use the rasp to clean the inner of the hole and then use the plug to put that plastic stuff in! Pull it out rapidly and we are done! Rubber cement could be applied to the rasp and the plug for lubricating and better seal. Well it was not that easy at all. It definitely doesn't need some professional knowledge of the car or parts. Just brute force needed! I literally used all my body weight on t...

Yes I am doing this once again. It's been only 2700 miles since last alignment. I went to Steve's garage and asked for max front camber, and some less rear camber, plus a little bit of rear toe. Max front camber could help me turn in better, reducing understeer a lot simply because oversteer could be corrected and I am happier with more oversteer than understeer. Check this out: And also note that Steve said the caster couldn't go any higher cuz it's all rusted and can't be moved. In order to adjust it larger I have to order a new set of control arms.. In addition, after looking at the exhaust he said it could be flowmaster exhaust (with US patent on it) and it was almost time to change it. Under high pressure it could crack and break when you are on gas WOT. Can't wait for the season to kick off! 3/8/17

It's never too late to write down my project on the S2000. It was last year, 2016's Christmas Eve that I did the transmission fluid change. I don't know the condition of the fluid. There is a simple way to check if the fluid is good. Unscrew the fill bolt and see if the level is high enough and close to the fill hole. Also use a light to check if the fluid is in good shape. Any contaminant or leaf or brick could be a sign of change. What you need for the job is: (1) Transmission fluid you prefer, 2 qtz you need to buy. (1.7 qtz needed for the change though) (2) The 3/8 ratchet (3) The 3/8 torque wrench (4) Two new washers 14mm and 20mm, parts no.  94109-14000, 94109-20000 , one for the fill bolt, one for the drain bolt. As usual, the replacement is recommended. However, do remember to face the sharp side of the washer towards the transmission (car). (5) Lube pump. You need this to pump the fluid into the transmission bay. I mentioned 3/8 drive here because al...

I don't know whether I should do the roll or not. As for the S2000, most of the aftermarket wheels are not ideal because of low offset concave face. Therefore, a fender roll could open the door to a bunch of aftermarket wheels, like RPF1's ET45, the classic ones, etc. Considering I have already lowered the car, and I went to Bill for a fender roll, once for all. This process should better be done by some professionals. The roll should be done gently and not too aggressively, i.e., not too much. Just bend the fender liners upwards and don't make it stuck with the inner side of the fender. It would damage somehow the fender. As for the front, tab relocation is a must and also do it properly is super important for aesthetics reason and for anti-rust. Basically you need to heat it up with a heat gun, and trim the sides of the fender liners, and gradually roll the fender, making the fender liner form a gradual curve. That looks beautiful. Note: Jay said that he could not f...

I went to Billman today for an inspection of my installed Eibach. This post follows the previous lowering spring installation one. He did check all four sides and found that the driver side rear spring was not totally into the perch. It was not installed correctly. After reinstalling the spring, he did the pre-loading once again. However there were still two fingers. I would like to have it settle for some miles and see whether it would be lower a little bit. Note: HOW TO CHECK IF THE SPRINGS ARE IN THE CORRECT POSITION? ------- Use a 1/2 inch open end wrench to fit the coils. The Eibach front should be less than 1/2 thick and the rear should be larger. We check by thickness of the coils. 12/14/16

Replaced my TCT at 58222 miles with Billman's TCT. Photo: from Billman 12/14/2016

Since winter is coming and it is likely to snow soon, I installed new rims with WS-80 on them this afternoon. NOTE: The all-season NS-20 tires are installed in a wrong way!!! The rear ones are not installed with the correction rotation direction. See above in the pic for details. Need to sway driver side rear and passenger side rear tires! No wonder I find it slippery for no reason in the rain and snow!! 12/10/16

Steve is one of the best guys for the alignment job. He got his HawkEye device and did the job well. It seemed that the toe was way off with front a lot of pos toe and back some neg toe. Camber was so so, where driver and passenger sides were not equal. Caster was perfect. Here was the current setup: (DUE TO SPRING ISSUE, may need to re-align the car early next year) Thanks Steve! (Spring related ride height is still a problem though!!) 12/10/16

On this Veterans Day I did my brake fluid and clutch fluid change for the S2000. Tools: - Spline six-point socket - 19mm socket, used along with the above socket - 8mm, 10mm wrench - 8mm, 10mm ratchet when the bolt is overtorqued - ATE SuperBlue - Jack stands - Floor jack - Breaker bar - Clear hose (PVC tubing, 3/8 OD) - Catch pan - Bottle - Turkey baster - Zip tie (optional) I used the wrong socket. I tried 17mm regular socket with the lug nuts and it seemed to fit. So I used the breaker bar to loosen it. It did come off, but the lug nut was stuck with the socket, forever. It was like this: The fluid that I used was ATE SuperBlue or TYP 200. Both are the same, with the first one dyed blue and the second gold. I used the 3-ton Pittsburgh floor jack from HF. It worked pretty well. The first step is to put the car on jack stands. Since I was doing clutch too so I put it on all four jack stands. Next thing you wanna do is to open the caps, use the t...

Just a easy job but you should definitely check during normal use. The car has its own Honda washer fluid gauge. You can see it, pull it out and check the level. The reason I went to buy new washer fluid was that I could barely see any mark on the marker/gauge. Therefore I bought Rain-x 2 in 1 all season fluid. However, it turned out that the tank was full when I added only like 1/4 of a gallon. And after that I tried to use the fluid for like 30 secs. It was still blue, which was the remainings in the tank. So I ended up with mixing the previous unknown brand fluid with this brand new one. It doesn't really though. It is always a good idea to keep a bottle of washer fluid at home as you could add some when you find little in the tank. Note that when there's no fluid in the tank and you still try to use the pump it could damage the pump. As for the S2000, the pump and the tank is located behind the fenders. It's not hard to access them if you need to replace...

It may sound like a piece of cake. Yes it is. But we should never neglect the importance of inflating tires, especially to proper PSI. Many people don't care about the tire pressure. Some do but don't check quite often. My recommendation would be checking tire pressure at least once a month. I am doing once every other week. The tire pressure should always be greater than 30, in my humble opinion, and be kept below 40. As for the S2000, it's quite simple: 32psi all year round could do you a favor. But it is better if you: - 32psi for summer - 36psi for winter - 36psi for autocross The reason we need some more pressure in the tires when doing autocross is that underinflated tires could lead to huge understeer. I experienced this last weekend, you could see my last Sat AutoX with MSNE post. I didn't mention tire pressure because I had no idea that time. When I got home I found I was running on tires with 27, 27, 27 and 30, which is the rear right one. That was ni...

The S is 15 years old. A bit oxidized and hazy. Therefore I am doing a headlight restoration anyway. (10/15/16) The best kit is, I would say, 3M restoration kit. However, that would require you to use a drill and apply it to certain RPM on the surface. I don't have a drill, so I go for the Turtle Wax Headlight Restoration Kit, which is pretty cheap, 7 bucks. Only 3~4 steps in the process and it's relatively quick. Just follow the instructions and the result would be awesome. Before - left Before - right Well do remember to put tapes on so that the spray and rubbing won't damage the paint, just like this: After cleaning and masking, before rubbing. And the results would be like this: After rubbing with the lubricant. Mostly done, right before last coat and seal And here is a short video showing the result! Result  Finally note that right after wiping with sealant, the vehicle is ready for driving. So no need to p...

Yesterday the button on the lock was off as well as some little part inside the latch. Because the top was locked at that time and it seemed that I could not open the top at that time. So, late at night I took some screwdrivers with me and started fixing it. (Otherwise I would kick off the weekend with the top!) I tried to find clues from the good latch lock and got an idea on how this thing worked. Then I used the screwdriver to push from the side where the button used to be and successfully opened the lock. The inside looks like this: Then I knew two things: 1. I lost two screws there, that was why this thing came off, as well as the washer. 2. How could these two parts fit in? Well, the mechanism of this part is actually pretty easy to understand, if you try to use hand to mimic how it works. You can also understand it from the size and shape of the little piece, the right one in my hand in the pic above. And.. I spent 5 mins and found one of the screw and its washe...

The car comes with K&N Air Filter, which is the only non-stock part. Since I didn't know how long it has been since the installation, I decided to clean and do a recharge for the intake. The process was quite simple. (09/18/16) The tool is the K&N Recharger Air Filter Cleaning Kit. Cleaning kit You can buy it in AutoZone, Advance Auto Parts, whatever. In the kit are one cleaning sprayer and one oil sprayer. Though there is instruction in the kit, I will briefly summarize below: 1. Apply cleaner Liberally spray K&N Air Filter Cleaner onto both sides of filter and allow to soak for 10~15 mins to loosen the dirt. Do not allow the cleaner to dry on air filter. 2. Rinse filter Rinse off air filter with cool low-pressure water from the CLEAN side out in order to flush the dirt out of the filter. Don't mess it up doing the opposite side. Continue to rinse the filter until all traces of cleaner are gone. It may be necessary to repeat steps 1 and 2 if the fil...