In the beginning:
Sept 20th was 4 years of ownership I picked it up from JOHNWAYNE (Aaron) in 2014. Clean perfect title but It far from a unicorn, it currently has 175,000 miles on the body, when I got it a previous owner had hood pins installed and the bumper had some scrapes on it. The engine is from an 01 ITR with around 80,000 miles on it mostly stock other than a JDM 4-1 header.
Expo 15:
I drove the car daily most of the first year I had it, unless it was nice out then I'd take the s2000 out. Also had it tuned with Neptune engine management. Expo 15 at Gingerman was the perfect place and event for my first track day. My 6th expo but first as a driver. I got an extra set of wheels painted bright ass orange when I bought the car which i had wrapped kumho ecsta xs from some advice and recommendations from fellow expo attendees. Very nerve rattling the first time out but Jeff S, Justin Smith and Miquel being my instructors eventually I calmed down and began to have fun and push it some more and more which was going well until a small mishap where the fuel connect on the engine harness backed off a tiny bit caused the car to die and then 15 of us stood around in the tech shed baffled as to why the car wouldn't start. Not that we needed an excuse to drink beer and tear the car apart. Eventually we figured out the culprit and I could go out the next day and get back to learning more and having fun, I also could drive home now that I knew the car hadn't blown up. I also won the large awesome prize that year of Hondata S300 and traction control. But the best thing I took away from it was what I had learned about the tracking, safety and the car.
Leading up to Expo 16:
My best friend had an R swapped hatch with a bunch of goodies he was getting ready to sell, we decided to swap some stuff and let me buy some things off of him. Out went the 4:4 trans and in went an unknown year R trans with a 4:9 final drive. Around this time I filled the previous holes in the hood from the metal hood pins with the aerocatch flat latch style ones. Also swapped the OEM seats for a set of black JDM recaros and a suede Mugen wheel. I learned at Gingerman that the car didn't have a tow point for whatever reason so threw a sparco tow strap on just to be prepared this time. The Gram lights 57dr I ordered finally showed up as well and were wrapped in Hancook ventus R-s3 tires. They were a bit wide and the car definitely looked like a 4x4. The car was retuned on S300 and this time Expo sponsor Derek from IMW offered to tow me down to VIR for E16. Expo 7 at VIR was the first expo I had attended so we both were looking forward to getting back to this heaven of a Motorsports complex. There's a blurry memory involving a burnout and a ditch but it's been redacted from this story. I was super excited to apply the knowledge I learned from Gingerman with the new power band of the car to a track that's very very different than Gingerman. It's going from a small compact track where it's easy to remember and apply and learn to a large behemoth with two long straights. Still a novice it can be a bit intimidating. The best part of expo is that everyone wants you to feel as comfortable as possible especially in car and this will translate on track. Ed was assigned to be my instructor and was very helpful in making sure I was confident and comfortable as could be on track. One full day had gone by and other than some congestion in the novice run group, it was a success. Day two the car performed just as good. Towards the end of the third session of the day I shifted to fifth and realized that not all felt right. After Hogpen I realized the car wasn't shifting as nice as it had been. It locked me out of fourth and fifth. So we pitted early and Edwin and RTW were nice enough to offer tools and and a spot in their garage. The s2000 had been sold at this point so the R was my only car at this point so fixing it was a bit of a priority to me. Luckily RTW was drunk so I stole a clutch he had brought as a spare (I payed him for it). A large chunk of metal had broke off on the clutch housing. Once fixed I decided to skip the last session as to make sure I'd be able to drive the car when we got home. Again another successful event and Virginia weather and view in the fall is like looking at Scarlett Johanson in the nude.
Expo 17:
After expo 16 I picked up another car a 6spd Acura TL SH-AWD but so now that the R wasn't going to be seeing daily status anymore I decided to want it up a little. It sucks repainting and replacing things on a car like this but after the VIR ditch incident which I still can't recall.....the front bumper and lip which had some scrapes on it and the screw holes were ripped. And the hood pins had become an eye sore. So after talking to our expo friends at Acura Express Parts a new OEM hood and front bumper we're secured. Driving the hood to the paint place was a different story as I didn't think an 80lb giant ass Honda box needed strapped down in the back of a truck and ended in tragedy as the entire box got engulfed by the wind and flew out on the road landing on the front corner. After a couple weeks the front end was painted by a friend of mine at a local paint shop, he was able to fix the corner to the point of not really noticing. He even took all the hail damage out of the original fenders. Around this time I found a killer deal on some plastidipped TE37s, they weren't my ideal size but the prize was right for one of my favorite wheels. I sent them to a buddies shop to be redone in bronze and Ryan Conley was nice enough to sell me a set of stickers for them. Tire places were sold out of the Bridgestone RE71Rs but I was able to score a new set off of Devon M. I got kinda sick of the bulkiness of the recaros and the suede always being god damn dirty on the Mugen wheel, so I replaced them with the factory items again. I decided not to drive at Road America and instead drove out to hang out and it ended in another successful event and always a blast with this group of people. Also one of the more fun caravans that I've been apart of Expo 17 is also where I found out I was going to be a home owner for the first time as I had received a call saying our offer was accepted.
Expo 18:
After moving into our house in February of 18 the R now had a nice garage to call home. It's decorated in car, honda, expo and R pictures and items I had collected over the years. The ditch incident from VIR that I still don't remember what happened and I wish you would stop asking about, was still causing problems as the rad now had a leak. And whatever ghetto clutch RTW sold me was just a pain in the ass to drive. So I picked up a no name dual core rad to replace the large Fluidyne one that was on the car when bought it and grabbed an Exedy OEM replacement clutch. The car was now ready for Expo 18 East at Dominion raceway. I'll be honest the walls on this track really had me nervous. Always nice to spend time with the community, Bernie and his son joined me at my house the evening before the shortest expo drive I would experience. Around this time Derek from IMW had also picked up an R and was going to have his first track day. We joined him at the shop and ventured to Virgina. After arriving we set out to see if we could help any with tech. That nights drag racing event was one of the most random fun experiences I think that has occurred at an expo I've attended and that was just from watching it. After getting a good night's sleep for the first time in my expo history we set towards the track. Dan W from esses was my instructor and I couldn't have asked for a better teacher. I was bumped up to intermediate this year and once on track I completely forgot about the walls. It was a shorter fun track. One of the highlights was getting to be in the run group of a lot of my peers. Mike S telling me I was pulling from him on the back esses was a huge confidence booster. The rain stayed away for all of Saturday which gave us a great full track day. Unfortunately it didn't stay away on Sunday. Rather than track we decided to hang out a little and then head home. Another successful expo in the books. The car felt tremendous on the Bridgestone tires and I felt the first time in awhile that I was pushing my self on them and in driving.
Currently:
Since expo I've just been enjoying the car. The OEM exhaust decided it wanted to break so it was replaced with a Tanabe Hyper Medallion touring and I also ditched the cat as well. I also finally installed the PIC (10/12) coilovers I bought back in 2017. The car is no longer 4x4 status but does need to be height adjusted yet and needs an alignment. As for the future I'd love to get the giant rock chip chunks on the passenger door taken care of and the giant paint chip on the rear bumper. I'd also like to get more experience and more track time than just expo in a year.
Also:
The TL was getting up in miles and drank oil like crazy there was also the issue of it constantly pulling timing under acceleration. So up for sale it went and not too many bites on it. There's a large part of me that wanted another S2000, but it's not the most practical car especially now that there's a 5 year old in my life. So I searched for a CTR. Yes there are other cars that are better for the price, yes it's still FWD and other car makers have hatches with AWD and it looks like a 12 year old drew a car having sex with a Gundam but I really really really love the car. Found a champ white 17 with 5000 miles on it 3.5 hours away and they gave me a great trade in on the TL, so I pulled the trigger. The car is a blast to drive. Initial thoughts are that it does have weight to it, not sure why it needed a subwoofer and other stuff if Honda really wanted to save weight. IMO the car still begs to be revved even if you don't have to work for the power compared to the B series of the type R. Throwing it into a corner it feels as though it's a pulled out of the corner by the extra power brought on by the turbo. It feels very very fun so far and I'm very happy with it. As far as tracking it I'm actually not sure yet. I really enjoy the dc2 for now.
Coincidentally I bought the CTR on Sept 20th
This community means the world to me. Over the last couple years I've become closer with a lot of people that I now talk to almost every day all because of this car bringing people from all over the country together regardless of race, religion, politics or the kind of beer they drink.
That's all for now.
