Project Honda S2000 - Hondata Install

Clean all old silicone from the front timing cover, oil pan and mating engine surfaces. Use a scraper and be careful to not gouge any of the surfaces. Once clean, apply an even bead of Honda Bond sealant and reinstall the front timing cover. Torque to factory spec.

Install new crank position sensor and supplied harness (note: we covered the provided harness with Raychem heat shrink for added protection), reinstall remaining components in reverse order of removal.

Remove cam trigger wheel from back of camshaft. Note: Bolt is LH thread even though shop manual doesn't mention it. Ensure you have a short high-quality 8mm Allen socket, minimum 3/8-inch drive for this application. If you damage the bolt, you will need to remove the camshaft to get the bolt off. Don't ask us why we know that.

Install new trigger wheel, ensure "outside" faces back of engine. Old trigger wheel (right), new trigger wheel (left).

Install new valve cover, new PCV and reinstall remaining components in reverse order of removal.

Connect Hondata harness to camshaft sensor and route to grommet on firewall on driver side behind ABS module. We noted the location of the wiring in the connector then depinned the connector to allow the harness to slip into the factory grommet, providing a weather-tight seal.

As per Hondata's recommendations, we added an additional ground from the valve cover to the chassis.

Remove original ECU from behind driver-side kick panel. Attach the supplied brackets to the Hondata ECU and install the new ECU into the factory position. We connected the USB cable and tucked it up under the dash so engine mapping could be changed with ease. Set your basic parameters and head to the dyno for tuning! The included AP1 base map ran well enough to drive the car to the dyno.

With the install complete, we took the S2K over to Sasha Anis at SG-Motorsport, who looked after all of our tuning needs on the U2Ndyno.com Dynapack hub dyno. We were impressed to see gains of 25 ft-lbs of torque and just about 25 hp in the midrange with VTEC crossover tuning. Overlaying small cam and big cam pulls revealed the optimal crossover to be at 5100 rpm for our particular setup. Sasha was also able to increase the rev limiter to 8500 rpm, broadening the powerband even further. On the road, the car maintained excellent driveability, but the surge in power usually felt when VTEC hits was gone. The power was now very linear, improving on-track driveability and the large increase in midrange power was very noticeable. On track it has now become possible to stay on the big cam at all times. Where VTEC originally engaged at 5850 rpm and redline at 8000 rpm, the engine tuning has provided a 58 percent increase in usable powerband, 3400 rpm versus 2150 rpm stock.