On To The Next One

A couple of weeks ago I posted that I was planning on selling Lupa and the response was a bit overwhelming. Almost every part including the car itself was spoken for within 24 hours and I'm glad that it all went to people that will put her and her parts to good use. I kept some of the choice pieces such as the ATS diff and Motons as spares for Bumblestook though. There's no such thing as too many spares! SJF Performance did a bang up job getting her back to stock for me pretty quickly once I had finished acquiring the missing stock parts.

Lupa with her new owner, Glenn - 7-15-2018

Today I finally handed over Lupa to her new owner, Glenn. This makes me particularly happy as I'll still be able to see her at races and I'm sure Glenn will enjoy her every bit as much as I did. I forgot how incredibly awesome the S2000 is even in stock form. It's been a fun few years but I've got something else lined up that I'm really excited about. The awkward part is that the new car will go head to head against Lupa in B-Street so that'll make things extra fun for me.

/end

The Final Chapter

A little over four years ago, after surrendering Bumblestook's plates and turning her into a dedicated race car and trailer queen, I realized how much I missed driving an S2000 around on the street and I ended buying Lupa and chronicled her journey in this blog.

Lupa in her current trim

We've had some incredible times. I spent a lot of time driving to all sorts of places with the top down. Her driver seat was a great place to re-establish focus and be alone with my thoughts. Eventually fully prepped for STR, she served as a "training/backup" car for events where I didn't feel like towing Bumblestook. We drove all the way down to Key West and back going from near freezing temps to scorching sticky weather and back again all with the top down just because.

S2000 East Coast Tour 2015 Video

Two years ago, I had to awesome opportunity to see both Lupa and Bumblestook compete at the SCCA Solo National Championship and share my love for these cars and the sport with more people.

2016 SCCA Solo Nationals

Each S2000 had their own purpose and everything made sense. Fast forward to now and Bumblestook is back in all her glory as a legitimate "one car to do it all" street legal S2000. It seems obvious then that when presented with an opportunity to drive one, I'm always going to pick the keys of the car that started it all for me, Bumblestook. There are many reasons I can justify keeping Lupa but it is time to let her go. While I have no financial need to sell her, one thing I refuse to do is just leave her parked when she can be out there being driven hard and enjoyed as every S2000 should.

One of the rare moments both cars were together

This is the 2nd to last post for this blog. The final blog post will be for when she's finally sold. The plan now is to part her out and bring her back to mostly stock form so I can offer her up for a very reasonable price and allow more people to share in what I like to call #s2klove. It's been literally and figuratively a great ride and now it's time to find her a good home.

Lupa's final event - 6-3-2018

Final Car Details:

2005 Honda S2000
Silverstone with Red/Black interior (around 1 of 520 made in 2005)
77K miles

Engine/Drivetrain
K&N FIPK Intake
Toda Torquie-Kun Header Jet-Hot coated
70mm EVS High Flow Cat
T1R 70-EM Full Titanium cat-back exhaust
New OEM clutch and flywheel installed at around 55k miles
ATS Spec III clutch-type differential
GReddy Emanage Ultimate with Karcepts dyno tune (8600rpm redline)
Moroso Catch Can
Innovative 75A poly motor mounts and transmission mount
Poly filled OEM differential mounts
New CMC and VTEC solenoid gaskets
New Deka EXT14 lightweight battery

Suspension
Karcepts front and rear sway bars
Moton Clubsport dual adjustable shocks rebuild/revalved by ANZE Suspension
850lb/650lb Hypercoil springs
Hardrace front camber joint

Exterior
OEM CR Lip
OEM license plate holes deleted, bracket removed
Robbins Cloth soft top with glass window
Advan RSII in Hyperblack 17x9 +63 with Advan aluminum center caps
255/40/17 BFG RivalS 1.5 all around
LED bulbs everywhere (turn signals, parking lights, reverse, license plate)

Interior/Electronics
Alcantara wrapped and thickened OEM steering wheel
Evasive Motorsports spec Black/Red Recaro Pole position. (black velour headrest, black jersey sides, a red suede center and classic double red stitching)
Mugen leather shift knob with red stitching
Alpine headunit with Alpine Type-S speakers and inline sub
Modifry Shift Beeper
Modifry cup holder

Miscellaneous Items
OEM AP2V1 wheels wrapped in Continental DSW tires
Original VIN matched transmission (has 2nd gear popout, transmission currently in car has 5K fewer miles than odometer)
Spare driver and passenger side mirrors
OEM driver seat

Another mid-pack performance

Surprisingly we got an NNJR SCCA event suddenly added to our schedule in June (joint with the NNJR PCA) so obviously I had to take the opportunity to go. It was a fun course and I had a great time despite the unseasonably cooler temps in June (low 60s) and a stiff constant wind at the meadowlands making it feel even cooler and challenging to get any heat in the BFGs.

NNJR SCCA Autox - 6-3-2018

I can't say I was terribly happy with my driving. It's pretty lackluster and I'm not even mildly mid-pack. It's definitely not the car holding me back. I think it's a combination of reduced skill and practice along with a loss of serious motivation or competitive hunger right now. Normally this time of year I have my game face on and prepping for the Toledo ProSolo but with my calendar clear of any big events this year, I don't really think I'm trying hard at all.

NNJR SCCA Autox - 6-3-2018
Photo by: Alex Meramo

Maybe I'll find my way out of this rut soon but for now i'm going to continue to enjoy the sport for what it is...a place where I can enjoy the limits of my car safely and hang out with friends.

Steguis - NNJR SCCA - 6-3-2018

VTEC Solenoid Gaskets

One thing that's bugged me pretty much since I bought Lupa but surprisingly never got around to fixing was addressing an extremely minor oil leak resulting in gunk accumulating in the front of the engine. It's never leaked bad enough that oil was dripping but clearly some of it was seeping through otherwise there wouldn't be those stains.

Dirty engine from oil leak - 5-12-2018

Based on the location it's coming from I'm pretty sure it's from the VTEC solenoid and leaky solenoid gaskets are pretty common on S2000s as they age. Considering the car is now 13 years old (yikes a teenager), I think she's overdue for new gaskets. Normally I'd go OEM but Honda only makes replacement lower VTEC solenoid gaskets. Pretty much everyone uses replacement upper gaskets from Kraken Automotive so I figured it would be safe to just get the upper and lower from them.

New upper and lower VTEC solenoid gaskets - 5-12-2018

Replacing the gaskets is ridiculously easy and only takes a 10mm socket so I figured this is something I could tackle myself. The only thing that usually catches people is over tightening the bolts and snapping them during re-installation so I picked up a simple 1/4" drive torque wrench so I wouldn't make that mistake and turn this simple job into a bigger event. I unclipped the plugs going to the solenoid and oil pressure switch then removed the three 10mm bolts holding the upper solenoid itself. The old gasket didn't look too bad unlike some pictures I've seen. It wasn't brittle but was definitely on the hard side. I cleaned everything off, used some of the oil to lubricate the new gasket and popped it in.

Old upper VTEC solenoid gasket exposed - 5-12-2018

Fresh upper solenoid gasket - 5-12-2018

After putting the top back on, I removed the three bolts holding the solenoid to the head. Same story with the old gasket here, quite flat and hard but not terribly brittle yet. Had to carefully pry it out, cleaned off the surface then installed the new gasket.

Old lower VTEC solenoid gasket - 5-12-2018

New gasket installed - 5-12-2018

Everything was then re-installed and all the bolts torqued to 12Nm (8.7ft-lb). Cleaned up the old nasty grease that had accumulated on the engine as much as I could then took her out for a drive to make sure I still had VTEC and had no leaks and so far so good.

VTEC Solenoid reinstalled - 5-12-2018

Cleaned off engine bay to check for new leaks - 5-12-2018

Final event before "Summer Break"

It's only my second event of the season and well it's already the last event before what I'll call "summer break". I'm missing the NJ ProSolo next weekend because of work obligations and there aren't really any events I want to go to locally until maybe mid-June so going to focus on other things and finish up Bumblestook.

NNJR SCCA Autox - 4-29-2018

The day didn't start off too well. I went to get Lupa and found she had a flat passenger rear tire. I was about to call the day quits but Rad convinced me to go jack the car up, grab the wheel and take it to a local tire shop. Thankfully we found one open on a Sunday and they were able to patch it up so I was able to get my runs in today. The size of the bolt that found its way into the tire was quite impressive.

Flat causing bolt - 4-29-2018

I drove the car yesterday just fine so I must've somehow picked it up near my garage since it definitely wasn't flat when I was done driving. It was stuffed in there pretty good so it ended up being a slow leak but was bad enough for the tire to have no pressure at all in the morning.  As for the event itself. I always have fun autocrossing but man am I really slow. If I keep up this rate of decline in my driving I might as well pick up knitting as a hobby instead. Didn't help of course that the clouds blocked the sun and the constant wind kept cooling my tires so I never got any kind of grip that gave me confidence. Not going to blame the tire though. I didn't string the corners together smoothly enough to extract the most time. Oh well, there's always a next time. You can't ever be unhappy driving an S2000 so that's always a big positive.

Steguis - NNJR SCCA - 4-29-2018

Kicking off the season

After what oddly seemed like a short winter to me thanks to all the work we were doing on Bumblestook, it was finally time for me to do the first autocross of the season. Pretty much everyone has already had a few events already but it turned out to not be a bad day for a first event for me as we were blessed with perfect weather.  It was warm, but not uncomfortable, sunny, but breezy.

NNJR SCCA Autocross - 4-14-2018

This is the first event with the new power setup and also switching from RE71Rs to BFG Rival S. I was very pleasantly surprised to note that without really touching the suspension setup from last year, she felt really good today after setting the tires pressures to 28/25psi hot. I think the setup suits the RivalS much better than the REs. Gone is the hyperactive rear and the tires seemed to be much more foregiving. I put down a decent midpack time, certainly nothing to write home about but I was glad with the progress.

Lupa in action - 4-14-2018
Photo by: Alex Meramo

Each run I was getting back into the comfort zone and dropping time. Improvement is always something to be happy about even if it's in tiny increments. There was plenty more time to be had on course but for now I'm just glad to be out there having fun again. The good thing is nothing really needs to be done to the car and the time can be made up with improving the driver (me) which is exactly what I wanted. Get back to the basics and focus on the driving without all the other distractions.

Steguis - NNJR SCCA - 4-14-2018

Seems I was having weird datalogging issues today. The GPS position is quite a bit off and so is the video sync. Oh well, not really important stuff to worry about for now.

Battle Ready for 2018

While Bumblestook has been my primary focus of attention over the winter, let's not forget which car got promoted to primary race car for the 2018 season. Hopefully the last snowfall of the season is behind us so I went off to see SJF today to do a bit of pre-season prep on Lupa.

Pre-season Prep - SJF Performance - 3-24-2018

The first thing I wanted to get done after we figured it out on Bumblestook was to replace the Buddy Club Super Lowdown rails with OEM rails SJF modified to fit the Recaro Pole Position seat. This improves safety as the I've never been fond of the relatively cheap build quality of the BC rails and it provides a much smoother (well it is OEM after all) sliding action. The seating position is perfect and there's absolutely no play or flex in the mount. It's not the cheapest thing to do but a great alternative if you run wider seats that don't fit the Mugen rails (my absolute first choice in seat rails). SJF and I were both confused when I got the rails because on Bumblestook the adjustment handle is on the right but apparently the 06+ S2000s have the handle on the left side on the driver seat. I picked up these 06 rails because someone just happened to be selling them and the driver side rails fit 00-09 S2000s but that's an interesting little detail I didn't know before.

Modified 2006 S2000 OEM rails - 3-24-2018

Modified 2006 S2000 OEM rails - 3-24-2018

Also, it seems that I completely forgot to change any of the fluids last year. I had changed it at the end of the 2016 season but between not being able to make many events last year and being focused on getting Bumblestook ready for Nationals, it had completely escaped my mind. No real harm though. I don't think she even did 3000 miles last year. Engine, transmission and diff fluid was all flushed. She's back to feeling super smooth again.

Fluid changes - 3-24-2018

Finally to cap off the day, she's finally back on the Advans but this year they're wrapped in BFG Rival S 1.5s that were previously on Rad's car. Tire shine courtesy of his detailer last year smh. I'm going to have to take it easy at the first event unless I want a close encounter with a solid object.

Back on competition wheels and tires
Advan RSII with BFG Rival S 1.5
3-24-2018

She's going to have to wait a few weeks before her first outing though but at least she'll be ready for action because April is looking like back to back to back to back race weekends. STR may have fully swung over to favor the ND Miatas but Lupa has unfinished business and I don't like unfinished business.

Replacing the CMC, Adding Power and Dropping Weight

After the last event, I noticed on my way home that the transmission was starting to feel really notchy and then last week while driving Lupa around, I suddenly couldn't disengage the clutch to change gears. I noticed that the clutch fluid reservoir was really low and friends on the faceballs suggested it was likely a leaking clutch master cylinder.

New OEM Clutch Master Cylinder - 11-19-2017

Part numbers for refence - 11-19-2017

I ordered both a new clutch master and slave cylinder and today I went to SJF Performance to replace them. Removal of the old CMC immediately revealed the leak. Thankfully it was a slow leak and I was able to simply top off the reservoir in order to drive the car to the shop. The new CMC bolted in pretty easily minus the finicky nut that goes in the footwell near the ECU. You could just barely fit a deep socket in there to loosen it up.

Leaking CMC - 11-19-2017

Although there was no leak in the slave cylinder, I opted to replace both as a precaution. With both replaced, there was obviously a ton of air in the system that needed to be bled out. To speed this up, SJF used the cap of my old CMC to fabricate a way to pump in some compressed air to help push the fluid through. It only took a few minutes to fully bleed the system using this method. We also flushed the trans fluid since it's been a while since I last had it done. The clutch is now nice and firm and the shifts are once again buttery smooth as one would expect from an S2000. 

New OEM Clutch Slave Cylinder installed - 11-19-2017

With Rad moving ahead with his part out plan, I decided to fix the one issue that's been nagging me about Lupa since I build her for STR. Having driven both my car and Rad's, his car always had an obvious power advantage. This is mostly due to me having an exhaust setup that's more designed for a sporty feel and sound on the road than straight up maximum race performance. Rad's car had a Toda Torquie-Kun header (the same that I installed in Bumblestook earlier this year) ceramic coated by JetHot mated to a 70mm Berk high flow cat and a 70mm T1R 70R-EM stainless steel exhaust and a dyno tune by Karcepts on his Greddy EManage Ultimate EMU. I jumped on the opportunity and grabbed his Toda Header and his Greddy EMU. However, I instead opted to pick up a new 70mm Evasive Motorsports high flow cat and full titanium 70mm T1R 70R-EM exhaust from Clyde's never-realized STR build. 

Old PLM header top / New (to me) Toda header bottom -  11-19-2017

Berk HFC top / New EVS HFC bottom - 11-19-2017

T1R 70R-EM Titanium - 11-19-2017

This would ensure that the tune on Rad's Greddy EMU would give the same performance from what I felt on his car. The reason for getting the titanium exhaust was simple...weight. The T1R 70EM in Titanium weighs only 14lbs, a 20lb reduction over my 34lb titanium dual tip Mugen exhuast. 

Rad's Greddy EMU with dyno tune (left) /
My old Greddy EMU with Karcepts reflash (right)

The install was of course very straight forward although the Innovative 75A motor mounts on the car blocked the Toda header from just slotting in unlike the old PLM header. SJF had to remove the passenger side mount in order to get it in. After swapping the EMUs and recalibrating the TPS voltages, we were able to fire her up. I took her for a test drive and the low end power is very impressive. It's exactly the missing mid/lower power I felt Lupa was missing all this time and the exhaust sounds pretty good too though quite a bit deeper and louder than my Mugen exhaust.

T1R exhaust installed - 11-19-2017

EVS 70mm HFC installed - 11-19-2017

Toda Torquie-Kun header installed - 11-19-2017

I'm super glad that the clutch and transmission feels great again and the new power mods are going to be a big help next year. The only thing left for next season is switching up the tires to BFG Rival-S 1.5 instead RE-71R. For now she's back to riding on stock wheels with Continental DWS for the winter.

Side note: I also replaced the nasty 2-year old air cabin filter with a new one from Rad's S2000 parts stash.

New air cabin filter - 11-16-2017

NNJR SCCA Season Closer

It's been a good season. Despite probably being the season with the least number of events I've attended in 10 years, I had a blast at every event and it's been a successful season overall. It's the end of October and we're still out there in the sun with the top down burning rubber and it's great! Realized last week that Lupa was feeling extra loose because the last event I attended was at Bader field and I had the rear bar cranked up. We put the rear bar back to full soft and ran slightly lower pressures (27f/25r) and it's much easier to get aggressive with the throttle again.

Rad getting ready to run - NNJR SCCA
Meadowlands, NJ - 10/28/2017

Rad codrove with me again. His car is quickly getting parted out so it probably won't be soon before the car is sold. I did happen to get this sweet seat protector from Rad that he got from Clyde. Not sure if I'm keeping it on but it should protect the seat from wear and tear.

Recaro Seat Protector - 10/26/2017

It was a special finale event today. Basically two events in one. We ran clockwise in the morning and counter clockwise in the afternoon. Fun flowing course and I'm slowly regaining some confidence in the lower grip levels. Looking forward to next season.

Steguis - NNJR SCCA - 10-28-2017

Rad - NNJR SCCA - 10-28-2017

Late Season Fun

It's pretty rare to have amazing "shorts" weather at the end of October so needless to say the NNJR SCCA event we had today was another record breaker in terms of attendance. With the days getting shorter, taking the extra trek to bring out Bumblestook isn't happening so it was time to have fun with Lupa and work on the driver instead.

NNJR SCCA Event #10 - Meadowlands, NJ - 10/21/2017

I finally got to put on the new number plates Kamil made for Lupa. I think it's much easier to read the numbers now than the previous red on black. I had Rad codrive since his STR S2000 is now parked getting ready to be parted out and sold so he can get an FRS/BRZ for SSC next year. Unlike all previous events I promised myself I would not touch any knobs or change any settings. We set the tire pressures at 28f/26r and just ran the car trying to go faster with each run. Overall she was very well balanced but it's definitely rough for me readjusting to lower grip. I spun her twice in 5 runs from overly abrupt input. I think driving Lupa more will really help me focus on smoother and earlier inputs. My driving has definitely gotten worse in recent years and street tire S2000s sure punish you hard when you drive like a jackass.

NNJR SCCA Autox - 10-21-2017

The course was fast and fun and required a set of balls that I probably left somewhere in NYC. Either way, I had loads of fun and got to enjoy the drive to and from the event which isn't really something I can say when I'm trailer to events. Looking forward to our final event next weekend. Hopefully we catch a break and get one last good weather day for our final autocross fling for the season.

What Happens in Atlantic City...

It's been probably 10 years since I last ran with the South Jersey SCCA. I think the last event I did with the club was back at an event at Atco raceway in 2006! I've got nothing against the club but the events are usually a bit too far for me. With perfect weather in the forecast and so few events more local to me, I figured it would be worth a trip down to Bader Field in Atlantic City to get some valuable seat time anyway.

SJR SCCA - Bader Field, Atlantic City, NJ - 7-30-2017

This was my first event at this site and it was quite nice. There was ample paddock space and being right across the water from downtown Atlantic City was both strange and interesting. The venue, being a former airfield, had very abrasive surface with decent grip once the sand had been cleared off by the 1st heat drivers. I'd compare the grip level to Poconos Raceway but it is pretty brutal on tires so I'm glad to do this event on street tires and not more expensive Hoosiers. There's a fair bit of runoff if you spin but you will end up in the grass and travel a pretty far distance if you do. This scared me a bit despite the grass being dry since at least on the fast section, the other side of the grass was the Atlantic Ocean so I wasn't about to test the limits of my car and my skill over there.

Being used to the highly efficient northeast clubs of NNJR, Philly, DC and NER, the more lax feel of SJR takes a bit of getting used to. Things take a bit longer than usual; first car off wasn't until around 10:20am, we had lots of timing issues resulting in extremely long heats (3 hours...yep) and so many reruns but overall I still enjoyed driving there. Adopting a 3 heat system would help immensely but being that the course is what you expect from a runway venue featuring lots of slaloms and transitions, you need a lot of workers to cover the cones so that may not be feasible unless a lot more people show up. The half-height cones don't help either.

Lupa takes the STR win - 7-30-2017

My first run was strange. Despite fixing the alignment at SJF a few weeks ago, she was still feeling really loose. The rear would spring up too quickly during transitions. I increased rear rebound and that made a world of difference and now she would properly slide, squat then pull out of the corner. The front felt unpredictable though in a way that I couldn't describe. I decided to check the front rebound and was surprised that the left side was at the correct setting (nearly full stiff) but the right side was set to full soft. This explained the imbalance. I don't know how this happened. It's been a long time since I changed the settings. I don't know if someone turned the knob while my hood was up at some previous event as a joke but I'll definitely need to double check the settings going forward. I made them both equal again and finally Lupa was feeling like she should. I was able to push a bit harder and trust that the front would bite. I put down a good enough clean run to get the STR win and beating Hez for the first time (he ran his own car) but that's really just because he kept hitting cones and I was in a better prepped car so I definitely didn't outdrive him.

James was the real winner here taking FTD and top PAX in his STX BRZ so big kudos to him. While I did lose some time from backing off a bit in the sketchier parts of the course, most of the time lost was definitely from not taking smooth arcs and pinching myself too much in key corners. I'll need to work on this before Nats so I don't bleed off too much speed in these critical areas. This course really helped highlight that issue so that was a big lesson learned!

SJR SCCA Autox - 7-30-2017

The drive home was an insane 5 hours including a short stop for dinner thanks to summer beach traffic so I was exhausted but 5 hours enjoying some top down awesomeness in an S2000 and listening to music isn't too horrible in my book. It could definitely have been worse. I'm taking a pause with the next event not coming up for me for me until 3 weeks from now where I'll be doing some final testing of Bumblestook before heading out to Nationals. Really happy with how Lupa is feeling in general though. Hopefully I won't have to fiddle with the knobs much more at future events and I can just focus on improving my driving once more.

Fun sliding around

I was planning on taking Bumblestook out to today's NNJR SCCA/PCA joint autocross at the Meadowlands but the potentially bad weather forecast made me less inclined to get up at 4:30am just to deal with trailering in the rain so I took Lupa instead. The morning turned out to be great weather and we got to run first heat so all our runs were in the dry.

NNJR SCCA/PCA Joint Autocross - 6/4/2017

For some odd reason, the setup I ran quite well in Warminster was undrivable today. Lupa felt extremely loose and not very confidence inspiring. I lowered rear compression a click and front rebound a click to help soften her up as well as run a 3psi difference from to rear (I usually just run 2psi) and that helped tame her a little but it was still hard to get on the throttle early without the rear kicking out. Her new header is arriving soon so I'll get her alignment checked after we install it since the steering wheel is also a bit crooked after replacing it a few week ago.

NNJR SCCA/PCA Autocross - 6/4/2017

I also got to try the new mount for Solostorm and was happy that it worked well and didn't get in the way of my field of vision. It's basically the same mount I run on Bumblestook but with a suction cup instead of being bolted onto the body. I also figured out what was going on with the shift beeper I installed yesterday. Turns out one of the spade connectors I received wasn't crimped properly. I redid the wiring and voila, nice loud beeps again as we approach redline...such a comforting sound.

Shift Beeper and eBrake cover

To match the rest of the little interior mods I've been doing recently, I also picked up an ebrake cover made with perforated leather with red stitching from redlinegoods.com. I think that completes the "show" mods for the car.

Redlinegoods ebrake cover - 6/3/2017

I also attempted to install the Modifry shift beeper but it doesn't seem to work. I suspect I got one of the wires wrong. I'll troubleshoot it some other time.

SoS Hood Dampers

No big update today other than finally installing the Science of Speed hood dampers that I got over the winter but have been too lazy to install. These are replacing my rusting PasswordJDM ones that don't open nearly as much

Science of Speed Hood Dampers - 6/3/2017

Less than a week before we head out to Toledo. I've decided we're not going to run her at the NNJR event tomorrow for testing since I don't want to risk having any issues this soon to a big event.

Alcantara Steering Wheel and Weight Reduction

Probably one of my favorite things with Bumblestook is the Alcantara Mugen steering wheel. It gives excellent feel and grip and just looks great but it's not legal in STR (well not easily made legal at least). What is legal though is replacing your steering wheel as long as the total weight is no lighter than stock. To get the best of both worlds, I went ahead and ordered an Alcantara wrap with red stitching for the S2000 OEM steering wheel from redlinegoods.com and used their professional installation option. Rather than sending my original wheel in, I opted to just buy a used steering wheel and send that instead so I can keep the original one unmolested.

Alcantara wrapped S2000 OEM steering wheel
with red stitching - 5/10/2017

Alcantara wrapped S2000 OEM steering wheel
with red stitching - 5/10/2017

The ordering process was very smooth. The wrap itself is made in Europe (Poland I believe) and sent to you via regular mail. If you choose to use their professional installation service, you then send the wrap along with the steering wheel to their professional installer in North Carolina where it gets put together and sent back to you. In addition to the Alcantara wrap I also added the option to thicken the steering wheel slightly. The material they use is nice and dense and feel incredible, not spongy at all.

Airbag disconnected, steering wheel ready to be removed
5/14/2017

To swap steering wheels, you disconnect the battery so the airbags don't go off. Remove the covers on each side of the steering wheel. Using a Torx T30 bit, remove the bolts holding the airbag in place and pull it away from the wheel and then disconnect the cables connecting the airbag and the cruise control switch. Using a 14mm socket, loosen the center bolt but don't remove it all the way. Tug on the wheel firmly towards you free the wheel from the hub then remove the bolt all the way. Reverse this process to install the new wheel.

Alcantara wrapped OEM steering wheel installed - 5/14/2017

Since I had to disconnect the battery to install the steering wheel, I figured now would also be a good time to replace the OEM sized battery with a lightweight one. I opted to get a Deka ext14 which is a 12lb battery. This is a solid 14lb reduction in weight from the OEM sized 26lb battery. In order to install it, I got 8" J-hooks since the battery is smaller and replaced the steel OEM battery tie down with an aluminum one for extra weight savings and a cleaner install. Also, since you have to install automotive battery terminals on the Deka in order to use it in a car, I hardwired the battery tender quick connect so it'll be much easier for me to hook Lupa up to the battery tender without using alligator clips.

Deka ext14 battery installed - 5/14/2017

Deka ext14 battery installed - 5/14/2017

Lupa is mostly done with her 2017 modifications. I'm just waiting on one more part that's currently on it's way from Japan :D