When I first got the wheels and opened the box, I immediately knew these wheels would look sick on my car, but after seeing how wide they were, I was worried that I would have some trouble fitting them under my stock fenders. This was a short-lived concern after I gave Mike Huie and James West at Pit Crew Motorsports a call. When it comes to getting fenders rolled or trimmed, James West is the best in the business. He's rolled the fenders of numerous Ferraris, Benzos and Bentleys, so doing a little work on my Honda was going to be a piece of cake for this pro. After talking to James, he suggested actually trimming the rear fenders instead of rolling them so I can get the most clearance possible; he also recommended this because Hondas have a thinner rear quarter panel that has the propensity to crack when rolled.
The whole process of James trimming the rear fenders only took about 30 minutes, and that includes him relocating one of the rear bumper bolts. He mentioned that this is important to do because if you don't relocate this bolt, you'll end up with a rear bumper flapping around like those rice boys you point and laugh at on the freeway. The front fenders were a quick fix for James as he only had to bend a tab back to ensure enough clearance. When I step up to the 255/40s for the front, most likely I will need to get the fenders pulled to clear, but I'll need a lot more track time before that happens.
The fun part about putting all these parts on the car is being able to see how well they work. Luckily for me, I was able to get feedback from a top tuner in Japan, Shinichi Kobayashi of MCR. Kobayashi may not be a well known name in the US.. but he's a legend on the streets of Japan. He started off as a street racer working on friends' cars on the side; he eventually got so big he had to open up his own shop. In a touge battle for Best Motoring, an S2000 he built went head-to-head with a JUN-built Prelude. Although the MCR S2K wasn't able to pull off the win, his S2K was more of a true street car with a full interior, stereo and AC, while the JUN Prelude had none of these.
Kobayashi was in the U.S. shaking down TEIN USA's cars for our Super Lap Battle Finals, and Phillip Chase from TEIN had an extra spot open at an upcoming track day and needed another car for Kobayashi to drive so he could get more track time. Not only was he gracious enough to give me the spot, but he offered to have his head engineer Nakai on hand to check out my suspension setup for me. After driving the car home I knew it felt good, but the next day at the track would be the true test. We were running the same configuration as our Super Lap Battle Finals, so as a comparison, the S2000 record there is held by Rob Walker in A&J's S2000 with a 1:54.8. I had only driven on Buttonwillow once before in the Super Street Project STI, and I wasn't being timed then, so I really didn't know what kind of times I could pull. For the first session I just wanted to familiarize myself with the track which, being the case, I ran a VERY slow time of 2:49. I knew it handled great but I just needed more time on the track. For the second session I had Phillip from TEIN ride with me to give some pointers. With his advice I was able to drop my times down to a 2:37.404.