To be able to lap Tsukuba in under the one-minute barrier, the line between all-out motor sport engineering and traditional street tuner modifications blurs. Every single piece of the motor's systems has to be scrutinised to check for inefficiencies, wasted power, less-than-perfect balance and possible weaknesses, because while they're all very minor on their own (perhaps contributing maybe one percent, if that), when you go right through a vehicle with a race engineer's eye you'll find quite a few of these issues and suddenly you've got a huge gain on your hands.
A couple of numbers concerning the highly worked F22C engine stand out on the info sheet the Japanese tuning legends provided us: 12.9:1 and 235. That is the sky high compression ratio and amazing amount of kilowatts this naturally aspirated 2.2-litre car puts out, which is about as far removed from your average street-driven AP1 as Jupiter is from Blacktown, and what an F22C it is!
Everything has been carefully tinkered with, as J's Racing went about changing and honing only what they needed to, though they saw fit to develop a new exhaust manifold and featherweight titanium exhaust system for the two-door flier. But, it's not just about power, with the efficient delivery of each of the 235kW the car puts down of utmost importance.
After having the shell spot-welded for strength and a thorough roll cage welded in, a set of J's Racing's own CRUX coilovers were fitted, shod with pillowball upper mounts for a solid mating face, as the noise and harshness damping effects of the stock rubber pieces were not required on this track-only brute. J's also fitted a 20mm roll centre adjuster to let them get their geometry bang on perfect, along with a set of pillow-mount tie rods to eliminate the S2000's cursed bump-steer (where the toe angle changes as the suspension moves up and down, slowing the car in the corner and making it unstable).
Further limitations were eradicated with the removal of the OEM suspension arms, which were replaced by J's Racing's own SPL rear pillow-mount arms, along with the J's Racing sub-frame reinforcement kit in both the front and rear ends, which reduces twisting and takes the last ounce of slack in the OEM road set-up and drop-kicks it out of the park. Make no mistake: this S2k is stiffer than one of the Sydney Harbour Bridge's support girders.
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