Ben "BIG SMOKE" Schwartz Formula Drift VERT!!!!

[110octane]

What do you guys think of the powerplant??????????

[DeXteR]

we just talked about this car a few days ago...

zerothread/277920

it's a sweet ride and the powerplant is... well... interesting to say the least.

get whoever built that car and the driver up here on our little sub-forum so we can get that in the vert registry. i'm sure we've all got lots of questions too.

by the way, mick, i finally saw your car in one of the falken ads. i was wondering when they were going to start using it. it was pretty obvious what the purpose of the photos you shared a while ago were for after seeing the fd rx7 ads. props again.

[110octane]

Oops....sorry. I guess I'm a little behind the times. Once the season started I have had little time to monitor the site let alone post.

Anyways, just wanted to throw up some shots for you guys to check out.

I will forward this post to Ben and see if he will jump on and talk about the car. I know it was his daily street car and was build for competition in a matter of about two weeks at the shop that built my car. Consequently Ben works there and was partially the reason I bought a vert.

[AZhitman]

Pure badness!

Although, roll bars are for sissies!

(j/k - love the droptop beast!)

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Sweet more pics! Thanks for sharing.

BTW Mickey do you have a brother named David?

[otto_3478s]

Well atleast the K20/K24's make some power.

[110octane]

Nope......no brothers.

The motor is an F22C out of a late model S2000 not a K series. And yes, it makes plenty of power fellas. However, I'm a little partial to VQ power even though I spun a rod bearing at Drift Day a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.thedriftzone.com/index2.php?id=62 Some footage of the car and build up explanation can be seen here. Episode 49

Modified by 110octane at 2:53 PM 9/12/2007
Modified by 110octane at 9:14 PM 9/12/2007

[otto_3478s]

My reeeeetarded mistake FF Vs. FR damn i feel like an idiot .... but K20s still make some power
Modified by otto_3478s at 3:10 PM 9/12/2007

[Unclerico]

Hey guys this is Ben here just chiming in. Anyways ya the car was my daily driver for about 3 years or so, kept mostly stock. It had R33 wheels and really old, blown Kei Office coilovers and thats it. I didn't even do a 5 speed swap. I knew i was going to build the car in one way or another so i didn't want to waist time or money making it a 5 speed until i knew the direction the car was going(engine wise). Gary Castillo at Design Craft Fabrication where I also work had a spare S2000 2.2L engine laying around (2.2 liter engine that came stock 2004 +). So yes the engine in my Vert is the 2.2L version. So I fabed up some motor and trany mounts, Gary worked on the wiring, bolted the Disco Potato turbo that Garret supplied, stuffed everything in got a custom drive shaft made and fired it up. AEM supplied the ECU which worked like a charm. Since our shop built, tuned and maintained the RS-R S2000 we used the program from that car(also used AEM ECU) and used it for my car and the motor fired right up. We had no time to even tune the car so it went to the track without dyno tuning. But right off the trailer the car ran AWESOME. I was shocked along with a lot of other people to see that the car was amazing with no tuning and a quick alignment. I didn't do any coil over adjustment because they were the same blown Kei Office ones so i didn't even bother.

Anyway back to the engine. I chose to go with this swap for several reasons. Most important reason is reliability. Honda motors are just great engines to begin with. To give you guys an example Ill tell you a little story about the RS-R S2000. That car was used in competition use for 4 years. First driven by Alex Pfeiffer then driven by Tyler Mcquarrie. The motor used all factory internals, rods, pistons, cams and valve train. The only thing changed was a head gasket. Now in those 4 years of competition use, the only problem that car ever had was a blown head gasket. Now for those of you that know Alex he drives hard, so this motor was by no means "babied". I don't know of any SR20 that has been abused for 4 years with all factory internals and still runs with full compression pushing 400hp. Reason number 2 is the exhaust in on the passenger side, meaning no steering rack to get in the way of down pipe, I know that doesn't sound like much but its a problem many LHD S chassis have with turbos and manifolds. Number 3 is the F20 has tons of top end power thanks to Vtec. In order to get the same amount of top end from an SR you need a bigger turbo and bigger cams which means you sacrifice bottom end torque. Reason number 4 ...its different plain and simple. It gets a lot of attention and it gets more Honda fans into the sport of drifting.

Now for the final round of Formula D held at Irwindale my Vert will be sporting a new engine. It will be a 2.4L version. Gary Castillo for those that do not know writes for Import Tuner Mag and did an article on how to build a 2.4L S2000 engine using all factory Honda parts. The motor he built in that issue will be the motor were putting in the car.

Now im not here to start a F20 vs SR20 war. I just came on to give out some info on the build and to answer any question any of you might have. So feel free to ask away.

I also want to thank Adam, Jeff, Tree, Mickey, Ed and Gary for all the hard work and for helping me on this build. I couldnt of done it without you guys. I owe you all big.

Sponsors:Falken TireSears Auto Center/Die Hard/CraftsmanDesign Craft FabricationGarretAEMPeak PerformanceDynamic AutoSportsSparcoDC SportsKAAZExedyWorkJulius

Modified by Unclerico at 8:27 PM 9/12/2007
Modified by Unclerico at 8:34 PM 9/12/2007

[Unclerico]

Oh BTW I have a lot of convertible parts stripped from the car that id like to sell. Basically all the interior must go. Its cluttering up our already filled up shop. I have both doors and panels all the wiring and plugs just no mirrors, i have the rear side panels and rear seats. I have S14 front seats that id also like to get rid of. The factory rear spoiler. Also i have a box full of random convertible parts that as you guys know are hard to find. So if anyone local is interested in picking this stuff up pls email me at [email protected]. Id rather not ship. Parts are located in Lake Forest Ca by Irvine.

[Eikon]

Welcome Ben!

Awesome to have you aboard. Please keep us up to date on your competitions!

Any way we could get a NICOclub sticker on that car? It would be way cool to see the 'vert forum represented on such a high level.

[Ihiryu]

Oh niceness! I remember reading the article, it was k24 rods and crank right? We were going to do that to my old man's s2k, but we went ahead and built it with lower compression, and full-race turbo.

I can atest to stock block F2-series, my s2k ( a 2000 model) ran well after all the abuse I put onto it with my comptech blower, and my old man's ran great for about 3 months on 15 psi, (it never blew he just wanted more), and after we built it, he's been running on 23 psi (also running AEM) for the longest, and she's still holding fine, and my father's not the type to baby his car either.

Speaking of AEM, hey Ben, did they ever figure out a way to fix the temp gauge in the factory cluster? I know ours still doesn't work.

[DeXteR]

cool. thanks for stopping by, and welcome to our forum.

it would be really cool to see a 240sxconvertible.com sticker on there... maybe seth should send him one or two...

it would be great if you could keep us updated on your progress through the end of the season and into next season. best of luck to you, fellow vert owner!

[distant240sx]

Wow ben, Thats an awsome vert. I love the over fenders you have on it. I just bought mine and molded them on, but the rivet look on your rear fenders looks really nice.

[Unclerico]

Thanks guys for all the good compliments i really appreciate it. And for the 2.4l it uses TSX crank(i think) and prelude rods and pistons. But its not a complete bolt on, the rods and crank need some minor machine work to fit in the F20 Block. Were actually finishing up the motor now and getting it ready to drop in the car. Also since we never had a chance to dyno tune the 2.2L or to even see how much power it made, were gonna do a baseline run prolly on monday. After that well switch to the 2.4L and see what kind of gaines we get. Were also gonna play around with BC(Brian Crower) cams and see what kind of power we make with those. But don't get your hopes up for big HP, Im not a numbers guy and im not some *** who rigs the dyno to make it look like theres more than there really is. My main and number 1 focus is reliability. I know this motor can push well over 400hp without a sweat but 350 will prolly be my limit. Plus we will be doing all the runs/tuning on a mustang dyno which typically reads about 10% or so lower in power. So i will keep you guys posted with all the dyno runs and changes me make to the car.

[Unclerico]

Speaking of AEM, hey Ben, did they ever figure out a way to fix the temp gauge in the factory cluster? I know ours still doesn't work.

Hmm i have no idea, were not using the 240 or S2k cluster. Were just using Stri Gauges in place of the cluster.

[Unclerico]

And ya send me some stickers ill run them and support you guys. As long as your all talking good about me lol j/k But seriously i would put the stickers on the car for sure.

[PantherRacer]

Someone get this man some stickers STAT!

[yijima]

anyone have a better look at the cage, i want one that goes over the driver and down my feet and not just behind me like his appears to be. even if someone makes a photoshop version to show me the shape would be awesome.

[premo-s12]

Oh BTW I have a lot of convertible parts stripped from the car that id like to sell. Basically all the interior must go. Its cluttering up our already filled up shop. I have both doors and panels all the wiring and plugs just no mirrors, i have the rear side panels and rear seats. I have S14 front seats that id also like to get rid of. The factory rear spoiler. Also i have a box full of random convertible parts that as you guys know are hard to find. So if anyone local is interested in picking this stuff up pls email me at [email protected]. Id rather not ship. Parts are located in Lake Forest Ca by Irvine.

sent ya an email. im located in san diego and need some interior bits. hell, ill probably take the whole lot off your hand if its in good condition. if you didnt get said email pls reply at [email protected]

cheersjason

[Eikon]

And ya send me some stickers ill run them and support you guys. As long as your all talking good about me lol j/k But seriously i would put the stickers on the car for sure.

Someone get this man some stickers STAT!

I'm on it!

I'll email you Ben.

[Kckouki]

Hell Yea !

Sweet car.

[1aBdirfter]

Another action pic!

[Unclerico]

Another action pic!

Sweet pic looks awesome.

BTW we did a baseline dyno run the other day. Ill get the sheets and post up some numbers. Although we had some boost problems. It peaks at 19psi at around 6500 rpm but by 7800 rpm its down to 12psi. No leaks from anywhere so were thinking its the manual boost controller were using. I ordered an electric one which should be in any day now. But with the boost dropping 7 psi were getting 325 hp and 333 torque at around 6500rpm once the boost drops the power drops with it obviously. So were hoping once the boost problem is fixed the power should jump quit a bit.

We compared it with other cars that has ran on the same dyno. We compared it to a fully built KA24DET and a 2.4 liter SR powered drift car. We were very impressed with the F22. When compared to the K24 the numbers were almost identical even with our boost drop, though we had a lot more RPM to go. When compared to the 2.4 Liter SR the F22 power and torque came on a lot sooner but the over all torque of the SR was higher by about 5-10 ftlbs. Now i know there are a lot of different variables and im not saying that all graphs are the same. These are just 2 examples that we compared with. All in all it was more than what we expected with our boost problem. We cant wait to keep full boost and retry the dyno again. We will keep you posted with updates.