There is some information out there, but J-swapping an S2000 is not that well documented, generally speaking. Helpful sources are scarce, but that didn’t deter NASA Florida Time Trial competitor Ray Drake from trying.
Being a mechanic, he had the confidence to try to pave a new path — plus he’d fallen head over heels for the unforgiving little roadster after relocating from Ohio to Florida, where a convertible would be better suited. He had his eye on an S2000 for some time, and after waiting a few years, his first drive in an stock AP2 had him sold. “I remember thinking, ‘I want nothing else but this,’” he reflected.
Swept away on a wave of enthusiasm, Drake did all his wallet would allow him to in the first few years of ownership. After trying all manner of forced induction to carry him down the quarter-mile, he had to pause and consider the financial implications of a blown motor. By the late 20-teens, the escalating costs of the F-series motor made his obsessive pursuit of performance less than tenable, thereby ending a long and enjoyable honeymoon phase with the drag strip.
But the track bug bit at an opportune moment. Right before selling the car, Drake tried a track day on a whim and decided that some things were worth fighting for, engine shortages or not. “I wish I had discovered this first,” he admitted. The engine, then making 207 horsepower and 140 pound-feet of torque, with the help of an intake, exhaust, and an aftermarket ECU, seemed reliable enough to endure track abuse.
Under the guidance of David Farrar, Drake began the climb from HPDE into Time Trial. However, his resolve would be tested long before he could really stretch the car’s performance window. During an HPDE2 event at Sebring — just months after his first track day, the oil light started flashing, so he packed it up and prayed.
After disassembling the motor — the original with just 72,000 miles, Drake discovered he’d spun a main bearing. The question was whether he could really justify buying another F22 at their then-current asking price. A high-mileage motor could command $6,000, and he’d have to invest another couple grand in to see it buttoned up and sitting snugly in the engine bay. What was worse — he didn’t exactly have the pick of the litter anymore.
“I started looking into a K-swap, but David advised against it, since another student of his had made the swap and its issues kept him from driving consistently. While looking into the K-swap, I found Chase Johnston’s build thread and thought that the J-series motor would be a suitable alternative.”
Johnston, a TT4 competitor in the NASA Texas Region who had pioneered the J-swap, gave Drake the needed motivation to embark into largely uncharted territory. “This wasn’t a plug-and-play affair, but I could tell that someone with moderate mechanical ability could make it work. I also liked the idea of doing something a little different,” Drake said.
People Carrier In the Family
The J-series engines were made in multiple iterations to power a wide array of sedans and smaller vans, making them cheap and plentiful. Plus, they are fairly easy to fix. On top of those traits, a mildly tuned example would not need to be as highly strung as an F or a K to produce respectable power. These three traits appealed to the more pragmatic and mature Drake, who was getting used to the idea of leaving the motorsports-grade motor behind.
There was more on offer than just grunt. Having two banks of three, the J-series ends up sitting a little farther behind the shock towers than the F22 does — thereby maintaining the front-midship weight distribution the S2000 is known for, though it sits somewhat higher, depending on the intake used.
Inline Pro, the manufacturer of Drake’s chosen swap kit, provides mounts that drop the J-series on top of the factory mounting points on the subframe. Additionally, the transmission adapter locates the bellhousing accurately and puts nothing at odd angles.
Drake bought his particular J35A4 — a high-mileage example with more than 100,000 miles on the odometer — at a junkyard for $750. Double that figure for refurbishing costs. “I replaced all gaskets, added a new water pump, a new rear main seal, new valve covers, and new valve cover gaskets. All this set me back about $700 dollars.”
He learned from Johnston not to trust the factory valve springs, especially if you’re revving it to over 7,000, since Johnston had cracked a couple already. So Drake went with Supertec valve springs and retainers. Initially, that was all he changed, but later added a Gates Racing timing belt and replaced the automatic timing belt tensioner with a manually adjustable item.
The engine prepped, Drake dropped the subframe, placed it on jackstands, lowered the engine onto motor mounts, installed a new OEM clutch, mounted the motor to the factory transmission, and attached headers with the engine out. “I can now do it with the engine in, but it’s not the easiest job.
This A4 variant is a first-generation motor, and one of the last to allow for exchanging of exhaust manifolds. Subsequent variants had the exhaust manifolds built into the heads — an important factor when considering swapping an engine into a new engine bay. InlinePro’s specially-made 2” headers fit beautifully and join at a Y-pipe 2.5” in diameter, followed by a 3” straight pipe terminating in a single 3” HKS can.
Drake then covered the brake and fuel lines with DEI stainless steel heat shield padding and lined everything up. After lifting the car back up, he made more custom shielding that went on the body side, wrapped brake and fuel lines in DEI fire sleeves, then mounted a Heatshield Products aluminum/silica heat shield over the sleeves and another around the headers themselves.
Paving a New Path
Much of the cooling system had to be improvised, because there weren’t many products available for Drake’s swap in the middle of 2022. Thankfully, there are options now from TracTuff, the same company that provided the oil pan.
“This is where I wasted a lot of money buying A/N fitting after A/N fitting trying to make things work,” he laments.
“For example, the back of J-series cylinder heads are threaded with M28 threads. Eventually, I found an M28 to -12 adapter that allowed me to run one coolant hose from each head into a Y-pipe that merges and flows through one -16 into the radiator.
The factory coolant bridge that connects the two cylinder heads is designed for a FWD engine. It normally routes over a transmission toward the airbox, but when mounted longitudinally, the coolant bridge is pointed toward the firewall, so it is not usable due to a lack of space.”
The oil pan needs to be modified for the starter, as does a small part of the transmission bellhousing, because it sits directly under the oil pan. TracTuff now sells a pan with the starter-cut made.
An oil filter relocation kit also is required, because the stock J-series oil filter normally exits near the passenger front wheel well. When installed in the S2000, this interferes with the steering rack.
Two minor chops were needed to get everything happily in place. There was one intake port on top of the intake manifold near the throttle body that Drake needed to close off because it was hitting the hood. He also had to cut off the intake flange for the throttle body and install a pie-cut to angle the throttle body at 40 degrees downward to clear the hood. The first iteration of the intake was mounted directly behind the factory headlights.
However, due largely to the intake design(s), the J-series engine sits a little higher than the F engine it replaces. There are many variants of this engine, so there are multiple intake manifolds available, and some sit higher than others. Drake sourced his J35A4 from an Odyssey van, which has a taller intake plenum plus a pre-fixed spacer between the lower intake and intake plenum to increase the length of the runners to increase low-end torque. He removed this spacer for hood clearance primarily, but the change had the benefit of pushing the powerband to the right by roughly 700 rpm.
With a custom wiring harness made by PJ’s Customs, he connected the new motor to his old AEM EMS V2 — as used when he turbocharged an earlier F22 during his drag racing days.
“Tuning it was easy. There were two ports on the lower intake manifold for some vacuum lines for an emissions system I don’t run, so when I went to the dyno, the numbers kept jumping all over the place because these ports were sucking in unmetered air,” Drake said. “We hooked up a smoke tester, discovered these ports, welded them shut, then reassembled everything on the dyno. Following the first dyno run, the numbers were encouraging; 240 horsepower while running Odyssey injectors. However, they were limited by the fuel supply.”
Refreshing Results
Producing S2000 power without the zingy top-end was a little dissatisfying, but a few modifications would help him tease out all the potential of the big V6.
After upgrading to an S2000s 310cc injectors, routing the intake out of the engine bay, adding a J35Z6 magnesium intake plenum, as well as a Ross Machine Racing 75mm throttle body, that motor dynoed at 274 horsepower.
The most notable difference is how much more torque there is down low and in the midrange, beginning at 3,700 and carrying all the way to 6,600. The redline is 7,200 rpm, and though there’s VTEC helping toward the top, you feel it begin to taper at 6,900.”
While running the four-cylinder, Drake had been using Ohlins DFVs with 10k and 8k springs front and rear, respectively. Following the installation of the V6, he relocated front springs to the rear and picked up a set of 12k springs for the front. ”That’s the maximum rate you can run before having the Ohlins revalved. In all honesty, I didn’t notice a difference, other than it seeming a little more planted in the rear,” he acknowledged.
Two test days in, and it was clear the gearing was too short. That shove makes a major difference in how the motor gets through the gears.
“With the factory 4.10, first through third gears were basically useless. On track I lived in fifth and sixth gear — totally alien to me after using the F-series,” Drake said. “When I was heading down Sebring’s back straight into T17 in sixth gear at about 125 mph, and I only had another 200 revs to redline. After that, I replaced the factory 4.10 with a Mazdaspeed Miata’s 3.63 final drive. Now, the shift points are similar to the factory engine and gearing.”
Now, with his driveline optimized for the new engine setup, Drake could experience the benefits and hindrances of the new powerplant. “I can ride torque in a higher gear, so I shift about 20 percent less than I had to,” he said.
“In some corners, I don’t bother downshifting since the J doesn’t bog like the F did at low revs,” he added. “In slower-speed corners, I have to be cautious with the throttle. Turn 7 at Sebring is one of the few second-gear corners where I have to be careful applying the power. In the F22, I was flat at the apex, but I’ll loop the car if I try that now.”
VIDEO
Ride along with Ray Drake at Sebring International Raceway in his second-generation Honda S2000 powered by a J35A4 V6 out of a Honda Odyssey van.
“The most notable changes on track are the shift points and the way the power is delivered, though I carry way more speed down the straights,” he said.
At Roebling Road T1, Farrar’s peak speed before braking is 135 miles per hour, and he’s running Hoosiers. Drake, however, carries another 5 mph before the braking zone, and he’s braking much earlier due to the Maxxis super-200s he relies on. Though he hasn’t consulted the data yet, the new motor doesn’t seem to have impacted the S2000’s renowned turn-in, either.
“I never corner-balanced the car with the F-series in place, but I remember it had a left-hand bias from someone who had. Now, with the V6, the car doesn’t feel different to me, though I was only in HPDE2 at the time, so I hadn’t yet developed that feel needed to judge fairly.”
All went well with the robust people-carrier engine, and without really any major hiccup, he felt he had stretched his swap dollar. That peace of mind lasted until his 20th track day, when he detected a hint of ticking. The following month, he took the car out again and the motor coughed its last gasp. Thankfully, he’d already purchased a second block.
Second Stab
This time, he had a J35A4 block and heads sitting in his garage at the ready. Along with new Supertech valve springs and Brian Crower camshafts, he installed the rotating assembly from the A6 version of the J35.
“I called P2R and asked for a set of take-out pistons — they build forged engines — and they cut me a deal. The block has 45,000 miles on the clock, but rotating mass is near zero. I had P2R mill the deck of the cylinder heads and install thinner head gaskets to bump compression up slightly from the low 10s to the high 10s. While this cost him some, he’d already done one swap, and so it was merely a matter of writing a check — no throwing wrenches this time around.
That extra compression showed up on the dyno, where it made 298 horsepower and 245 pound-feet of torque on the Mainline hub dyno, which reads very close to the Dynojet he goes to for TT paperwork.
Though he’s more than satisfied with the current output, there’s potential for more power without much sacrifice to reliability. When the time is right, he will reach out to P2R for a set of custom billet cams as well as an E85 kit. Anticipated power is over 300 — a healthy number for a car with a competition weight (including driver) of 2,792 pounds. Besides, any more power would really start to push him out of TT4, where he’s been enjoying himself lately.
In total, the swap cost him about what another F-series might: roughly $9,500 — a price that reflects all the hardware, save for the ECU, as well as the mistakes made.
“Lots of swappers will tell you to add a few grand because of unforeseen problems, and they definitely did with me. Knowing what I know now, I could easily shave that number down a good chunk,” Drake said. “The biggest problem was the cooling system. At the time, I was on my own. The solutions Johnston had for his swap were produced during his time, but not during mine. If I were to do it again, I’d find a set of headers to get thermal coating — heat shielding gets brittle over time,” he reflected.
Being a technician by trade also helped. He did 80 percent of the swap himself, minus the engine harness, tune, oil pan modification, and exhaust work. Nearly ten grand isn’t an inconsiderable amount of money, but considering how cheap and available the J-blocks are, as well as how much power they make with minimal work, it is fair to assume he will be back on his feet fast if he runs into any problems in the coming years.
