2001 Honda S2000

Let's get this straight right from the start: this is not a track attack S2K. You're not gonna see this 2003 AP1 out lapping at Miami's Homestead circuit on a club day. I mean, look at it. Nah, straight-up, this is a high maintenance trailer queen, driven here and there in short bursts, but not in competition or even high adrenaline backroads bombing.

Which is ironic considering that its owner, Omar Hernandez, is a diehard road racer guy who raced his tube-chassis CRX at the club level back in his Dominican Republic home. He's also installed a Cusco limited slip diff in his trailer queen. Huh.

Hernandez is at a loss to explain the Cusco diff to us, audibly shaking his head over the phone in amusement, as if even he can't understand why. He's just into performance, he says, that's all. And any good performance car should have a diff.

Can't argue with that. But don't you ever get the urge to hammer it out on the track?

Nah mang." he says. "That Mugen front bumper, that thing costs like $2000. I'd take that off too quick on the track."

Hernandez doesn't even drive the car around Miami too much. "Haters," he says by way of explanation, then relating a story about how he parked an earlier version of this car in his driveway one night. He came back from a shop at three in the morning to find that someone had been trying to screw with his A/C compressor. He fixed what he could, then came out again at 7 a.m. to find that someone-the same guys, he figures-had tried to break the driver's side window glass and, probably pissed at their incompetence, sliced a few gashes in the convertible top for good measure.

Hernandez doesn't let the S2 out too much anymore.

But man, when he does, we'd like to be along for the ride. Purchased as a theft recovery vehicle from an auction in Austin, Texas, for $14,000, Hernandez started simple with just a set of Volk GTPs, an APEXi exhaust and Powerhouse Amuse lip. The Volks soon gave way to BBS LM rollers, joined with Eibach springs to give it some stance. Cusco chassis reinforcements came next, along with a Mugen header, Type One straight pipe and AEM intake for better breathing.

It's not that Hernandez has done anything major to the engine. He hasn't. It's a stock F20C bottom end with a Toda/Ferrea valvetrain and Toda Type C cams turning the valves. Before Mesa Balancing in Miami assembled the head, Hernandez sent it out to "some guy in California, can't remember his name" for a port and polish.

You sure you don't drive this thing, Omar?

Nope. Turns out he has another S2000 that he saves that for (but apparently not for long, as it sounds like another car we need to have a look at).

The icing underhood came with the addition of the TWM individual throttle bodies and an AEM EMS box to tune it all (which Hernandez sheepishly admits to having lagged on).