The Honda S2000 is an awesome car. With mild suspension modifications, it handles like a dream and can turn some impressive lap times. With RWD, an engine that is set way back in the chassis for great weight distribution, multi-link rear and unequal length A-arm suspension, the S2000 is designed to be a great handling car from the factory. The same good handling characteristics also bring to light one of the S2000’s pitfalls, it can starve for oil in the turns when modified for lots of grip. Oil starvation is definitely not good for your engine’s bearings and if bearings fail at an inopportune moment, lots of bad things happen very quickly! All is not lost, for our AP1 S2000 we got some help from the people at Canton Racing Products who have developed a new performance oil pan for the S2000.
We obtained one of Canton’s pans developed specifically for the F20 and F22 engines in the S2000 chassis and we can show you why it will work better to help ensure that your S2K will have a good supply of oil in the twisties!
Cantons pan is fabricated from steel sheet, tig welded together. The stock pan is made of cast aluminum. The Canton fabricated pan is more ductile and if hit it will simply dent. A good hit on a cast pan will cause it to crack or even shatter which will cause a loss of oil pressure for sure!
The pan has a nice thick 3/16″ laser cut flange. The thick flange helps assure that the pan will not distort and leak when the bolts are tightened down like what sometimes happens with thinly stamped steel oil pans. The pan is finished with a durable black powder coat. The pan features a turbo drain bung which is the top hex keyed plug and a magnetic drain plug on the bottom.
On the other side of the pan, bosses for the AC compressor bracket are welded in along with another hex keyed plug which can be used for an oil temperature sending unit.
The interior of the pan features a diamond-shaped vertical baffle and a horizontal baffle that is designed to help keep the oil around the oil pump pickup even when under hard cornering, braking, and acceleration.