GBS Zero S2000 – So how does it drive?
It’s rare that I passenger and if I’d known it was going to be so chilly this morning I wouldn’t have committed to doing so today either! But a ‘yes’ is a ‘yes’ in my book, so at what seemed an unearthly hour due to the clocks changing I jumped into the warm Saab and headed for the ‘meet point’. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell me we were going to be facing ‘minus numbers’……the thick frost on the windscreen was warning enough, but the onboard computer merrily advised that it was -3 degrees. So I tip toed the car through the back lanes heading towards Edenbridge, a small sigh of relief as I watched the computer change to -2 then -1, only to see -3 again at the appointed rendez vous.
The offer of a px ride had been provided by TonyB a regular on SKCC run outs and as I’d driven his car in the past I was curious to see how his winter mods had worked out. The ‘mods’ centred around a heart transplant – in the form of swapping out a geriatric Zetec unit in favour of a 2 litre lump from an s2000. On paper it was a no brainer, the headline figures for the zetec were 175hp whereas the s2000 was mapped after the installation at 25005 ( apparently the extra half is important) – but I was intrigued to see and experience the real benefit of that extra ooopmh.
Although there are a few others that have trodden this path it’s still a relatively new source of power for kit cars and as such there isn’t really any definitive bible of information about ease of conversion, ultimate power, driveability and so forth – getting out in the car would atleast afford me the chance to form my own conclusions. So with multiple layers of clothing hampering my ‘belting up’ we eventually set off at about 07.45, initially we traversed some beautiful roads across the Ashdown Forest, simply stunning with the weak sunlight and mist merging over the bleak clumps of gorse……and that’s as poetic as it will get, because I was frantically using the imaginary passenger brake as this 650kg car accelerated, braked and took off again like an adult fun fair ride.
Now I have to confess that I’ve never been in an s2000 so perhaps my comments are off beam, but I’ve always had the impression that when the vtec kicks in there’s a noticeable rush as the Lord of the Power releases a few more horses: Certainly in my old tweaked zetec it fellt like a switch being thrown at 4k and it would then find some more puff and urgency as it headed up to the 8k hard cut. Tony’s car was mapped by Track n Road – aka the Two Steves and the ecu is an aftermarket Emerald, This means that the vtec needs to be mapped to ‘come in’ at some point, and the point The Steves chose was 3600. Consequently there isn’t a massive single shove in your back as the loud pedal is deployed in that respect it’s a very civilized power delivery all the way through to the soft cut which has been set at 8500. Aside from the power and the way it’s delivered I was also interested to see how the gearing would work out for our type of ‘blatting’……typically on the smaller B roads I’d expect a zetec mated to a Type 9 box to be using 3rd and 4th, this morning Tony was flicking mainly between 5th and 6th with the occasional use of 4th on the s2000 box: With the car running a sierra 3.92 lsd I’d wondered if this might be a weak link, ( with too much top end and needing to use the higher gears to get the pick up ), but actually that really is no issue at all. That said I think it would be interesting to compare the experience with another diff, perhaps a 4.27 or 4.4, I suspect that doing so would be the icing on the cake of what’s already a super conversion.
In addition to the engine mods Tony also invested a day courtesy of a fellow SKCC member into getting the car corner weighted. I mentioned near the start of this write up that I’d driven Tonys car a while back and I have to say I was impressed back then. For my money the GBS Zero is seriously underated as a ‘kit’, possibly due to it being born from the same company that brought us the Robin Hood. Let’s be fair, Robin Hoods have their place in the 7esque world, but they’re not renowned for their handling, fine for most folks, but push a standard car to the nth degree and well…..their weight, length and sierra underpinnings become apparent. The Zero suffers from none of that, it’s a totally different chassis and whilst any kit is as good as the builder, the Zero to my eye looks the part and certainly can be set up to handle as well.
With a ‘lardy’ in the px seat the corner weighting obviously went out of the window, but the other chassis tuning mods – camber/toe in etc have certainly helped take this car up a level. Despite the roads being a little slippery in places Tony was able to push on, heading into corners with the confidence that the R1R’s would bite and that the car would pull itself round. If anyone is reading this and wondering about a Zero – don’t wonder, get out and try one, they’re cracking cars.
So the verdict. Impressed, very impressed. The smoothness of the delivery seems initially to be tame, but a glance at the tacho and speedo shows that progress is very swift, yes it’s nice to feel a ‘shove’, but from a practical driving perspective better for predictability not to have to worry about a lump in the power band. The bottom line is that such an installation on a new build wouldn’t necessarily cost that much more than dropping in an alternative zetec/duratec. Budget 2.5k for an engine and box, 600 for an ecu, a thousand for a custom built exhaust and the usual ‘odds n sods’…….whereas a zeta/dura ford option would likely just be a few hundred pounds cheaper by the time you add in a box, throttle bodies etc. And overall – well that ‘Kwakka’ Green machine is a properly sorted car and aside from Tonys own skills thanks should also go to those that contributed: Dick & Jay from Snodhurst Garage for chassis works and advice, ‘The Steves’ for the mapping and Powerspeed for a nice bit of exhaust work.