I'm so surprised at all of this. I own both and have driven many of both but not a CR.
The S2000 is a great handling car that sounds like a Kirby Vacuum cleaner when the exhaust is stock(mine is not). Top goes up and down so easy and fast on the S2000 and the ergonomics are great like the NSX.
I personally feel that the NSX(NA1) vs S2k as far as acceleration goes, to be so heavily in favor of the NSX that it seems unfair to compare.
I'm surprised at what I'm reading here and if not for my experience in both I would think from reading this thread that they were very close in that regard. Sorry folks I don't get it.
The S2000 is a great car, I feel blessed to have one. It has handling like a slot car or a go cart but it has a little motor and it feels like it's straining to give what it does.
My 2 cents.
I guess it's time to open the discussion with those who believe "NSX is a much faster car than S2000."
The best advise I can give you is to bring them out to a track. Track'em, run'em, and most importantly, time'em. If you can be more specific about your "experiences" with the two cars, perhaps I can better help you understand.
I can laid down the basic here, and hopefully Billy will help me out a little. First, it immediately tells me a guy knows very little about racing when he says to me: "X is faster than Y because X has higher top speed, faster acceleration, or more power under a dyno." Personally, I'd trade better breaks and tires with those. Power is always over-rated by the novice. For example, a M3 usually pulls away a 4 cars distance against my S2000 on PIR when we start. Sure, the acceleration of a E36 M3 is a huge con for my AP1 S2000, but you know what, the M3 will find me glued to his tail as soon as he's half way in the first right turn. The advantage he gained from the acceleration is non-existence after the first turn. The M3 will keep trying to pull away at every straight, but I'll regain the distance each corner, and every corner. I don't want to dive in too deep, but cars like NSX and S2000 are more fun for me because they require more skills to be fast. In my S2000, people with more expensive cars can easily pass me when I made a mistake. I am in the wrong gear; I lose time. I screw up the heel-n-toe; I lose time. My RPM is low when I exit a turn; I lose time. But boy, I love to see those Porsche owners' faces when they lose to my S2000. That's why I kept doing it. I have to use every inch of the road to maintain my speed, and to be in the right gear. Unlike a GTR or Porsche 911, some can(and prefer because it's easier) to enter the corner slow, and find the open exit line early to fully take advantage of those horses under their front hood. Then to keep up with them in our cars we need to out-smart them. So the very first thing for people to understand is that, much faster on a straight road does NOT mean any faster on a race track. If all we track people care about is how fast we're on a open straight lane, something like Camaro HPE650 or Shelby GT500 would be very nice bang for the bucks.
Racing on a race track is not about stop and go. It's more about maintaining speed and be at the right speed. It's raceway by raceway, but the average speed of a NSX driven by a pro-driver is about 96 m/h on Nurburgring. The average speed of a S2000 is within 1 m/h with the NSX. Unless it's a NASCAR sprint, the top speed of NSX has zero advantage against a S2000, and S2000 will always be as fast as a NSX, as long as it's a racetrack that takes skills, and not some straight open road. BTW, I never get those people who brag about NSX is faster than a S2000 on a straight road. First, it takes very little skills, and second, isn't it much easier to buy a Corvette, stripe everything out, and put a NOS tank in it? Why put NSX to a drag race, what it's worst at, when you can put it on a racetrack, where it can humble many other cars that are more expensive?
Another experience that I live to share is NSX does "feel" faster than a S2000. I drove them both on PIR. I thought I was at least a few seconds faster when I tried the NSX, but I was actually slower. I tried it quiet a few times, and I even recorded it. The reason people "feel" they're faster in a NSX is because the shorter nose. The driver is much closer to the road in front of him, and mistakenly think they're at faster speed. I had to review my race cam a few times to figure that out. The moral of the story is that people's feeling can lie, but lap times don't.
I hope these help to understand why NSX isn't faster than a S2000 on race tracks. Please do ask question so we can clarify.