New s2000 owner. Advice needed for driving in the wet.

[charlie15]

Hey guys

Just bought myself an ap1 (coming from a monaro cv8) and have been reading through many forums regarding people losing it in the wet.

Any advice on how to prevent a sudden incident of snap oversteer would be appreciated. Any other tips would be great as well. Reading these horror stories had made me a little anxious!

Is taking it easy in the wet the key to avoid this happening?

Thanks

[VeYzZii]

Mmmm CV8.
Welcome mate. A good set of tyres and just common sense. If you dont want to slide, take it easy around the corners, no sudden stomps on gas etc. Try to keep turning radius larger to keep it all held together. But that being said long turns ( like round abouts) the weight seems to shift and it slide pretty easy. Bumpy roads dont help and stickers on the road seem to get the rear loose. Specially on motorways. And if it where to happen, DO NOT STOMP THE BRAKES!
I actually think you will love driving the S in the wet, it just seems to know when you want it to slide and when it needs to stay put.

[curtis265]

right foot control..

i woulda thought u had similar problems in ur monaro no?

[EKVTIR-T]

Yeah dont run chinese/taiwanese tyres

A bit of common sense goes a long way too


If you get the chance maybe go do a skid pan day to learn the cars behaviour

[pure_na]

lol i know where you're coming from. i find the car a bit more squirmy than what i have previously driven in the wet, but i am on horrible tyres.

from my limited experience driving the car 'spiritedly' - as much as it can suddenly oversteer, you will find that if you're quick enough on the counter, fixing it is a lot easier than other cars.
also, this goes with any rwd, but if you're worried about low speed throttle-down oversteer, simply letting off the throttle and countering should fix it. at least it always works for me, but i'm no professional
oh and also, this one made me laugh but be careful when you've almost straightened up if you want to jump on the throttle. don't know if it's the camber on the roads combined with residue or what, but i've been driving in certain areas where the car is pretty much straight after coming round a corner, and kicked the car sideways when putting down power. it's pretty unexpected but i don't know if it's s2k specific :P.

keep in mind that my advice is coming from driving a fairly modded s2k suspension wise, on the worst tyres money can buy :P (temporarily).

[curtis265]

no that's any car

mate's s15 would wobble every time it hit boost

[charlie15]

Thanks guys. My monaro had decent power (244 at the wheels with 560nm torque) but it was manageable at all times. This car feels squirmish even in the dry! The monaro could be taken sideways with control just like my mx5. Both the monaro and mx would feel safe doing speeds over 130 on the highway where this thing feels like its off rails constantly which is weird considering so many people boasted about how well the s2000 handles.

This will be my daily and my trust in it isn't too positive at the moment especially in the wet

Will a set of wide wheels (possibly some rpf1 17x9 all round) help along with some decent tyres?

[curtis265]

Are you bone stock? and are u on shit tyres?

[charlie15]

Yep dead stock. Front tyres are Bridgestone s02 and rears are maxxis (pretty shitty I reckon). But they both have heaps of tread.

[euromandeluxe]

It's pretty simple as far as I see it.

1. Decent rear rubber. Not just tread depth, but compound quality and grip too. I'd replace those rears.
Wider tyres don't give you better grip in the wet, it's actually worse because having the same weight across a wider contact patch makes it harder to force water into the grooves.
2. Proper alignment and tyre pressures
3. (most important) common sense. This car has big changes in weight distribution depending on throttle and that can unsettle the rear. Dont punch the throttle midcorner, but more importantly DO NOT LIFT. Back off a bit to correct but that's all.
4. The AP1 has funny rear geometry where the outside wheel will toe out when the suspension compresses. This gives you the sensation that the cars rotating when it's actually not, so be wary of it.
I have a rear anti-bumpsteer kit and found that it makes the car much more predictable.

Most of all be careful. Well kept S2000s are becoming rarer and rarer and it'd be a shame to see another go!

[curtis265]

It's pretty simple as far as I see it.

1. Decent rear rubber. Not just tread depth, but compound quality and grip too. I'd replace those rears.
Wider tyres don't give you better grip in the wet, it's actually worse because having the same weight across a wider contact patch makes it harder to force water into the grooves.
2. Proper alignment and tyre pressures
3. (most important) common sense. This car has big changes in weight distribution depending on throttle and that can unsettle the rear. Dont punch the throttle midcorner, but more importantly DO NOT LIFT. Back off a bit to correct but that's all.
4. The AP1 has funny rear geometry where the outside wheel will toe out when the suspension compresses. This gives you the sensation that the cars rotating when it's actually not, so be wary of it.
I have a rear anti-bumpsteer kit and found that it makes the car much more predictable.

Most of all be careful. Well kept S2000s are becoming rarer and rarer and it'd be a shame to see another go!

not quite, the contact patch is still the same overall area - i.e. the pressure put onto the ground is still the same, it's not distributed over a larger area

the only way to get more rubger down is to have less grooves.. which as you've said means less wet performance

[Fredoops]

From my limited experience with and early model S2k (only a few hours) I found the car to be very twitchy , to a point where is borderline scary (the rear end doesnt quite snap like an early model 911 but it's not far). needless to say, it's not for the ham-fisted, cause you'll end up in a damn tree.

I heard there's a lot of anti-bump steer kits avail for the early models to change the suspension geometry to make the car more controllable.

And honda itself had softened the suspension setup at the later models to do the same.

so basically you might wanna look at a set of coils and an anti-bump steer kit if yours is an early model to rein the sucker back in.