I might relay this story to explain why I had the interest of starting this thread:

I had a 2nd hand 2nd Gen prelude (1984 model, bought in 1993 with 118000km, stock 13" rims... :~D to which I proudly enjoyed and owned for 10+ years) which I later upgraded with 14" 1992 Integra RIMS. The rims came with A509 and SIMEX. I put the A509 on the front, My first corner with that upgrade... I felt the car was transformed. Superb steering sharpess and cornering stability that I have never felt with any other car I've ever driven.

Before anyone starts laughing, I wore out those A509 and was shopping for a replacement. That's about the time when the Dunlop FM901 first came out, I thought I'd try something newer so I bought 2 FM901 for the front.

I was running 36 PSI on the A509 and 34 PSI on the Simex. So I requested 36 PSI for the FM901. Driving out of the tyre dealership, after a few normal turns... I was in shock... my handle-like-it's-on-rails car has transformed into the handling of a pregnant lama! I couldn't believe it... the car was bouncing up and down and during cornering.. the steering was wobbling all over the place.

I rang the tyre dealership, the manager tells me I was crazy and to give it a week.

After 1 week on the pregnant lama, I couldn't take it any more. I shelled out for 2 A509 (at a different dealership) to replace the SIMEX for my sanity.... So I put the new A509 on the front and the FM901 at the back. Guess what... handles-like-it's-on-rails is back!

I took it back to the FM901 dealership and told the manager my findings. He still thinks I'm crazy but said that he'll send his foreman to test drive my car with the FM901 on the front and compare it with A509 on the front.

After his test drive with me, he didn't say anything to me but I can see that he was fighting the steering wooble with the FM901. He went back to his manager had a chat behind close doors, the manager came back to me and said they'll swap the FM901 with A509. So I ended up with a full set of A509's on that prelude.

I didn't notice much change with having A509 on the back compared to SIMEX and FM901 though but having them in the front was like night and day.

Anyway, really enjoyed those full set of A509 for like 1-2 years and still had more than 50% thread when I sold it at 255000km for a S15 GT.

The S15 GT came with 16" 205/55/16 RE010 and didn't have the steering sharpness that I felt in the prelude. I change the tyres to Yokohama ES100 with 225/50/16 and still couldn't get the same feel in the steering, although I did enjoy the new experience with rear wheel drive handling and turbo power.

After owning a nissan, I must say I felt that honda was ahead in terms of build quality and engineering and engine smoothness. The gear change feel of my 1984 prelude was better than the 2002 S15. Drove a 2002 BMW 320i and felt the prelude gear change was better too!

Didn't take a lot of convincing when my wife had a baby and the 2005 Euro Lux (with the nice Type-R style enkei rims) was out. Sold the S15 and bought the '05 Euro Lux. It was good to be back in a Honda.

Now back to the steering response, stock Euro handling with the 17" RE040 still doesn't feel as sharp as my prelude with A509 did. Turn-ins and cornering steering stability was still a bit wandering. Put on a Cusco front strut bar and had slight improvement but still not getting the feel I wanted.

Will RE001 be the tyre to bring me back the feeling?? I'd hate to spend $600 for 2 front tyres to find out that they don''t. But hey... they might fix the drift-to-the-right problem.

Anyway, if anyone in Melb (I'm in eastern suburbs) is running RE001 on their stock'ish 17" euro and wouldn't mind me having a sedated drive to feel it. I would much appreaciate it before making the jump myself.

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Back to the discussion:

- the Gen 5 prelude may feel better because it's a lighter car at around 1350kg? It is definitely a lower ride setup too.

- Gen 2 prelude was around 1000kg... nice chuck about weight.

- S15 was around around 1250kg.