tail happy S?

[render.]

In terms of alignment, to combat oversteer you would be increasing the grip levels in the rear tyres so increasing negative camber and even dialing in some toe-in would help.

[jko2]

owners manual says 6mm toe in in the rear, and -1.5 deg camber.
makes a big difference.
if you haven't done that yet, start there.

[rokkuchan]

hypothetically speaking, i dont mean a real race-car but yes i meant to say sports, just didn't think of that term as i was writing... there's no hate for Silvia as I owned one.

Yes strut brace are bling...and the beam under the filter box? that's exactly what i meant; it's built from scratch, from the engineering perspective that it's meant to be a stiff chassis.

I'm not gonna pretend i know what i'm talking about, so i won't. Just that all i know is, S2k, right from the moment of invention it was meant as a 'sports car'... as for Evo or Silvia or watever, perhaps u can correct me if im wrong, weren't they initially produce as a family cars;mid-range sedan cars (perhaps not silvia in this). But what i'm trying to say is, S2k out of the factory is, does not require you to get strut braces, bigger turbos, bigger intercooler, better suspension, to be better in the corners and or faster.

i'm talking in the sense of a 'daily driver' here, no need to go into too much detail of the stuff below to show off la.

Keep telling yourself it's a race car It was built as a SPORTS car - a real race car would not be daily drivable nor would have a drop top if it were truly purposefully built
Why the hate for Silvias? I sense bitterness from a past defeat
(Bolt on turbo for a car/engine that was designed to have a turbo from factory? Explain?)

Anyway the S2000 is a very good handling car from factory... but is somewhat unforgiving to people who don't have much experience with oversteer.
After coming from a Silvia, I heard the S2000 was very unforgiving in this area... but even with crappy Falken Ziex 326s... it's great? Even stock?
A common solution for this problem on S2ki is... driver. You make the car handle with steering and throttle, if you want the car to oversteer, turn in hard and mash the throttle. Want it to understeer, go in too fast and lock up the brakes/turn suddenly enough to overload the front tyres...

After some research and experience here's what I've found...

Front STB (Strut Tower Brace) - Useless. I'm getting one for engine bay bling haha. Notice the big beam under your intake? That is what helps you but... what makes this even more useless is the fact that you have double wishbone suspension and good chassis design
Unlike MacPherson suspension - where strut braces on Evos and Silvias can help with "feel" because there is no huge beam behind the radiator support and that the shock/spring has to handle most dynamic suspension movements... Double wishbone seperates the dynamic suspension geometry changes into 2 groups.
- Simple up and down movement.
- Camber, toe and castor changes.
Because your A-arms and LCAs handle the camber, toe etc... the up and down movement is handled entirely by the shock/spring and absorbed into the strut tower. Now, because this setup only has to worry about going up and down... the strut tower has less stress on it... which basically translates to less chassis flex. So unless the welds on the strut tower plate are gone... then basically I wouldn't worry... you'd have bigger issues on your hand at this point

Rear STB - Useless. Most AP1s and all AP2s have this stock and can't properly utilize the use of one anyway (I don't know how you would design and install something into those rear strut towers?!).

Chassis and subframe braces - Won't directly make your car faster but will help with the feel of the car generally... but it all depends on the chassis etc etc.
For example...
- I installed a front Cusco subframe brace and the steering felt more responsive.
- Installed a rear and didn't feel squat (there's a stock one but doesn't look as pretty or thick ) yet some will claim that they can take corners 20km/hr more with the rear subframe brace. That's just placebo and confidence. If you can feel something better, your reaction will be better and confidence overall will improve... right?

Swaybars - Simple suspension basics. Thicker front swaybar means more understeer as it will load up the outer tyre more which will eventually lose traction... and the same for the rear. Thicker rear swaybar means more oversteer. As alot of people complain of the S2000 being very tail happy... they install a front swaybar to negate this effect so that when the weight is transfered to the outer tyre on both front and rear, the front swaybar reacts more "strongly" to understeer "earlier" (not sure how else to explain this) so that the rear doesn't get a chance to induce oversteer... but that's only if you're driving properly. Driving like an idiot makes most mods useless anyway.

Coil-overs - There are too many factors in this to explain fully but I'll stick to basics and assume that valving is great. And a very bad explanation but... spring rates in this context would be similar to swaybars. Have stiff front springs and soft rear springs and you will understeer at the limit. Stiff rear springs and soft front springs and you will oversteer at the limit... I'll leave the rest to your imagination

Tyres and alignment - Very obvious like everybody else has mentioned. Make sure both are good.

...wow. I hope that helps?! I could be wrong but that's my understanding of it all so far... I've yet to play around with alignment...

[aozora]

hypothetically speaking, i dont mean a real race-car but yes i meant to say sports, just didn't think of that term as i was writing... there's no hate for Silvia as I owned one.

Yes strut brace are bling...and the beam under the filter box? that's exactly what i meant; it's built from scratch, from the engineering perspective that it's meant to be a stiff chassis.

I'm not gonna pretend i know what i'm talking about, so i won't. Just that all i know is, S2k, right from the moment of invention it was meant as a 'sports car'... as for Evo or Silvia or watever, perhaps u can correct me if im wrong, weren't they initially produce as a family cars;mid-range sedan cars (perhaps not silvia in this). But what i'm trying to say is, S2k out of the factory is, does not require you to get strut braces, bigger turbos, bigger intercooler, better suspension, to be better in the corners and or faster.

i'm talking in the sense of a 'daily driver' here, no need to go into too much detail of the stuff below to show off la.

Most later Evos are faster then S2000s from factory... so I don't think they're exactly doing anything wrong? A Silvia with the same amount spent on it (spent well that is), will perform simiarly too.

Haha I know what you're getting at though. It is a good chassis design basically

Oh and all of that before wasn't for you

[JAP-S2K]

One important factor you need to understand is any alignment setting done once you have modified any suspension setting is. The factory settings become useless/incorrect if you've changed any of the following: Ride height (including coilovers), swaybars, tyre widths and rim offsets. There are many variables that change, and not one setting is technically correct/incorrect, however less rear toe is required, but slightly more total camber f&r is favourable when tyre/rim sizes have been increased. It does come down to personal preference really.

[WhitelineJim]

G’day everyone,

Hope you don’t mind us piping in but we were told about this thread and suggested that we might help with the tech.

Great discussion and its fantastic to see so much knowledge. Aozora, you’ve obviously had a bit to do with suspension setup and the role of the tyres is very important here as you point out. A front swaybar upgrade will have the effect of increasing front grip to shift the balance away from oversteer in most situations and that’s without using “sacrificial tuning.”

This is a term we use to describe any strategy that tries to reduce grip at one point to change the balance rather than increasing grip at the other, hence the sacrifice of grip to tune the balance. We suggest that its always better and mostly possible to increase grip and we know that standard tyres have lost of reserves from the factory.

Alignment settings are something that needs to be looked at relative to the setup and use and its still the best value for money handling improvement for many cars. With every new development vehicle, the first job is to do a wheel alignment in house and it’s always less than ideal as the OE tolerances are quite broad. Plenty of benefits to be had there.

As for chassis bracing and “bling”, that’s a tricky topic but needless to say I don’t agree as our view is that there’s no such thing as too much chassis stiffness. Assuming the design actually does brace or increase stiffness of the related parts, and the weight increase is not prohibitive, its a worthwhile modification that the average driver will feel.

Hope that helps, let us know if we can answer any further questions.

Cheers
Whiteline Jim
www.whiteline.com.au

[9large]

Thanks for the comments WhitelineJim.

I don't think anyone's complaining about too much stiffness, but for the money, an average strut-tower type brace has negligible affect on the S2000, from my experience at least. For similar money, a lower X- or H-style chassis brace does significantly more. I have both STB and lower-arm brace (from Whiteline), as well as a front sway bar (also from Whiteline). Unfortunately, the STB did nothing for me.

[ludecrs]

<snip>

Welcome

[WhiteAP1]

Thanks for the comments WhitelineJim.

I don't think anyone's complaining about too much stiffness, but for the money, an average strut-tower type brace has negligible affect on the S2000, from my experience at least. For similar money, a lower X- or H-style chassis brace does significantly more. I have both STB and lower-arm brace (from Whiteline), as well as a front sway bar (also from Whiteline). Unfortunately, the STB did nothing for me.

What he said

[troys2000]

Wow Whitelinejim that was intense lol.
I plan to spend more money on driver training than improving the car, because lets face it our talent runs out more than the S2000’s (for the most of us)
We should spend a little more time & money improving us not the car.

[F20C]

well if you do improve yourself and you still drove the same car with the same entrance speed into a corner with shitty tyres, wouldnt it still occur? realistically improving tyres and not entering corners so fast would stop the tail happy-ness. And by some of the things mentioned above, improving certain things on your car would mean being able to enter those corners without slidding? I'm not saying im entering corners at stupid speed causing me to go sideways i just think its the tyres. Possibly the way my car was camberd and toed maybe?

[WhitelineJim]

G’day everyone,

Thanks for the positive and supportive welcome, we love getting involved.

9large, WhiteAP1, I take your point and a strut tower brace is actually a misnomer on that car as it doesn’t have struts. The top mount application links the upper arm inner pickup points which is a good thing but I would argue that the lower brace in that application is the more important one. And, having driven an S2000 with a without, back to back during development I am confident that it’s doing its thing in maintaining a tighter integration between static and dynamic angles.

Troys2000, great point and one that resonates with us however we have to be careful what we say sometimes as owner drivers can be a bit touchy. We used to joke with our pro test drivers that the best value for money performance improvement for a customer car on test day was to pay the pro drivers to drive them as they’d potentially slash seconds off the lap time.

But F20Cs’ comments fit in well here too as the combination of poor tyres and poor technique will quickly overpower any actual setup gains. The S2000 is one of those rare beasts that’s actually close to neutral from the factory which is contrary to the normal “always understeer” mantra coming from the engineering safety department. That gives the car the feeling of being “oversteery” but we think it’s just too close to neutral for some and that makes it more challenging to drive for some, myself included.

Anyway, hope we’ve helped.

Cheers
Whiteline Jim
www.whiteline.com.au