I have had my S2000 since end of last October. It came with 17" wheels and tires and they were not so great. Had a bend in the wheel so never really drove it hard and it never felt good. Then got some all season tires. Big mistake and the handling sucked. I then bought some stock 16" wheels with Fuzion ZRI tires. The car still felt strange and felt like it rolled in the turns. I popped the rear tires and just bought some new 245/45/16 Fuzion ZRI tires for the rear.
I originally set the tire pressure at 31 psi. It felt good at first I thought and then I noticed all the body roll it had. I then bumped the psi up to 36 and it felt better at first but then I noticed it still had a lot of body roll or sway feel. Bumped it up to 38 to see what happened and it feels like it is riding on less tire and felt kinda light on the road.
It feels really unstable going around longer turns. Sharp quick turns it feels fine. It's the long tight fast turns that it feels really sketchy on.
I put the psi back down to 34 now, but it's raining out so don't want to test it until the rain stops.
The car when going around these wide turns really feels like sooo much of the weight shifts with the turn. This does not seem normal to me, however this is my first s2000.
How can I tell if it is tires, or shocks or what? What are some good easy troubleshooting things to check? I don't want to just start throwing different tires at it and new shocks etc.
The car does have just over 86k on it.
I pushed down on the rear suspension and it wiggles slightly, but no big bounce or anything. The right rear side made a slight creak or squeak noise.
Any tips, pointers, suggestions?
I need this thing to finally feel RIGHT!!!
Got my stimulus money in today, so if something needs replacing would love to use that to buy it.

 

body roll is rarely related to turns.

traction and weight transfer in turns is highly reliant on throttle, IMO. I find the reaction of the s2000 very, very different when coasting through a high speed sweeper vs. slowing down ahead of time and accelerating through the turn. Lately, coasting through sweepers hasn't felt very solid, whereas accelerating or steady throttle through 'em feels very solid.

When you say body roll, what comes to mind to me is the actual body leaning opposite the direction of the turn.

That can be minimized by various body braces and bars.

 

Yes it leans hard the opposite way of the turn. I didn't think the S2000 had that much body roll. Thats normal? It feels horrible really. The whole time I'm going around a sweeping turn, it feels like the car is about to spin out. I felt much much more grounded going around these turns in my Eclipse GST with stock ride height and all with 205 tires than I do in my S now.

 

Maybe a problem with your anti-roll (aka sway) bars? Check the ends and make sure they're connected and not sloppy.

 

Ok I'll jack the car up in a few and see if I can see anything. If it loose would it be obvious loose or does it need to be checked with a torque wrench or something?

 

three thing i would check first tires, spring/damper and sway bar.

Some tires just feels like they have more body roll because the way it was built. Soft Tire wall, M+S rating thread(for example) will flex before you can actually feel the steering response. I used to have the tire you have on my gf's vw but i could tell you how they feel consider that i never drive them hard enough to tell. but to be honest tire pressure is the last time you change, and you can't really tell how much is the best without driving the car at limit and see how much contact it actually have(aka shoe polish on sidewall trick)

how old is the damper and spring btw?


98-02 accord use to have a plastic sway bar endlink, we pop those left and right on the track. HOnda updated a metal version of it and under hard driving the metal chassis mount will crack in half(bad engineering). On the track my stock spring feels little bit softer than i like(and body roll) but on the street it's pretty much neutral.(car has coilover now)

 

I am on stock suspension. So not really sure how to check all that.

 

how many miles?

not much people realize damper are wear items on car, they degrade around 80k(but again most of the people will never bring it to a track so they can't never tell by driving to the mall)

CR damper and spring have a greater range and stiffer rate, they would eliminate a lot of bodyroll for sure(assuming you are going to upgrade)

 

Well I have just over 86k on my car. Bought it with 69k, so don't know what was replaced if anything. I have an '01 so I thought they were pretty stiff already.

 

I forgot to mention, the car also makes a clunk noise when going over hard bumps. Thought it was maybe my Spugen exhaust hitting, but I looked underneath and all hangers seemed to be connected fine. The rear does feel really harsh going over big bumps. Might be normal though.