Now that nationals are over, please post pictures of your adjustable sway bars, approximate cost, and were they set at full stiff at Nationals My custom bar is stiff enough, but cannot be adjusted for rain, cold pavement, or slick asphalt.

 

After listening, seeing, questioning and formulating I am going with the custom Bill Gendron bar.

Apparently you can order it two ways with a bar or without. Bill gets the blade ends, custom bends them to fit the S2 and drills the holes. He also provides endlinks.

What I plan to do is get the BG kit sans bar and order a solid 1 3/8" bar from speedway engineering. Also replace the endlinks with high quality teflon lined links from Aurora bearing. Then have the entire assembly powder coated for durability. I anticipate the entire ordeal costing $630-$650.

Nationals this year was a fluke. First of all it was some of the slipperiest bumpy concrete I have ever driven on (might as well been asphalt) and I know of at least one S2 that had a concrete setup that wasn't working and they were fighting a push. With the short format they were not able to make changes like they could have under normal conditions and probably didn't finish as well as they could have, but they finished well none the less.

What I know about setup. Running the BG bar full stiff with the solid bar requires a serious deviation from what we know about alignments on the S2. You still want as much negative camber and caster in the front but nearly no toe. Rear is still about 2.5deg neg camber but almost 1/2" toe out, yes out. I'm sure you can run the bar a little softer and reduce the amount of rear toe for asphalt which is what I think I will do. Mind you this is a autocross alignment road race is sure to be different.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SoloVR6
[B]Rear is still about 2.5deg neg camber but almost 1/2" toe out, yes out.

 

I believe the best quote I heard from Jason about this was when he was talking to Guy Ankeny...

"Yeah, we had no wheel spin problems at all. I just put my foot down and it plowed right through the corner"

As Jason said, we are still working on the setup and will continue working on it through next year. Topeka taught us that we need to get out there for a MidDiv event sometime before nationals just to get some practice on the surface. It's just too different from any other site to be sure a setup will work when we get there.

 

It should be noted that almost every car had trouble entering the two large South course sweepers. The combination of bumpy entries into offcamber sections is a pretty sure fire recipe for push. After watching so many struggle with the entry to the first big sweeper (a notable Penske supplier went outside the outside cone because he broke too late), it was pretty apparent a real conservative entry was necessary. Point being is that I'm not sure how much you would blame car setup for that situation.

I also wouldn't call Topeka slippery, except when really cold or dirty. We get more inside wheelpspin issues there than just about anywhere else. Ultimate grip is pretty good, especially if alot of rubber is already down. I think the wheelspin we get is both due to the grip and subtle bumps upsetting the inside wheel while under power. Shock tuning for Topeka is especially key.

Also, I wouldn't assume push is due to a slippery surface by default. In a RWD car, going to a grippier surface can produce push because the rear is gripping that much better.

 

I was a bit hasty when I called Topeka slippery. Unfortunately Peru is the only close decent piece of concrete for us in Chicago and it didn't do a good job to prepare me for Topeka.

My last trip to Nationals was 1999 driving a Neon, this year I went in the STS GTI so I am used to dealing with a lack of grip provided by street tires but I still wasn't prepared for Topeka. I was able to adjust being that tire pressure make a big difference. Had I not coned my last run I could have taken 10th instead of 15th.

If I had had another day of competition I think results would have been different for me as well as in other classes.

But anyway I think I will be able to use the adjustability of the BG sway bar to compensate for these kind of situations.

 

Definitely good points, 2fast... In fact, some of the people I had talked to said that Topeka was grippier than Peru. (Most notably was Erik Strelneiks) The only reason that we came to the conclusion that it was slipperier was that the nose of the car didn't seem to roll as much as Peru. Even with the bar at full stiff, the nose of the car rolled allot at Peru, causing a hint of inside rear wheel spin (diagonally lifting the inside rear.) At least that's what the car feels like it's doing. At Nationals, the front of the car seemed to wash out before it ever body-rolled that much... Which still could have been because of rear grip. You would think with all that toe-out... Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Oh... and I haven't thanked you in a while, 2fast. B-Stock is going to be fun next year! I never thought I'd be a B-Stock driver wishing for a 'power' course. How ironic!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jason Saini
[B]Oh... and I haven't thanked you in a while, 2fast.

 

Nothing is final yet but just look at the results from Nationals. Boxster, S2K, S2K, Boxster, Boxster 2.5, S2K, S2K, S2K, Boxster, 968.

It would be in poor form to move the Boxster to BS and leave the S2K in AS. The two cars seem to be a good match for each other and since the Boxster is apparently permanently classed in BS the S2K should be moved as well. But don't quote me on that.

 

The writing is on the wall... it would be extremely tasteless for the SEB to move the Boxster and S2K apart. I'm not sure if they would move BOTH the Boxster and S2K up to AS, but that would leave nothing but old cars in BS and they have been quite opposed to having older cars dominate. I'm quite confident in talking with several SCAC and a few SEB members that the S2000 will go to BS next year. Frankly, one of the SEB members I talked to said that they had made a mistake... there were a few events early on that had them thinking the S2000 was unbeatable but as the season wore on they became more confident the Honda and Porsche were well matched.

Look for BS to be a carbon copy of the old AS... There's even talk of moving the RX7tt down to the new AS after 2002. Which would make AS as follows: C4, NSX, BoxsterS, Rx7tt, M-Coupe... just like someone we all know and love posted recently as a recommendation!