That looks very well balanced.,.what is the setup?

Eibach FSB (full stiff), 225/255 Hankook RS3 V2, and everything else stock.

 

Not sure if I am reading some comments correctly here, but I have been running s2000's in solo since July of 2008 (when I started autocrossing) Both on Hoosiers and Street tires. I have lifted front inside wheels off the ground with big front bars, and rear inside wheels with a stock front bar. You do need grippy tires to do it. Have pictures of both.

On the big bar question, I can confirm that we ran the biggest bar available from KARCEPTS last year, which I believe was either the 1.25" hollow or solid, or a 1.375" hollow. Maybe Brian can chime in - I forget which center section it was since Noel (car owner) procured the parts for testing from Brian. On every where except the Lincoln Solo Nationals, we used setting 4 or 5 (6 being full stiff.) The car needed setting 6 on the higher grip Lincoln surface. As I have said before, I would have been signifcantly slower with the full stiff setting being available to correct the high-grip induced loose balance.

With considerably higher grip street tires available this year, I would expect a need for even more front swaybar. But I don't know - haven't driven an STR car since last season. I did have to source the biggest bar I could find for a 350z (a special hardeneded steel 36mm solid bar) and drill an extra hole with a Bridgeport press to make it stiff enough to work with 275 Stones, despite 1000+lb/in springs

I also have a sweet photo of me lifting a front wheel like whoa at Wilmington last year in STR - will try to dig that goodie up.

Cheers,

 

Nick, you guys were on the 1.25" hollow .25" wall center section, but your prototype arms at the time had a little extra stiffness to them compared to the production versions, so it was more similar to a 1.25" solid.

I'm with Nick in that I personally like a very stiff front bar. Most of the fast guys on our .25" wall center section in STR trim run it around hole #5 (close to maxed out). I'm actually testing out a 1.375" bar, and I love it. We will start stocking it shortly, and it allows me to run closer to the middle hole settings on average, so there is plenty of room to go up or down depending on the course/surface.

With all that being said, it seems like guys are all over the place on bar stiffness, where it seems to be personal preference. I have heard more feedback than I would expect that the B Street guys on the .25" wall complain of push, and seem to want softer center sections (maybe due to limited front camber in comparison to STR). I've done a lot of back to back bar testing and I too definitely "felt" more push on stiffer center sections; however, for my driving style the clock always verified the stiffer center was faster. I will say that it can also be course dependent, but on high speed transitional elements (which is much of autocross), the stiffer bar showed more speed. If you happen to have a course with minimal transitions and more sweepers, then that is where softer front bar settings may pay off.

 

this is all very good stuff. I assume Brian=Karcepts and Nick=Forcednduckshn. I have read much of your forum comments and I respect your opinions. I had been on hole #3 from softest for a couple of years but liked the idea of a stiffer setting to improve transitional reaction. With a new set of RE-71Rs I decided to go up to the fourth hole and took out 1/16 toe in in the back for a total of 1/16 toe in. The car pushed terribly through the center of sweepers, felt great in slaloms. At lunch I moved it back to #3 and it was much better. Ran the next day at that setup and did very well.

It seems that both of you are running STR so I can't compare. I would be very interested in your thoughts on competitive B street setup with our newest top street tires. mostly, what are the top B street S2000s running for swaybar settings and alignment.

 

Everyone I've talked to running top B street setups seem to be running less bar than they have in the past, and less than STR. Which seems kind of weird but BS has less camber and pinched front tires so it probably makes sense.

 

Could be because lowering the cars in STR increases front roll vs rear roll, because the front RC moves much more than the CG, while the rear RC moves more in step with the rear CG. Meaning the lower the you go, the more front roll stiffness you'd need. Just a guess.

 

If I had the time, I would test 4/6 (which I ran in BS on Hoosiers) against 3/6 (current setting) on my Monster bar. The Bridgestones were a much more significant improvement over Dunlops than I predicted. However, it's working well enough that I'm just going to leave it for the rest of the year.

 

are you still running B street? I am curious how you can get to 3/6 on your Monster bar w/o too much understeer and I am running 3/6 on 1.25, 1/4 wall. What rear toe do you have? What about camber settings?

 

Sorry, that's for my AS CR. Setup details are in the AS thread, except now the bar is on 3/6 and I have 255 Bridgestones.

3/6 feels pretty damn good in sweepers, but I suspect I'm losing a bit in slaloms and offsets waiting for the front to set. With the 255 up front, I think 4/6 could work.

 

Have tested a myriad of front bar settings using the Karcepts .250 wall bar on a BS S2000. Setting 3/6 seems to be as close to optimum as we can get to maintain transitional stability while not inducing too much understeer in slower elements. I imagine if the car was on aftermarket dampers with an assload of rebound (probably on both ends is what I'd want to start off with), I'd likely end up even using less bar.

FWIW, since it seems to have been discussed, I have the same sway bar on my STR S2000, and run it primarily at setting 5 (4 for very low grip lots), along with 800/700 springs, and no rear sway bar. Ended up pretty close to where Nick ended up last year, which is pretty different than a lot of other folks in the class (but less crazy than some of the setups I'd run in the past).