Cali boy, take out the rear toe if it's pushing. You'll need the front bar for slaloming.
--JCN

Also: standard protocol for checking money shift damage is pulling the valve cover and seeing if any retainers are cracked. The AP2s resist it much better than the AP1s. And do upgrade the shift knob.

 

Which one? And how does that help? Just curious.

I've gone from OEM to Rick's (voodoo), to standard Modiction (2+ years), and now back to OEM...

 

I like a beaked knob like a MOMO anatomic. It helps reduce misshifting when shifting during aggressive G-loading when your body is shifted and it's hard to know what gate you're going into. Having a reference on the shift knob (for us) makes it a lot easier to find the right gates and avoid money shifting.

 

Cali boy...I see what you did there

I have minimal rear toe currently and can already get throttle on oversteer corner off, so I don't want to go to less. I really need to run the car on another surface before making any judgment. Regardless, having some adjustability on the dampers is something I want.

On the AP2, isn't the likelihood of cracking valve retainers pretty much zero? I guess I could do a leakdown test and see if anything looks off.

 

We used to run zero rear toe. I liked the Motons and the Penskes when we ran them both. When the car is set up fast it's pretty knife edge where one click of compression or rebound makes a large difference. That being said, OEM shocks are pretty good with street tires and more forgiving.

I think the chances of AP2 cracked retainers is very low, but depending on how bad the overrev was, I'd look for my own piece of mind so I could then just close the door and not worry about it. But I've dropped an AP1 retainer, so I'm paranoid.

 

I'm not sure the 4k in shocks is worth the money over stock shocks in street class on street tires. Maybe .2 on a 60 second course, maybe.

 

Maybe it's 0.2s. Maybe it's 0.5s. Maybe it's nothing. But I'll tell you it made a large difference in how the car felt.

And even 0.2s per day over two days can be the difference between a trophy and mid-pack sometimes.

 

You could argue that, given the requirement to run stock spring rates, damper valving is more important in street class. My experience has been, best run to best run, the delta between a top notch oem and aftermarket exists...and if you want to win Nationals, you don't leave free time on the table. Also, the confidence factor of proper damping is important, particularly in you-have-to-get-it-done/last run type of scenarios.

No doubt, oem dampers on many cars (S2000, C5Z06, 987 etc) don't suck. I'm not really too excited about the idea of investing $4k into a set of shocks, but I've done it before and know I'll at least get $3k out, if I want to resell. I've also done just fine on basic, twin tube Konis.

Decisions...

 

Haven driven on the lesser OEM, Bilstein, and Konis and done very well, to the high dollar Penskes/Motons/Ohlins/MCSs/Etc, I can tell you there is a confidence difference. At minimum, you will be able to consistently drive the car at the limit with better shock (when properly set).

-Marc

 

I agree with Charles, the California Boy and Marc. Just adding to what these fine gentlemen have said, in my experience:

Stock s2000 shocks are very good. Good enough to win with actually. But you are leaving time on the table compared to what is possible with a more agressive and tuneable shock. In a competitve stock class, I think the shock is more important than in an ST class, because the shock becomes more critical as a tuning option. You can also do "cheater" (not really cheating, but you know what I mean) things like running degassed shocks to get a lower ride height at stock perch heights, doing the opposite (high nitrogen pressure on an MCS for example) to gain a ton of effective spring rate, or other little nifty tricks that add performance to the car.

Revalved Koni Yellows make the car quicker, slightly. They helped me go quicker by tuning out most (not all) of the inside wheelspin on R's (not a problem on street tires I don't think) and the added available front rebound makes the car transition in a quicker and controlled fashion, while keeping the ride height lower and front tires more cambered for a longer period of time once compressed (stock camber in the front is inadequate for using the tires optimally in most cases.) I ran revalved, double adjustable Koni Yellows on my car until I retired it in 2013. (Actually I am taking them off and they will be for sale shortly.)

Motons/MCS and other similar shocks are yet another level of performance (ultimately faster than yellows). They add legitimate and significant pace to a stock class s2000 when tuned to their potential. You get better low speed compression without the high speed compression of a Koni-Yellow. The large shaft means better low speed comp/rebound damping in general. The shocks "feel" like there is less delay in taking control of the spring, because there is less delay. The add nitro pressure, when used properly, adds real spring rate and controls body roll better, so much so that you may not actually need as much front swaybar to get the right balance. All of this stuff adds up to time on course. And like Marc said, they feel great - and are more consistent in their feel, which inspires more confidence. I don't know for sure, but I would suspect the external resevoirs and canister design help to keep the oil at the proper temperature, for more consistent damping force, in addition to better internal cooling design, etc.

It would be tough to assign a time delta to any of these. But the difference is measured in tenths. Many championships are decided by such marigins, some by far less margins...