I run mainly autoX (19 autoX and 3 track days scheduled this summer). My setup is am MY 03 with RA-1s (205/245) with 340/380 GC springs. Would I benefit from a somewhat stiffer front swaybar (OEM 00-01 or Cusco or Whiteline)? The car feels pretty good with managable oversteer and I have 3 FTDs out of 5 events so far but I wonder if a slightly stiffer FSB would be a little faster? As I understand it, my current tire size selection retains the OEM balance and I should not require a FSB increase? Comments?

 

Are you getting any wheelspin? If you like the balance and you aren't getting wheelspin, don't change the bar. If it ain't broke...

 

I like the balance but I do get some wheelspin every once in awhile. I guess the question is whether or not a larger FSB would make me faster even if i did not sunjectively like the balance as much.

 

I have the same tire setup with stock suspension on my 2002. I find the car has good balance also, except for a twitchy tail in high speed slolams. Right now, I'm burning off my fronts faster than my rear tires, which is totally out of character compared to street driven wear. Even though a stiffer front bar would help with the wheel lift, I would guess that it would lose too much tight turning grip with overstressed 205 fronts. Probably the reason for the autocross 225/245 stiff front bar formula that the National guys use.

 

I have the same tire setup and sway bar setup. I get some wheel spin sometimes which is annoying as hell.

Luckily, I managed to snag a Saner front sway bar which is sitting in my garage waiting to be installed as well as 225 RA1s for the front; hopefully these will solve my woes.

 

Yes, and then you will have to simmer.

 

If you autocross, the front sway bar is a very useful mod. Even if you don't need one, an adjustable one gives you the ability to deal with issues when using different tires of differing grip potential, wheel sizes, tire widths, etc. Choose the bar well, as some (that I've seen) are poorly made and binds/clicks with time. I personally use the Comptech Gen2 adj. sway bar and it is fantastic. The 2 downsides are the high price (700 bucks) and the Comptech instructions which is prone to cause annoying sounds. (Yes, I've found a solution that makes the bar absolutely silent, like stock...)

Altering tire pressures and driving technique can do a lot, but there's a limit to what those will do for you until you simply "hit a wall". A front sway bar can dial in some understeer and can make you faster on corner exits as it allows you to go a little harder and earlier on the throttle, while keeping the back end more tame. Having understeer in this car isn't nearly as bad as many other cars (probably due to its neutral weight dist), but you do need to pay attention to your corner entry speeds/angles if you are the aggressive type.

But hey, if you see nothing wrong with your current setup and like how it handles, why change anything?

 

Dun't forget to marinate first

 

The best way to get traction in the rear is not necessarly taking grip away from the front, but to ADD grip to the rear. Taking grip out of one end of the car to obtain grip on the other should be a last alternative.

If the car understeers even a little bit, the front of the car will go toward the outside preventing you from getting on the throttle until the front stops sliding. This is called crabbing. Any driving instructor will tell you that is not the proper way to exit a corner. A good instructor will also teach you to go just slow enough into the corner so you have a fast exit speed coming out of the corner. After all, it's not like were running on a one mile oval or something.

A wider front tire along with a stiffer swaybar may retain your current balance. Or maybe get both front and rear swaybar to retain balance and reduce roll at the same time. I have run my car at Sears Point Raceway totally stock. Other than excessive roll, I liked the balance. Could use a little less understeer on the slower corners. I did come into a corner way to hot and the back came around a little bit, but I turned to the opposite lock so quickly that I went into a four wheel drift and the car came to a halt right on the edge the the track. Maybe it's my driving stlye, but I don't need my car to understeer. I really like the way my S is balanced.

Learn and understand your car's handling characteristics then tune your car to your own specific driving style.

 

Speaking specifically about the S2000, adding both front and rear sway bars isn't going to work... just ask the national caliber guys driving S2000's and they'll tell you that the front bar is the only thing they really need besides tires and perhaps shocks. There's a reason why Honda altered the suspension in the rear (and some in the front) after 2001. Since it's easier to add a stiffer front sway bar than to make the entire rear suspension components softer (and hence illegal to mod in stock class), the front bar is by far the most cost-effective mod to do along with R compounds.

If the car understeers at the entry into a corner, then I'd agree with your statement about how it'd prevent you from getting on the throttle, because at this point you need to get the car to turn and we all know that understeer is the enemy of turning. So, you don't want understeer during turn-in, but as I said earlier, it will help on the corner exits because you're straightening out and don't need to get the car to turn much at this point. If you want to look at it from another point of view, oversteer would be disasterous on the corner exits.

Your other point about adding a wider front tire is also incorrect. The reason for the rears breaking free doesn't have to do with the front losing grip, it's the ratio of the front to rear tire stagger (difference in widths) that throws it off. For example, on S02 OEM tires, the fronts have 205f and 225r. Using Kuhmos, the fronts are often 225f and 245r, but since the OEM S02's are actually larger than a non-Honda S02 tire (no longer in production), the Kuhmos/Toyos will make the front to rear stagger ratios closer adding too much grip in the front, unloading the rears. Adding a larger tire up front is only going to exaggerate this problem. Reducing the front width (which in this case isn't the right thing to do) or by increasing the width in the rear is going to help with this situation. Even with a little understeer in an S2000, it's still possible to oversteer with the throttle so like many things, you need to balance your driving technique to match your equipment.

Roll isn't much of a problem in the S2000 as much as other production cars I've driven, however it could benefit from better compression and rebound control which would make it easier to control near the limit.