Hi everyone. I just had a few questions about mods as well as what I should do to if I want to autocross my car. First a little background information, about 4 months ago I got my s2000, it is a 2000. The only thing I have done to it is put in a K&N air filter, everything else is stock. If I decide when summer rolls arround that I would like to do some light autocrossing what are the mods that I should get? I had heard the most important thing is the break pads, fuild, (and possibly rotors). Does that sound right and if so any suggestions on which ones you guys like best? Then I guess my second question would be what mods, if any do you think are best to improve performance in the car? I perfer to keep the stock look to the car so any suggestions there, and again if so which brands? Thanks.

 

I'm sure everyone will agree with me when I say that you should not mod your car at all until at least half a season of experience. The car is very good stock and having fresh S02's goes a long way. My first event in the S I had better times than I ever ran in my souped up Civic. The car is that good stock. I swear all the suspension tuning and modification I did to the civic only got it close to a stock S.

There is no way that you will make any use of the modifications you do to your car if you are new to auto-x. They may even cover up problems in your driving techniques. The best advise is to go to an auto-x school day (usually held the day before a Sunday auto-x). If you don't do that you should at least ride with people and have more experienced auto-xers ride with you to give you pointers.

YOUR driving techniques are the best modification you can do. Forget spending cash on the car until you climb the steep learning curve and start to plateau. At this point you can move up to R compound tires and a large front anti-sway bar that tames them. It's kind of like a package deal.

Just get out there and learn to drive. You'll appreciate the balance of the stock S.

Oh, and even though you are braking hard durring a run, the 60 seconds or less is really too short of an effort to effectively fade S2000 brakes... at least that I have found. I would leave them stock. Maybe change the fluid for fun but that's about it.

 

Pads, fluid, and tires won't hurt your S2000, Kasey.

If you like it (some people hate it after actually getting out on an auto-x), you may wanna try HPDE trackdays at your local road course. Beginners welcome, but it wouldn't hurt to first attend a performance driving seminar.

 

The only things I would do as a beginner are tires and alignment. And this is defensive as much as anything else.

First, you will chew the stock tires up fairly quickly.

Second you will be 2-3 seconds off the pace with no way to fix it.

So before spending any money, I would run the car once or twice. Then, if you are going to continue, tires and alignment.

I can't image how changing brake pads or fluid would help. There simply isn't enough braking to fade the brakes. And racing pads that would grip better would destroy the rotors.

Also, DON'T make any other modifications. READ THE RULES. In stock autocross classes a seamingly minor mod will bump you to preoared.

Don't change anything...

 

Check out the setup FAQ in the Racing and Competition forum...

Steve

 

--> MOVED TO RACING AND COMPETETION <--

I agree about the learning to drive your car first then modding it. Too much power when getting the feel of auto-xing it could do more harm then good

 

I'll repeat the above comments.
1) Stay stock.
2) Take an autocross school and ride along with the good drivers. You'll be surprised what any unmodded car can do. A track day/road course course won't necessarily help autocross. They are different skill sets. Autocross more car control and reaction time. Road course more speed, momentum and precision turning.
3) Keep driving until you stop improving your delta from FTD (fasted time of the day).
4) By now you will know what mods you'll want. Read rule book to not bump into a higher class with an "insignificant mod". Get R-compounds tires. All the rest is preference.

To give you an idea. Last year when I started autocrossing, I would get beat in RAW time by an incredible driver in a stock Hyundai Accent. We usually run tight courses here, but I still had gobs more handling, power, etc, except experience.

 

I agree with all of the above. Here's my own belief when it comes to dealing with cars like the S2000.

1. Don't mod the car (repeat 10 times a day). Learn the car as is without modding. Push it to the limit of your ability safely and go through the frustration of trying to improve your times. If you start modding now with little or no auto-x experience in the S2000, I feel that you won't really appreciate what the mod will do for you.

2. Do half of the season on stock tires and learn how to adjust your car's behavior by learning the tire pressure schemes.

3. Search and read the posts that's related to your situation. Many of us have posted in the past and I've learned a great deal since the posts helped explain why the S2000 behaves the way it does, and will expose clues as to which mods do what.

As far as modding, here's what I did (after learning the basics and the natural behavior of the stock S2000).

1. Tires and wheels. It was easy for me to find a used set of stock wheels (a bit scratched up but not a problem), and a set of R compound tires. I got the Kuhmo Victoracers because it was cheaper than the rest and had the tire sizes I needed and were proven by other drivers. 225 up front, 245 in the rear. Tires alone have some huge benefits, but it also comes with a dear price that may actually make things a little more "hairy" if you get careless on the S2000.

2. Front sway bar. Saner is promoted on this site, Muz offers another, Gendron is a pricey one but nationally proven product, and Comptech (which I have) is the priciest but has a revolutionary design to adjust the amount of stiffness required. If you do #1, you'll eventually realize that you need to follow through with this step. Experience behind the wheel and time explains this reason the best.

3. Alignment. In order to maximize cornering grip, I realized that the outer edges were doing most of the work while the inside half of the tires look barely worn. There's a lot of interesting reading if you take the time and search this forum, some took the approach of making aggressive settings which are horrible for average street use due to increased wear. Others (like me) took a more conservative approach by using the UK alignment settings which has a little more camber, but not drastically different from stock. Being on a limited budget, I found this to be a nice compromise between benefiting from a little more camber for auto-x use, yet mild enough that the rate of tire wear won't be significantly different from stock.

There's other things you can do but I'd suggest reading PedalFaster's FAQ in the beginning of this forum. If he posted that FAQ article 3 months earlier, I wouldn't have had to learn this the hard way... but hey, I don't regret going through the motion via experience.