Originally Posted by skatebrian624

So, I'll give you a little background on how things changed and what I suggest your do (which you already have the stuff for).

First, here is a good link which is the definitive information about the stock S2k setups for springs, sway bars and shocks and how they changed through the years. It's a really good technical read.

https://www.s2ki.com/...ension-springs/

The S2k started off as a car that was super easy to coax into oversteer. This is why Honda put a staggered setup on the car in the first place. To try to tame the rear end a little and make it stick better in day to day driving.

As the years went buy, Honda kept tweaking the front and rear spring rates and sway bar stiffness. All the tweaks were to try to dial out the oversteer characteristics for a street vehicle and keep the staggered tire setup. By the end of the run, the S2k was far more neutral than before, but still tail happy as they say.

The ultimate expression of this was the CR, which, with the spring rates finally biased to the front instead of the rear, and with different shocks, they made it a pretty neutral handling car.

When I changed to a CR spring/shock set up, it literally transformed the handling of the car.

So, now, in order to increase the front end ultimate grip on the track, many people go with a square set up.

However, going with a square set up MASSIVELY shift the grip to the front of the car, and changes the car back into a loose oversteering car, more than ever before, albeit with more overall grip. People who do this on stock spring shock setup have made for a poor handling car.

To get the car to be more neutral in handling, you want to increase grip at the rear.

Especially in mid to high speed corners, the most effective way to to this is with a big rear wing. You've got that done. Good.

But, that big rear will doesn't help you at all in low speed corners. To do that, you must increase rear grip/decrease front grip using mechanical/non-aero methods.

You would do this by changing springs to more like CR balance (front stiffer than rear by a touch). Keep in mind, lowering the car will again slightly shift grip back to the front. You've more or less done that as well.

But, that won't make the car come anywhere close to a neutral handling car in low to mid speed corners. To do that, you have to massively stiffen up the front of the car. This is exactly why companies such as Saner, Gendron and Karcepts make these super stiff front sway bars. The stiffness needed for autocross is generally greater than needed for the track.

So, I remember doing some calculations ,and while it is oversimplified , a bar in the range of your Karcpets on the softest setting, will be about 755 lbs., which is "approx" what you would use, by calculation. How the car handles on the track is the ultimate test.

http://www.karcepts....p?id_product=81

This is why I bought a used Gendron bar myself.

Originally Posted by cracknut

That is a good summary by davidc1.

For road race I used to run a MX5 rear bar and an '05 front bar. However after some testing I prefer no rear bar - very smooth and predictably transition to oversteer.

Generally I want to go with small bars to keep the suspension as independent as possible.

No idea how that would fare at an AutoX. Probably not well.


So, I'll give you a little background on how things changed and what I suggest your do (which you already have the stuff for).

First, here is a good link which is the definitive information about the stock S2k setups for springs, sway bars and shocks and how they changed through the years. It's a really good technical read.

https://www.s2ki.com/...ension-springs/

The S2k started off as a car that was super easy to coax into oversteer. This is why Honda put a staggered setup on the car in the first place. To try to tame the rear end a little and make it stick better in day to day driving.

As the years went buy, Honda kept tweaking the front and rear spring rates and sway bar stiffness. All the tweaks were to try to dial out the oversteer characteristics for a street vehicle and keep the staggered tire setup. By the end of the run, the S2k was far more neutral than before, but still tail happy as they say.

The ultimate expression of this was the CR, which, with the spring rates finally biased to the front instead of the rear, and with different shocks, they made it a pretty neutral handling car.

When I changed to a CR spring/shock set up, it literally transformed the handling of the car.

So, now, in order to increase the front end ultimate grip on the track, many people go with a square set up.

However, going with a square set up MASSIVELY shift the grip to the front of the car, and changes the car back into a loose oversteering car, more than ever before, albeit with more overall grip. People who do this on stock spring shock setup have made for a poor handling car.

To get the car to be more neutral in handling, you want to increase grip at the rear.

Especially in mid to high speed corners, the most effective way to to this is with a big rear wing. You've got that done. Good.

But, that big rear will doesn't help you at all in low speed corners. To do that, you must increase rear grip/decrease front grip using mechanical/non-aero methods.

You would do this by changing springs to more like CR balance (front stiffer than rear by a touch). Keep in mind, lowering the car will again slightly shift grip back to the front. You've more or less done that as well.

But, that won't make the car come anywhere close to a neutral handling car in low to mid speed corners. To do that, you have to massively stiffen up the front of the car. This is exactly why companies such as Saner, Gendron and Karcepts make these super stiff front sway bars. The stiffness needed for autocross is generally greater than needed for the track.

So, I remember doing some calculations ,and while it is oversimplified , a bar in the range of your Karcpets on the softest setting, will be about 755 lbs., which is "approx" what you would use, by calculation. How the car handles on the track is the ultimate test.

http://www.karcepts....p?id_product=81

This is why I bought a used Gendron bar myself.