AS31

Are you're running a square setup with stock suspension, including sway bars on an AP1? If so, do you HPDE with the same setup? What tire are you using? For the record, I had a pisspantsshittinlgscary incident in my previous car, and it was not fun. I probably should do a 1/2 season of autocross with this AP2 before I get it on track.

Shift9303

No HPDE events so you would be correct in teasing out that I do not have any track experience with this car; so not much high speed experience with the car besides driving back roads. So far I've got almost one autocross season into this car and one autocross season co-driving with my buddy in his NA miata the year prior. The car right now is stock '00 AP1 with original springs, dampers, and sway bars with 255 square RE71Rs. Alignment is camber -2*F/-3*R, 0 toe front, and 0.2* total rear toe in. Front camber is basically maxed out on stock adjusters at stock height.

Three major things I noticed:
1) Way more turn in. The car is incredibly hard to make understeer, at least at autocross speeds and my skill level. I only began understeering when I swapped out my balding rear tires to the front.
2) The 255 in the rear seemed to have "overwhelmed" the twitchiness I had in the rear on OEM tire sizes. My friend's B street AP1 with big front sway bar still feels twitchier in the back than my car. Though his car is more responsive due to the sway bar.
3) More trailing over steer. When I take high way sweepers around the city, if I let off the throttle the feeling of weight transfer to the front of the car is much more significant than stock. I don't seem to remember feeling it at all on the stock AP1 sizes. The car won't suddenly just spin out but you do feel the car start turning in more with the rear getting lighter when you lift off. And vice versa, when you get on the throttle again you get a slight bit of push which makes the car's attitude neutral again. I do think my alignment does add a little bit extra on throttle push with the significantly greater rear camber.

At autocross it's been pretty tough to get the rear end to come out on me and when it does I've been able to catch it 100% of the time in the dry. With my current setup the break in grip still feels fairly progressive and I usually know when it's coming. In the wet it's another story and this is how crazy I initially imagined the car being based on how people on the internet described the car's supposed snap over steer. That said, the rain also accentuates bad driving. I am also not good enough to get every last ounce of performance from the car yet. In contrast, the guys running their S2Ks staggered at events are usually complaining about understeer by the end of the day. I also definitely see the value of a big sway bar now. The car feels lazy in the transitions with the stock bar. It's not noticeable to a significant degree on the streets but during events it does feel some what lazy in the slaloms and sometimes I wish the car would settle down faster before my next turn. On back roads I try to keep it tame but the few times I've went past 70-80 the car still felt fine. Past that the car does begin feeling a bit light in the rear again. The S2000 also does tend to produce a bit of lift in the rear. That's probably why the track cars usually do end up with a GT wing on the back. Bumpy roads are still really unfriendly to my car but the pavement at most autocross events are usually fairly smooth. Road course conditions might differ though.

thomsbrain

Going to respectfully disagree. A good wing will work regardless of top up/down, though clean airflow obviously helps. That said, I've never, ever been to a track event that required convertibles to drive with the top down. I still have my softtop, always run on track with it up, and even with a 5" chassis-mount splitter that extends to the oil pan, air dam, and huge canards, my GT-250 wing angle is still limited by available front downforce. Producing rear downforce is not a problem with the softtop.

Barnburner3

VIR requires top down on all convertibles or a hardtop. Speaking from experience, the wing does something with the top down, and definitely helps, but it is much more effective with a hardtop or soft top.

You can see some aero comparisons here:

roel03

Every event I've been to, mostly with NASA, requires convertible tops to be down unless it is heavily raining.

A wing is not useless with the top up, but since it's not allowed, it is not worth it with the top down. I've done a few laps with my hardtop off because I miss driving top down and my car is slower than with no wing.

The Spoon hardtop is definitely the most efficient for the S2000, I just hate how it looks. That video is awesome, though.