I'm a little miffed that people come in and assume that the car comes from that factory broken and it needs to be "fixed" before it's any good. That is simply not true and I've said it several times in several threads recently. You don't need a race team manager or a Platinum VISA to prep your car for the track. You need a set of brake pads and a bottle of brake fluid ($250) period. If you feel racy spring for a set of wheels and R-compound tires like RA-1s.

Don't fix what isn't broken. That's what we will tell you in this forum and we do constantly. Tracking your car will separate you from your money fast enough without you needing to accelerate the process with a bunch of needless purchases. The stock advice is a stock car for anyone who comes in asking for what they should do to their cars without ever having tracked it. Track first, mod later.

The slowest part of the car is the driver controlling it. The day an experienced driver doesn't take your car and crush your lap times by at least 6 seconds is the day to start looking at ways to make the car faster. Some come out the gate with game but most new trackers just plain suck yet feel compelled to blame the car for it.

 

That wasn't the question, though. He likes the stock handling. What he was asking was whether he could retain the stock handling but also lower the car for looks.

 

Yes, I know that's not what was asked. I was responding to replies but the forums doesn't do replies to replies only replies to threads.

 

OK. (As an old usenet guy, I really hate web forums for this reason. It was a big step backward in useability when web forum designers ignored (or never knew about) all the lessons learned on usenet about properly threaded discussions. But usenet is mostly abandoned, and I guess we have to go where the people are in order to converse with them.)

 

But that information was never offered... we cant read his mind

 

I realize now that my question was too vague and people can't read my mind. I am more interested in tracking the car than anything else (like looks). I feel I will like HPDEs better than Autox because it seems you get alot more seat time. I have spectated a couple of times at both, and got rides at both. I plan on trying both.

This being said I have seen a few lowered S2000s in the gallery and at a recent UMW get together. The lowered cars looked great. My question was to determine if this look is compatible with tracking. From the response, it sounds like it is probably not the right direction to go. I am not ready to put on coilovers until I see how much I'll enjoy tracking the car.

I was planning on changing the brake fluid and pads for the HPDEs and if I got more serious look at upgading tires and a more aggressive alignment. I was hopeing by coming here I could get answers from the guys who know handling before I screw it up with a mod for looks only. I think I have my answer.

My ignorance of car suspension is because my past experience (30 years) is on offroad motorcycles.

I need to start reading!

 

Yeah nice for you to say, I should have known

 

I don't think anybody has had any meaningful reasons why it would negatively affect handling. As long as you take your time with a good alignment you are good to go.

Also from my experience autox does not hold a candle to open track days both as far as seat time as well as quality of experience.

 

If you keep the same spring rates, you increase your chances of hitting the stops. If you increase the spring rates, you are now underdamped (compared to stock). And the toe and camber curves change rates.

All of these things can affect handling. Since I personally haven't lowered my car, I'm not going to claim that they do so negatively or positively.

 

For the sake of playing devil's advocate....

You can pretty much assume any lowering spring will increase spring rates by an absolute maximum of 25%. I really believe that this alone will not hurt cornering ability on a track. Most i've been to really do not demand a huge amount of wheel control compared to the street.

Also as long as the car is aligned properly and the control arms are not beyond paralell to the ground, given the limited suspension travel of our cars I really do not see dynamic toe and camber change being an issue.