I just bought an '02 S2 about 2.5 weeks ago. The car seems totally stock except for the wheels. The rims are "17 Motegi MR7's and the rubber is Wanli S-1099 225/45/ZR17 91W.

My question stems from the fact that the S2 does not come with the same size wheels (at least the rubber) stock. I am concerned that there may be a problem with stability, cornering, and/or general driving with these different... dimensions.

What I'd like to know is:
1. Is this a significant problem that the wheels are the same size all around?
2. Will this affect my "drives like it's on rails" abilities?
3. Do you recommend that I change something, and if so, what specifically?

Any and all comments are welcome.
If you want to see the way the car looks with these wheels, click here

 

Any thoughts? Anyone?

 

1. does it rub?
2. i would have the alignment checked- i had mine redone to an aggressive alignment... car handles better than new now!

 

There no rubbing at all. The clearance is fine, and the car is aligned.
Really, I'm just wondering if having the tires sized differently than how Honda had designed the car is going to significantly reduce cornering and traction.

 

the stock setup and any good aftermarket setup requires staggered widths of both wheels and tires.

stock wheel widths are 6.5 up front and 7.5 out back
stock tire sizes are equivalent of 215 up front and 245 in the rear i believe

as long as the sizes and offsets are such that the wheels and tires do not physically come in contact with any other parts of the car (such as the top of the tire rubbing against your fenders over bumps or on hard turns), you are not doing any damage to anything. so other than the handling characteristics there is not a significant problem.

yes the setup will significantly alter the handling characteristics of the car for the worse. the s2000 is specifically designed to be run on a staggered width setup. there is no intelligent reason for switching out the stock wheels for a set of aftermarket rims that are all the same size. if was probably done because the owner thought the car would look cooler and he was too cheap to buy appropriate wheels.

yes i recommend that you first figure out the exact sizing of your rims. if both are the same size and offset then you can rule out the idea that the previous owner was simply thrifty in his tire buying. identical front/rear tire sizes may be because the wheels are close enough in width to each other that the same size width fit on either wheel and the buyer was just clueless. the mostly likely case is that both wheels are the same size as well as the tires, so you cannot solve your problem by simply buying wider rear tires. in the event that your wheels and tires are the same size all the way around, you are probably going to need to get new wheels all around as well as tires.

be careful and do a lot of research about this topic before you buy anything new. there are only a small amount of wheel/tire combos that will work effectively with the s2k. most are fairly expensive when compared to wheels for say any other honda because all of them sport front wheel drive layouts. the key for buying s2000 wheels is making sure they come with the right offset. remember the word offset it is very important.

your best bet may be to try to pick up a pair of stock 16 (00-03) or 17 (04-05) honda wheels. they can be found used for pretty decent prices and offer a good setup. otherwise look carefully for aftermarket wheels that have proper s2000 sizing.

i hope this helps, good luck man

 

Thank you!

I'll see what I can find out about the wheels and tires on my S2. Then I'll see what the next best step would be in my case. <-- For stupid people who put on aftermarket crap and don't take performance (or the car at all!) into account.

Thanks again for the great reply.

 

Good advice and good information. But, you don't HAVE to have staggered rims and tires. Most JDM cars like J's are now running 17x9 all the way around with 255 tires. I'd say their race cars would still handle pretty well. In fact the new style on ff, fr, and awd cars is to have wider than stock front rolling stock. Its not what I run, but it seems to make sense for ultimate race car type handling (esp. on a ff. more traction on the front = more rotation, less understeer.).

 

I would recommend you go back to "stock" wheels and size and drive that for a while.... meaning Staggered. Non staggered will decrease understeer but with a rear wheel drive car and crappy rubber with increase oversteer which means kiss your ass end good by...

That way you get to enjoy the handling characteristics of what the car was meant for.....

Afterwards if you want to change those characteristics you can adjust accordingly.

From the sounds of the wheels and tire combo thats on the car right now, it sounds like a looks over performance mod.

You can run anything you want on the car but to answer your question of "drives like it's on rails" comment......that comment was made on OEM wheels and tires.

Just a thought....

 

the race cars you speak of have major modifications done to their suspensions to accompany the huge front tires. you are right that some of the race cars run or have run this kind of setup but it is mostly due to their drivers handling preference. the j's driver simply liked to be battling against the oversteer all the time instead of vice versa. its an uncommon approach that only works with people who like to be oversteering all the time, but in the end it makes the car inherently less stable and therefore it is sometimes able to turn faster laps. remember, it takes a much more skilled driver to keep the s2k going where he wants it to go on a non-staggered setup. this is just not practical on a stock s2000, nor for anyone without adaquate understanding of the resulting handling dynamics.

 

I was afraid of that.
And this is my first RWD car.

Unfortunately, it's going to take a little while till I can afford to switch back. In the mean time, anyone offering a good deal on stock wheels can PM me.