DISCLAIMER
This discussion is geared towards driving on the street. If you take your car to the track and live and die by your lap times please ignore this post.

BACKGROUND

There has been some discussion of late about the "Horrible" and/or "evil" handling characteristics of the S2000. Read the "Bump Steer" threads for background. I don't agree with them but that is just my opinion. I find the handling, even when pushed hard on the street or Auto cross course excellent with the stock suspension/tires when you remember the S2000 likes to be driven through the turns "on throttle" to keep the rear planted.

Many modify the suspension just for looks "slamming" with big drops in ride height and 19 inch wheels. We will disregard those mods for the purpose of this discussion as they generally degrade the handling.

Many people look to modify the suspension for increased capability. This is what I want to talk about here.

Assuming that there are certain combinations of modifications to the suspension that substantially increases the handling prowess of the S2000 (and I am sure there are) it begs the question,....Do we really want that?

WHAT you say? Mods that make it better! Why would we not want that?

Because it may not be more fun to drive and it actually has the potential to be more dangerous.

OUTRAGEOUS! How can better handling be more dangerous?

HISTORY LESSON

A bunch of years back Colin Chapman discovered how to apply "Ground Effects" to his Lotus Formula 1 cars. This was implemented by shaping the underside of the car to actually create a suction so the car would be sucked down to the track. This offered tremendous grip and allowed MUCH higher corner speeds and faster lap times. Mario Andretti won the world drivers championship in such a car. This opened the flood gates and the "Golden Age Of Ground Effects" had begun.

Well the cars got faster and faster and there seemed to be no end what aerodynamics could do. So what was the problem?
Drivers were getting hurt bad and killed in these cars. You see when a car has that much grip and the cornering speeds are so high when they get pushed over the edge they let go so violently that the driver can't recover the car. They no longer had controlled drifts through the turn. They had handling like it was on rails one second and then handling like it was ice the next. A razors edge instead of a wider buffer zone of semi controlable slides.
They outlawed Ground Effects.

WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH US?

Some of the most fun driving I have ever done was with big front engined rear wheel drive cars of the 60s and 70s. Playing with them in low traction situations like rain and snow taught car control Was I taking turns at extreme speeds with these cars? No but I was having a ball sliding the tail around and those times put some big smiles on my face. Many of the best race drivers (A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, ect..) have mastered their trade on the small dirt bull rings sliding their cars on the edge of control. The feel they learned there paid dividends when they raced on the big superspeedways because the car slides there too,....just at much higher speeds. I have seen these guys get it sideways at 200 MPH and bring it back in and it all comes back to things they learned at much slower speeds in the early years of their careers.

So why make your S2000 stick better in the turns? It eventually WILL break loose except at a much higher speed. So instead of being able to hang the tail out and have all that fun at say 40 MPH you are going to improve it to the point where it will take 60 MPH (just examples your actually speed may vary). Well you know what? It aint as fun when it breaks loose at that speed and it sure won't be as forgiving. If you don't break it loose a bit you will miss all the fun of drifting the car around an exit ramp or such.

That is why a Miata is such a fun car. Does it have the ultimate grip of the S2000? NO. Is it damn fun to drive? You bet it is because it is "tossable".

So what I am trying to say is this, don't tune all the fun out of the car.

or

Be carefull what you ask for,....you might get it.

Your thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

 

I think there needs to be some perspective when discussing this topic. The last time I was at the track a friend of mine and I had a nice talk with a rep (who was also an instructor at the event) from Eibach springs. We asked him what he thought we should upgrade on our cars suspension. He flat out told us not to touch a thing until we had at least two years seat time in the car. He said that from the factory the car is that good and it will take us that long to master what it already has. It'll probably take me longer since I'm not that good of a driver yet.
You make valid points Bieg with regards to the dangers associated with making a car handle "too" good. I also wonder how any of us "street hacks" are gonna improve on Honda's formula without computers and sensors to monitor the suspension through corners on a track. Modifying the suspension without that data and the capability to analyze that data will probably result in worse handling.
For all these reasons I agree with you.

 

I suggest you put some 135/78 crossplies on your S2K. It will be heaps of fun

I want my S2K to have higher limits AND be more controllable. Last time I checked it didn't have ground effects that would cause it to lose all grip when it gets sideways, and if I can control a solid axled, suspensionless go-kart on slicks when it gets out of shape, I think I should be OK with a road car (though I wouldn't do this on a public road).

Your point is excellent though. While higher limits are my idea of fun, they may not be everyone's. If exceeding your car's limits is what you enjoy, you're better off with a slower vehicle that also has nice chassis balance. IMO you'd have to be an idiot to be exceeding the S2K's standard limits on a public road anyway. The speeds involved are ridiculous. I love the "on rails" handling of my Honda, but wouldn't mind the same feel at even higher speeds with the same feeling of safety. I think it's not outside the realms of possibility to achieve that in the S2K. Killing the bump steer would be a good start.

 

Oh I don't know about that. Any halfway decent driver familiar with rear wheel drive cars should be able to hang the tail out on this car on any nice entrance/exit cloverleaf type ramp. That's half the fun with this car, throttle steering it. Apparently in Japan that is a major past time there. I think they call them "Drift Clubs".

 

You're right. There are some safe places, but ramps like that are not as common in Australia as they are in the US or Japan, and I tend to steer clear of highways in my S2000. Country backroads are more its natural home, especially through forests with the top down and a woman at your side

Also, a controlled slide (not too outrageous) could be considered within the car's limits. Throttle steering definitely is, even at sane speeds.

[Edited by naishou on 06-05-2001 at 09:55 PM]

 

Strike, since your post is shorter I'll disagree with you first :-)

Personally, while the S2K is a good, even a great, handling car it lacks in several areas. The first area is "forgiveness". Some would say that if you tune a car for maximum handling prowess, that it will be by definition less forgiving. I disagree with that because for those of us with mere mortal reflexes, and even race drivers on anything but a qualifying lap, it is far better to be able to consistently extract 98% rather than occasionally touch 100% and exceed it (to our detriment). And in fact, there are examples of cars across a variety of racing classes, from club racing to F1, that are/were the fastest in no small part because they are forgiving and have competitively high limits (the recent McLaren F1 cars being one example).

The second area is the rear end. Simply put, the shock damping is wonky. This has been discussed many times, but at elevated speeds, be it on street or track (and I hope everyone experiences it first on the track), mid corner bumps and undulations can really get the rear end moving around and its only blind trust that will keep you on the road. In those situations the car does not inspire confidence to use all of its abilities. As Bieg pointed out, a Miata is pretty fun because its a consistent drifter, even if it isn't as fast. Compared to my CRX, my S2000 feels like a wallowing pig going through the bumps in Turn 1 at the Streets of Willow, and the CRX is going faster, with lower grip street tires! If I spent more time on the track in my S2K, I would have definitely upgraded the shocks by now.

Now Bieg, I must strongly object to comparing aerodynamic handling issues with mechanical handling issues, as well as your portrayal of the handling envelope. First of all, ground effect cars, especially early ones, were inherently unforgiving simply because small changes in car attitude, be they in pitch or yaw, could dramatically affect the amount of downforce you had. Often times, this was completely out of the driver's control (interactive effects between cars, failure of aero devices). Compare this to handling issues generated by your mechanical grip setup (suspension geometry and tire). Here, if you are using the same tire, but alter your geometry to improve weight transfer, contact patch stability, etc. you may generate higher cornering limits but you may not necessarily create controllability issues when you exceed the limits - in fact, the car may be more predictable and forgiving (see my comments to Strike). The real issue is the tire. Street tires generate slip angles and those slip angles communicate to us. If we switch to DOT race tires, we reach peak grip at smaller slip angles, so the range of communication is narrowed. Go to race slicks and the slip angles get even smaller. Its the price of increasing grip with rubber.

Additionally, on the ground effect era and racing cars, I would like to point out further issues. First, the early ground effect cars actually had more compromised suspensions than you might expect and it was deliberate, if not welcome. Because aero effects were less well understood then, aero packages were less efficient and worked in a very narrow range of setup. To keep the car in this range, engineers used very stiff suspensions to maintain ride height, reduce pitch, roll, etc. A very stiff suspension is inherently less forgiving for several reasons. First, weight transfer reactions happen more quickly and are therefore harder to respond to. Second, reaction to bumps and curbs becomes more severe and even the best racetracks have these obstacles. Early ground effect cars effectively compromised mechanical grip because aero grip was responsible for an increasing majority of available cornering traction. Downforce induced traction can be rather binary if the car gets out of shape, hence the dramatic loss of control problems. We still see these problems today, although less severely (usually, see Mercedes LM cars of the recent past) but because the effects are better understood, the compromises are smaller.

Having said all of that, I will try to finish succinctly. Trying to increase grip can make a car less forgiving, but it is not a case of "Do A and you will always get B". Alterations to shock damping, spring rate and sway bar ratios are completely capable of making the S2K stick better and "behave" better at the limit - if you do it right. Of course, this caveat applies to almost everything in life. We just have to remember that modifications for handling improvements don't have to always mean stiffer, lower, etc.

UL

P.S. - Question, if you simply lower a car without changing any spring rates or altering static alignment while maintaining suspension travel, can you tell me what _handling_ benefits and drawbacks there are? Start another thread in under the hood, it would be a good discussion.

 

Oh hell yeah!



The S2000 just lends itself to this kind of naughty behaviour and I plan to use mine for such things.

Bieg, you have a lot of good points, but I have been doing some research into some of these drift cars, and if you can believe it, they use the same suspension components as one would use to increase grip through a corner. They use fully adjustable coilovers with pretty high spring rates that are balanced between the front and back (usually front is 2kg/mm stiffer than rear). They also use very sticky tires, and a 2 way mechanical LSD.

What does this suggest to me? That properly setting a car up for predictable handling not only increases the outright speed you can take through the corner, but also the ease of which you can drift the car through the corner as well.

I'm finding it very interesting to learn more about drift versus grip. What I think it really comes down to is how much skill the driver has. Keep in mind that drifting is a lot different than just wagging the tail at the exit of a corner - a lot of skill is required to master the various techniques required to initiate and maintain a controlled drift.

I don't really have an answer, just a lot of questions that I intend to find answers to, but I do know that the best drifters can get, and keep, just about anything on wheels sideways with seemingly not too much effort.

Those interested can find more info at http://www.driftclub.com.

 

Quote 1:
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I find the handling, even when pushed hard on the street or Auto cross course excellent with the stock suspension/tires when you remember the S2000 likes to be driven through the turns "on throttle" to keep the rear planted.
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Quote 2:
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I suggest you put some 135/78 crossplies on your S2K. It will be heaps of fun
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A couple of points here guys.
With regard to Quote 1 and driving the S2000 through turns "on throttle" the vehicle will heavily scrub out its front tyres and push wide (or understeer) in this situation. I don't consider this excellent handling and actually find it quite frustrating. The MX5 (or Miata) is a much better handling vehicle in these situations

For Quote 2 you don't need to put crossplies on the S2000. Just wait till you have driven about 10,000 miles on the standard S02s and have worn away the soft compound tread. Once this is achieved it is extremely easy to 4 wheel drift the S2000, very safe (as it is quite progressive) and is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, however, you will find yourself going a lot slower than many lesser vehicles.

Having said all of the above though, I am not prepared to experiment with the suspension of my vehicle (well not quite true, I have ordered a locally produced STB) as I am not convinced I have enough knowledge/experience to improve on factory settings. I am also not prepared to take the risk of inadvertently making it worse.

 

You are correct Bieg, from stock to modified this car is all about the fun of balance and handling.
The only time this car will let go is when the driver commits an error in judgement and, since we're human, there is always a chance of making a mistake when pushing the limits.

 

you are right. the miata is very tossable. but in my car, I want go cart like handling. I know that I may never use a stock miata capability to 100% but I would rather go at 45% and be thrilled with the lack of body flex than go 100% unmodified and lean in a curve at the handling limts, even though stock handling is stellar to begin with. Short of autocrossing, I never drive my car past 20%. I try to abide by the "posted limit x 2 + 10 mph rule" as closely as I can though. I put front and rear swaybars on my car. I am ordering Koni sport shocks and new stiffer springs. I get ragged for wanting this but when they go for a ride with me, you guys know what happens. but I like yur initial premise. it has good points.

[Edited by kamehamaha on 06-05-2001 at 10:18 PM]