I've promised myself that I will not do any modifications to my S2000 when I get it, however it has got me thinking about the subject.

I have traditionally modified my cars because I have felt they were lacking in some respect or another because they were a compromise between handling and ride comfort. However with the S2K, it seems Honda has designed the car to be the best handling car at the expense of ride comfort, which I have no problem with. My question is whether or not changing the ride height (springs/shocks), adding stressbars, and doing other simple handling mods will change the handling characteristics of the car in a good or bad way?

Do you owners feel the S2K is lacking in anyway in terms of handling performance, or do you just mod your cars for looks alone? I've seen lots of very nicely done S2Ks here on this board, and would like to have one such example myself, but not at the expense of handling.

 

The car is set up extremely well from the factory. IMHO you're not going to make it handle any better on the street than how it comes out of the box. The street isn't the place to be experiencing a car's limits anyway.

The dynamics change when you get to the racetrack and want to run stickier race tires. Until you're doing that and have some idea of what exactly it is you're trying to"fix", throwing parts at the car will be a waste of time and money.

My $.02

--Jason

 

The X-brace I installed on my car has made an improvement in my cars handling.

 

Here is the truth..

Mod the hell out of the car... If not, give me the money and I'll do it to mine...

I was under the same impression as some of you ...( How could the S2000 be any better than it already is...) The answer is simple MODS

I went to a rally last week at the Dragon Ball..
I rode in Kazoos car..(misspell) Let me tell you. WOW Where I might struggle around a hair pin turn at 40 mph.. his car laughed... Some of the things that I noticed were the following..
1. No lean in is car at all
2. You do not feel the v-tec as much because there is no give in the suspension.
3. All out race car

I will do the same mods as soon as the cash flow is there period.

I think he had full springs and struts, X-brace, STB, 17 rims, racing tires, HKS exhaust, carbon fiber CAI, racing seat, and more.. Very Very nice car.

My ole man says that it does not look any differently... that is because he is not a performance guy.... The question is are you????

 

I'm not gonna mess with the suspension to much. I have a mugen front stabilizer ordered, which should be on its way over here from japan now. I don't plan on changing springs or shocks, i hope the sway bar will take care of what its supposed to do for this car

 

x-brace - get it!!! Drove my friends stock S, the only thing he had was an x brace, made a different even driving at 5 miles an our out of the parking lot!

 

All I'm getting right now is the front x-brace. I need to spend more time in the car to determine how I want it set up. However, my first impression is that the initial suspension travel is stiff, and then gets softer. I don't really like that too much, but we'll see how it works out.

Does this car have digressive valving?

 

That silver s2k that crashed off the cliff with the bimmer following him with the vidio camra....Some say it was because of the x brace he had on the car. So, just be carful with what you do and how its set up. I herd that with sway bars, if set up wrong is like changing yourself back to a solid rear axel like back in the days. So, just be carful.

 

IMHO, you will be much better of by spending some up front money for driver's training. Once you know how to handle your car at "the limit", then you can start to think about modifying the car. It helps to be able to indentify the problem that you intend to fix before you attempt the fix.

I think that Honda has done such a good job of sorting this car out, you will be hard pressed to improve it. You may want to spend some money on the alignment of the car. You will probably see more of a noticable change with that approach.
Good luck at any rate.

 

OK, thanks guys for the replies guys. Food for thought.