I agree.

" Blowing it (trail braking) results in too high an entry speed. You get:

That's one of the reasons I have not, in the past, singled it out for my personal driver-development work - it's hard to do at all and harder to do it consistently..." from Brian Beckman, PhD, The Physics of Racing

 

One other thing to consider,...

Those of you who have yet to master these basic performance driving techniques should resist trying to change (the dreaded anti mod argument rears it's head) the set-up on your cars until you do. I believe that many people in this situation are taken by surprise by the unique handling characteristics of the S2000. Since they are not yet proficient enough in their driving skills to deal with these characteristics (or don't even realize that they are not) they seek mechanical fixes for them.

Honda built this car for the above average driver, the enthusiasts if you will. Now while you don't need the skills of Michael Schumacher to drive it, you need to know and be able to perform the skills talked about in this thread to be able to drive this car quickly and correctly. Until you have mastered these basics (in performance driving) please don't look to change tires, shocks, swaybars, ride height, springs, etc... in an effort to fix something that is not broken.

I submitt for your consideration that you should take the money you were willing to spend on these mechanical mods and invest in a good driving school and modify your driving skills instead. Then and only then will you be able to truly judge what mods (if any) you need to make to suit your driving style.

This is just my opinion of course.

 

Wow, this turned into an interesting discussion...

Bieg, welcome back! I agree with pretty much everything you and gregstevens are saying here.

When I bought my S2000 16 months ago, I was coming from an Integra GS-R, and several other front-wheel drive cars before that. I started off real easy (helped out by following break-in procedure), and gradually worked up to pushing the car. I knew that I had to relearn driving habits, and that this car handled different than I was used to.

I did a club lapping day at the track, and then several track driving schools, where I could really start to learn to drive this car near the limits. I drive the S2000 every day, in Seattle, on the OEM tires. I just ordered my second set, after 17500 miles. There is still some tread left, but they have lost a fair amount of grip. They've never caused me any problems driving in the rain or the cold, though. I can get them to slide if I want, either with too much steering input or too much power, but they don't just let go on their own.

Two weekends ago I did a track school at Portland, in light to heavy rain. I did spin once, by getting on the power a little too quick entering the straight. I know what I did wrong, and hopefully I've learned a little more. The rest of the time I got around the track pretty damn quick. There were a couple of spots on the straight with pretty deep water that the car felt twitchy over, but basically it was a matter of being smooth everywhere.

OK, enough rambling. I'll just throw out my pet theory about the OEM tires:
I think part of the problem is that there is a bigger differential between their performance in good conditions and bad conditions than people are used to with other tires. People get accustomed to the very good handling in the dry and warm, and expect similar when the wet and cold comes.

S2000 OEM SO-2 warm/dry: 9/10 cold/wet: 4/10
all-season tires: warm/dry: 5/10 cold/wet: 4/10

Ted