Just got my S2000 2 weeks ago, Silver/Black.
Look the car, I have heard alot about how the S2000 would oversteer suddenly. Have this happen to anyone of u guyz. What should you do if the tail comes out suddenly. Are there any modification to adjust it, so it will step out gradually. Don't want to push it to the limit, until knowledge is acquire.

Thankx

 

Well I've never lost the rear end at high speed so I don't know what happens then. I'm sure reaction time is much reduced. I can say that I've wiggled the rear plenty on the AutoX course and never had a problem controlling it. I also have never found it to be very "snappy", IOW it has never caught me by any great surprise. It seems quite natural and communicative to me. The "snap" I think is what happens when you feel the back end let loose and then abruptly let up on the throttle. That will snap the rear around in the opposite direction, so quickly and with such momentum that you can't recover. I have no reason or experience that suggests that I'll find myself pointing in the wrong direction without notice. It's true that the tires will not complain before they loose traction, they just will. You will need to rely on your feel and not your ears. Hopefully you will never come that close to the edge of control on a public road. You can have a crap load of fun in the twisties without ever reaching anything close to the edge, to do so would not only be reckless, it would feel reckless too. When you crap your pants you know not to go further.

I would also suggest that loosing the back end is not controlling, it's recovering. You control in advance, recovery is a purely reactive thing to try and save your ass. Go to the AutoX and run it. It will give you a good feel for boundaries and satisfy your craving to push the envelope. A high performance driving course is never a bad idea either.

I grew up driving RWD in the snow and ice so maybe I have a different perspective than those that are not familiar with RWD, I dunno.

 

Good point C3. I think the people who complain most about the supposed oversteer of the S2000 grew up or are more used to FWD. I push my car hard and IMO it doesn't have any more tailhappiness than any other RWD I have driven. I have always wondered with an almost perfect 50/50 distribution, how does one manage to lose the tail so easily and so often!? If you want tailhappy, drive an older 911...!

I have NEVER lost the tail on the track or on the street. Sure I have felt it coming around on me. But I have never ended up facing traffic. I have without exception been able to control any oversteer, even at the limit. The Beach Party that I posted about from last weekend was actually induced by understeer. Look at my tracks coming off the track and into the grass.

You will learn by driving the car when you generate oversteer. Because if you think about it, all oversteer is driver-induced. The car is what it is, so it's all about you and managing it properly to keep it inline. Getting on the gas too soon around a turn will generate it. The S2000 is a remarkably well balanced car and Honda went to great pains to make it so. I think some people who have complained the loudest about oversteer obviously have driving habits that bring out the oversteer and that is the problem. The car simply has no more tendency to step out than any over 50/50 RWD car does. Period.

When you do feel the tail stepping out, gently ease off the throttle. Don't brake and don't jump off the throttle. Also steer into the direction you want to go. I have always heard this described as "steering INTO" the slide. Just remember that smooth is the key. Any powerful RWD car likes smooth. Smooth is goooooood...

HTH!

 

Oops, I misspoke, I HAVE lost the tail twice on the track. I forgot about that...! At Gingerman, one of the first days I had gone there I did two perfect 180's on turn 1 and coming out of turn 3.

Forgot about those!

 

Yup, with the even weight of the stook I have found that 99.9999% of the oversteer is throttle induced.

If I'm coming into a corner too hot and miss the line I generally end up with significant amounts of understeer. Basically, you are jamming the wheel hard over causing the front wheels to point in a direction other than the way the car is moving. The tires are basically skidding sideways. The only way to get out of this is to turn back into the skid, try again and hope you have enough road or end up in the sand like greg.

When coming out of a corner, you should be at close to maximum traction capability of the tires. If you hit the throttle too hard, too quickly the rear end will break traction and come around. You should be able to recover from this but you will likely go off-road depending on how severe it is.

The car is remarkably well balanced and can be induced to under or oversteer. The perfect line however involves neither but an equal and slight amount of both. Both situations, under and over steer, take the car where you didn't want it to go.

It should be emphasised that the power band and handling characteristics of the S are quite unique. The peeky torque curve means that it comes on hard and fast all at once. Those used to beefier engines with a flatter torque curve have a much more steady application of power than we do. The percentile difference in available torque at most engine speeds is small on those cars in comparision to the S.

That means the nature of the beast changes on you quite quickly and if you are not experienced with it, it can cause a few surprises. The car is a totally different animal at 6.5K RPM than at 8K RPM and the change in character happens in just a split second. If you are in the right gear when you exit the corner, you will have to deal with it. The S handles much more like a real race car in this respect. You can't just jump on the throttle of an F1 car without doing a donut or two either.

Take heart, it makes for one hell of a good ride!! Just do it somewhere safe.

 

I went to a driving class one time and the instructor was a professional racer. He taught us that if you lose control you should always keep your eyes on where you WANT to go and Not where you are going. Your body will follow your eyes and correct the car. It is VERY hard not to look where you are headed when you lose it. This IS something that has to be practiced. I haven't spun out since I took that class and believe me, I have put it to the test.

 

People who complain about the handling are not smooth drivers IMHO.

This car is so responsive that if you are a ham handed (heavy input) driver you will think the car twitchy and too prone to oversteer. Just driving with only one hand on the wheel will make the car feel twitchy because the weight of your hand will pull the wheel down every time you hit a bump. Two hands in the correct positions 9-3 or 8-4 counteract this tendency. With a car that is capable of changing lanes when you sneeze, subtlety is key.

THIS IS NOT A CAR THAT SUFFERS FOOL GLADLY!

This is a car that rewards finess. To drive this car fast and well you need to have perfected the fine art of vehicle dynamics and weight transfer.

If you go into a turn too hot the first thing that will happen is the front end will push (understeer) and you will likely run off to the outside of the turn. If you panic and give the car alot more steering input and/or then hit the brakes you will transfer weight to the front wheels and they will regain their grip while your steering input is way too much. The car regains grip and snaps the rear around.

The trick to cornering this car is enter the turn slower and accelerate SMOOTHLY through the turn. This car likes to corner on throttle because you are smoothly transfering weight where it is needed to the rear tires. Cornering in this manner allows you to dance the rear of the car on the throttle (throttle steer) at will. CAUTION if you are not smooth and just pounce on the throttle you will oversteer and spin out. REMEMBER all these things happen on the razors edge of traction and any heavy input will send you over the edge. When you are doing it right you will hear the tires howl (not screech, there is a difference).

Remember if you lose the front don't slam on the brakes. Generally just letting off the throttle will tuck the front back in. Don't overcrank the wheel when you lose the front or it will snap you into oversteer when you regain traction. If you have to, just lightly apply some braking to transfer some weight forward but try to keep your steering wheel where it would normally be in that particular turn so when you regain front traction you don't snap around.

There are other techniques you will need to learn but if nothing else pick up a good text on high performance driving (Bob Boundurant is excellent) and master weight transfer.

Find a big empty parking lot to practice.

I agree that this is not a car for those that grew up on front drive cars. Those that grew up driving big engined rear wheel drive muscle cars fast in the rain have the reactions needed to just jump into the S2000.

 

Many of the snap oversteer comments are from those on autocross tires, or perhaps other alternate tire/wheel set ups. I agree that on the original tires, the oversteer issue is not a huge one. Work up to testing limits, but don't be concerned that it will suddenly snap around on the street.


[QUOTE]Originally posted by StudentDriver:
[B]Just got my S2000 2 weeks ago, Silver/Black.
Look the car, I have heard alot about how the S2000 would oversteer suddenly.

 

As someone who has never driven front wheel drive, I think that I can say that this car is no more prone to oversteer than most other RWD vehicles. Although, the short wheelbase does make it more difficult to catch in time.

I have also had the (?pleasure?) of getting the rear end slightly out of line (about 2 feet) at about 65-70 MPH on the track at motorsport ranch in Texas. (I'm the white S2K in Tuan's Motorsport Ranch music video on TOV that gets loose about 2/3 of the way through the video. He liked it so much he had to put it in again at the end of the video ) However, the rear end tucked in very easily using the correct inputs with steering and throttle, as you can see if you look at the video. No snap the other way just smooth recovery.

The people that seemed to have more trouble at the track were those that were used to FWD and tried to do too much of their recovery with throttle alone. A bad choice on ANY RWD car. You have to steer into the rear-wheel skid direction rather than continue to turn away from the skid and add throttle as you would with a FWD car.

I will also say, having run a little autocross, that generally the speeds being run there are not going to cause this car to react the same as it will when the rear end goes out from under you on a high speed track. You really need to get on a track to find out how it handles at track speeds. Anywhere else that you would run this fast would be too dangerous IMHO.

I WAS heartily entertained by several of the FWD drivers and their pirouettes at the track though . With some of them, that was the only time during the whole day that I could gain ground on them!

 

I've never driven the S2K, but I did grow up on RWD muscle cars on dirt and it very much is a delicate control issue. I always tried to remember basic laws of physics, inertia and momentum. Since the majority of the braking is in the front, when the car starts to go and the fronts grab, even just a little, the mass of the car wants to rotate around the fulcrum point. The front wheels.