I used to have a My99 AP1 which was tail happy. My new car is an 03 with S02'sThe rears were bald so I changed them for new S02's, the fronts have about 15k miles on them and 4-6mm left.

The car realy grips at the back now, before it was going sideways all the time.
I was realy shocked though when I pushed the car to where the back end should come round and it just totally understeered.
I mean it was scary it ploughed I have never known my old car to do that.

I made sure the tire pressure where evened up, 33psi cold all round and same thing, understeer.

So do I need to fork out another $300 for new S02's on the front? this can't be normal for an 03 with standard alignment? To me its not an s2000 how it feels now

If it is the tires is there a way to even it up short term by putting more / less psi in the back / front?

 

Try removing the front sway bar if you have one. Maybe subframe brace too.

 

The car is completely stock other than JDM bbs wheels, they are same dimensions as stock 16"

 

Tires can "heat-cycle" to death while still having some tread depth. This could be the situation with your fronts.

Or, you could have grown accustomed to excessive oversteer bias with worn out rears, and now handling balance is back to "normal". It is normal for throttle application to induce understeer, up to a point.

As you get on the gas exiting a corner, you should be unwinding the steering wheel. If you give it more throttle while trying to carve the same arc, you should experience understeer as you unload the fronts under acceleration. Unless you're in a low enough gear and at high enough revs that you can overcome rear traction with engine power.

 

Remove the front sway bar? On an s2000? Oh that is a terrific idea...


Please note the sarcasm.

 

An MY03 car should not have excessive understeer; I'm suspcious of the tires, but would get the alignment checked before replacing the front tires.

 

LOL, remove the FSB, and rotate the tires front to back.

 

Interestingly, I noticed this also on my 05 after having it lowered and aligned. I'm on pretty new crappy Hankook tires, espelir coils, Koni yellows and Euro alignment spec. I notice it is much harder to get the tail to come out now and sometimes it almost feels like the front is "pushing" a little bit. The Espelirs leveled the car out and it doesn't have that front biased raked look anymore, so my issue is probably just less weight on the front end.

 

This has to be some of the WORST advice I have ever seen on this site.

 

[QUOTE=ZDan,Mar 23 2008, 12:53 PM] Tires can "heat-cycle" to death while still having some tread depth.