I never owned an Elise. A friend of mine let me drive his for a day, which turned into a month and 3k miles of fun in twisty mountain roads. My car is a toy . I don't need it at all, so if its not a blast, its useless to me. I care almost nothing about the convertable aspect. If there was a permanent hard top option I might have gone for it. Maybe I should have gone with an extreme summer tire.

 

In that case, an EP tire might have been the way to go. I still don't think its an excellent idea unless the car sees track time. I guess the difference is that I go to the track enough that I'd still thoroughly enjoy the car on the street with MPSS's for sure.

I've been to the dragon...and...honestly, I still don't think the ultimate GRIP of the MPSS is an issue.

You guys are arguing mostly about feel, I believe?

And when I say loud...I mean that mine are loud enough to drown out my 70R EM single exhaust.

When I say harsh...I am not sure I'd feel like the stock suspension is calibrated well enough to roll around with them on the street. Skipping over stuff isn't confidence inspiring either.

If I didn't track the car...I would probably be on MPSS's. That's my concluding opinion.

 

If you like the feel of the Elise, you might as well go all out and get an Extreme performance tire. When was the Elise ever comfortable? Nobody would dare put all seasons on an Elise. I've had re-11As and dunlop direzza star specs. I'm sure Hankook RS3, Advan Ad08r, and Dunlop Star Specs dry grip will not compare to PSS. Re-71rs are great in wet. Not sure why that is a concern as the area sees a lot of precipitation. As long as I'm not being reckless and the tires still inspire confidence.

If you like driving an Elise comfort and noise levels should be last on your priorities.

 

The dry grip of the PSS is not that far off from the Direzza Z2. FWIW

 

True, maybe the double ply sidewalls would sharpen things up a bit. I don't know, maybe I should have gone with extreme performance. The Elise was definatly not comfortable and I didn't care too much.

 

If you only drive with the top up, might as well get the OEM hardtop. You could get izzy brackets for much less than the rear catchers, and it would be highly unlikely your top could be taken without the whole car.
If your suspension is too soft, you should look into coilovers. Ohlins and KW are highly well regarded, might even transform the handling characteristics of the car a bit. Tires, ZII* offer really good feel..much much better than the PSS. Consider those for your next set, might be a tad less harsh than RE-71R. I drive about 4,000-6,000 miles during the summer when I rack up the majority of the miles, and ZII* is my favorite set of tires I've driven on yet. About to put them back on, and it will be their second summer..still over half tread remaining.

And if you don't think it has enough torque, well how about an LS-3 swap. You can get a brand new one for ~$10,000 off Chevrolet's website. Joking.. sort of (actually not so much if money/time wasn't a factor), but a supercharger perhaps?!

 

Second tier tires (e.g. - Pilot Super Sports) should not be expected to provide top tier handling. I thought the concept was pretty simple, I guess not.

Is an extreme performance summer tire overkill for a car that has yet to be "tracked?" You bet. But overkill always works. RE-71R tires remain at the top of the short list to replace my RE-11A tires later this season. 12,000 miles in 22 months on the RE-11A tires. Tread is still good.

-- Chuck

 

^Well put!
If you're going to complain about the S2000 because of low torque, complain about less than stellar handling without the necessary upgrades, tires, suspension.. (a new stock GTI from the factory would give the S2000 a run for it's money), how did you not see it coming? It isn't a Z06 Corvette that came with a torquey V8 and wide tires straight from the factory, that's why nearly everyone that tracks the car ends up spending money in aftermarkets. And if you purchase wisely you don't even necessarily have to break the bank. On my AP1 spending $550 on lightly used adjustable coilovers, $1,800 on a nice set of aftermarket wheels with brand new EP tires from tirerack, and $2,200 on the OEM hardtop completely transformed the car to me to my liking. Some people can't accept the 240 hp and anemic torque of the S2000, thus end up going with forced induction. Others don't mind going into VTEC and winding up the engine every now and then, accepting that there really isn't any power in the 2,500-4,500 RPM range that would be in the sweet spot of other cars..the F20/F22 is just coming alive at 5k-6k.

And sorry there's nothing wrong with keeping the car stock, but if doing so don't expect it to perform like a 21st century Lotus, Corvette, or Porsche. The answer should be an obvious one, you need to look into aftermarkets if you're unhappy with the characteristics of the handling as it sits. Give yourself a budget and start looking at the classifieds to gauge what they go for, or if it allows new parts that's great too. A budget of $3,000-$5,000 should be enough to work with if spent wisely..depends on what you're looking to do. If after the upgrades the car is too tame--I doubt it will be--, then and only then can you start thinking you may have been better off purchasing a Corvette or Lotus.. (though it would be more like $20,000-$50,000 in aftermarkets equivalent in price to be equal (Supercharged, Turbocharged, LS-3 Swap...Wide-body, R-Comps, Upgraded Diff.,Transmission, Racing Suspension, ...!). Imagine the upgrades you could do to the S2000 for the cost difference. The aftermarket options are nearly endless. Sorry I may have gone overboard, but in the reasonable $3,000-$5,000 you can really transform the handling of the S2000.

 

Thanks for the advice. I think the lack of torque would be satisfactorily corrected by a flashpro and a test pipe. If v-tech started to build around 4k, I think that would suffice. I'm not crazy about the on/off nature of vtech and then only having a window in the top 2k rpm. The power isn't really my gripe though.

Were the Oem tires a double ply?

As far as the convertable thing. I think these cars look awesome with hard tops. The convertable is nice sometimes but honestly I feel too obligated to "enjoy" it when I don't really feel like it. Plus I'm 40 and balding so I have to wear the obligatory hat which I never wear otherwise. I wish they had a hard top with a sunroof model. I would definatly buy that.

I know I sound negative but I really am a Honda guy...lol. These are just tweaks that I would like to hash out in a car that I really want to "bond" with.

 

Too bad folks are trying to promote the notion that dry grip is the only thing that makes a tire "top tier"........I'm sure folks who track their cars and a few others consider that the main priority but few other S2000 owners do and even fewer other car owners do. If this wern't true, then EP tires would be on every car.

The PSS Max Performance tires are the OEM tires on the new Corvette, the Ferrari 438 and 599, the Mercedes AMG63, BMW's M2,M3,M4,M5, and M6, and many Porsches. I dont think these folks put "second tier" tires on those cars---just ones that don't emphasize dry grip at the expense of other attributes.

All tires are a compromise of attributes and the EP tires give up a lot of other things in return for that great dry grip. I'm one of those folks who doesn't think those tradeoffs are worth it and have the PSS on mine. Others may feel differently.