chhatre9

Hi all. This is my first RWD car and I have always been curious about what parts get worn/is it bad to lose grip. I enjoy the occasional slide while making turns (and no one is around), but I see people doing donuts and peeling out and I wonder. Obviously tires are worn, and I can see the clutch being worn as long as you have it depressed, but what about the differential? Thanks for all the info guys.

hondafrvr

Not sure how severe the damage would be but I know it does affect the differential - in addition to tires and clutch.

Ks320

The clutch actually doesn't wear much if you just dump it

It's the shock and stress that you sending through the entire drivetrain that's hurting the car ...

qbmurderer13

Careful if this is your first RWD car and your going around sliding corners. Its very hard to bring a s2k back from a slide if you dont know what your doing. Straight up launching the car like you would in a drag race is putting alot of wear on the differential, and the s2000's differential is extremely weak. The occassional donut or burn out is fine if you know what your doing, just please do it in an empty parking lot until you get the feel of RWD more.

RED MX5

Be careful doing burnouts. I don't mean to scare you, but we've had way too many people bust their car's differential trying to do burnouts. On the other hand, we have people here, myself included, who have done hundreds or thousands of burnouts, donuts, and so on, without damaging the car, BUT, with your lack of esperience, the chances of damaging your car are much higher.

Also, since you have an AP2, your car has a CDV (clutch delay valve), so hard launches are likely to produce a fair amount of clutch wear. If you really MUST do burnouts, you will probably want to remover the CDV, but please do not do so without first understanding its purpose. There are downsides to removing the valve.

Do NOT, under any circumstances, try dropping the clutch hard/suddenly at modest revs, and do not try lighting the tires at a drag strip where the starting line is thick with racing rubber and traction compound. These things will kill your differential and/or clutch in short order.

IF you remove the CDV, and sidestep the clutch at 6k or better, on a surface that delivers more or less normal traction, you can spin the tires easily, with minimal clutch slipping (less slip than a normal launch), and without busting the differential, as the tires take the bulk of the abuse, but if you try this and make a mistake, or try in on a surface with too much grip, you're apt to break things. You can do some insane burnouts in the car, but if you get any part of it wrong, the car will break. This won't be cheap, so please evaluate your skills and the risks involved before trying to do burnouts in your sweet little S2000. Consider autocrossing instead.

RED MX5

Good point!

Chhatre9, sliding the tail out while cornering is quite possible, and can be fun, but even the best drivers can get into trouble this way, becaue the S2000 has very limited steering lock, and it's very easy to exceed the point of no return. If you want to learn to slide the car around, learn at an SCCA Solo Drift event or at autocrosses in your area. The ONLY way to learn a cars limits is to exceed them, and when you exceed the limits of the S2000 on the street, it is apt to be bad news.

Ks320

I almost rammed my rear to a lamp post in an empty IKEA parking lot a year ago.

Sunday morning in an empty lot with no cars ... what else is it good for right? Figured I wouldn't be able to do that kinda stuff even in AutoX. The car ending sliding WAYYY too far (so far that I never expected I would end up that close to the lamp post...)

zoomkat

Many people just don't understand that the s2000 is built to *not* have the rear tires break lose from the pavement. The stock tires are just about as soft and grippy on clean dry pavement as can be normally purchased (at the expense of getting high mileage from them). Getting them to break lose on dry smooth pavement puts maximum stress on the drive line. When one tire breaks lose, both tires are spinning due to the locking rear end, and the car is basically out of control. The soft tires quickly liquify when they start spinning ($$$$). If you want to be the burnout king, buy the hardest set of tires you can get and put them on the rear. They might not smoke as much, but they will be easier to break lose minimizing strain on the drive train and are generally much cheaper than the stock tires.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8cQLzLKcSk8

ace123

dont forget to turn off VSA

be careful with the clutch--you'd be best off burning out when turning slightly to keep the wear down, but dont do it anywhere where you could hit a lightpost etc.--a newer S2k is too expensive a toy to test your luck IMO.

and agreed on the 'burnout king' above. if you want to get it out of your system, get a very cheap set of narrow, hard tires and just torch them somewhere private, away from anybody that would get offended. you could even get the tires used to save money, and bring a camera and a buddy and make it a worthwhile event.

if you put on hard, thin tires, it minimizes the stress on all the other parts of your car because it takes a lot less force to spin the tires than to twist and have them not give like stock tires. stock tires are made specifically to NOT burn out, but to grip and hold, as that's what makes you go faster and corner better. they're fat and sticky, and that makes them hard to burnout and easy to trash your diff/clutch with.

RED MX5

What a crock. Cars built to spin the tires. No such thing. Melting the tires on the S2000. Total BS, unless you spin donuts for an extended period. Out of control when the tires spin. Gee man, thanks for all the misinformation.

If there was any bit of validity in any part of your post, I have to appologize for missing it. All I see is total .