The S2000's 'stock' allignment has "toe out" dialled in for the rear wheels. Why would they do that? "Toe out" promotes oversteer, less stability (not only in corners) and also wears out the inside of the tyres (which is what goes 1st on the S2000). On the other hand 'toe in' moves some of the wear to the outside and also tries to keep the back tucked in when cornering (or under power).

So why 'toe out' .... is there any benefit of having 'toe out' at the back instead of 'toe in'?

 

You are reading it wrong. The stock specification is 6mm toe-in for the rear.

 

I beg to differ. I've seen now several printouts from S2000s on an allignemnt machine and they all have 'toe out' at the back .... actually they seem to have 'toe out' everywhere (incuding the front) - but it's the back that concerns me.

So I'm not reading factory stecs but looking what the 'stock' cars are set at.

 

Differ all you want. The specs are documented and all the cars I know of are aligned with toe-in in the rear and zero toe in the front (although a few use a tiny bit of front toe-out with extreme negative camber). I think you need to research this a bit more before you argue the point.

 

I'm serious - the wheels point 'outwards' - how much more research can I do than see my own car on the alligmnet machine. Also, I got 3 other allignmnent readings from there (of other S2000) and they all have 'toe-out at the back.

What else can I reseach - all these three cars have toe-out at the back .... what 'other' research can I do? I've been waiting to mention this 'till I saw it on my own car.

Also, I was chatting to the allignment guy - they allign a lot of local S2000 there (they're race specialists) and he was commenting on it himself.

 

Toe-in in the rear of this car is used to reduce oversteer. I have not seen or heard of the situation you are talking about, and I do not know why you would see this error in alignment except as a rare exception. If the local alignment guy seen it alot I would suggest he calibrate his gear. Rear toe-out would make the car notably more loose.

 

Maybe it is an issue with the australian cars, they seem to be slower all around anyways....

 

These allignemt people are race pros .... not just some 'backyard' joint. They allign cars for a lot of people who do serious track work so suggesting that 'they' don't know how to read their own equipment or that they have their machine out of calibration seems to be a bit far fetched.

Also, I'll give you another 'sign' that the car has 'toe-out' setup. All the people commenting on the INSIDE of the tyres getting worn - that could be negative camber but it also could be toe-out. The front of the S2000 has very minimal negative camber .... it has somewhere between 0 and -0.5 degrees (mine had -0.1 and -.2 at the front). That is about as minimal negative camber as you can have on a car ... certainly not enough to cauae more wear on the inside than outside. So toe-out is next likely candidate for causing inside tyrewear. From what I see of the measured specs in front of me, it's the toe-out that's causeing the inside tyre-wear and not the camber. That is at the front, the back on the cars seems to have -1.0 - -1.3 camber out of the factory.

 

Maybe as far fetched as suggesting that the all S2000's destined for Australia are miss-aligned by Honda.

 

Factory spec for REAR TOE IN is 6.0 +/- 2 mm (0.25" +/- 0.08"), from the Honda/Helms service manual (page 18-8).

If you can find an Aussie version of a factory service manual that shows different, I'd be extremely surprised.