looking for recommendations for camber settings. Stock ap1, driven daily. Would a little neg camber help with the snappy rear end?


Front right

Front left

Rear right

Rear left

 

https://robrobinette.com/S2000Alignment.htm

found all the info I could handle here

 

Some neg camber in the rear would help with lessening oversteer. You would need roughly double the front camber at the rear to experience this effect though. If you're lowered you will naturally get more camber but at stock height a decent amount (-1.5 to.8 ish) if I remember correctly.

 

Rob's page is a great resource

 

More negative rear camber should increase rear-end grip and reduce oversteer.

This all comes down to personal preference and what compromises you're willing to make. I'm still tinkering with my MY2000 to make it handle to my liking. So far I've done the following:

- Install 205mm front / 245mm rear tires on 17" AP2-sized wheels.
- Replace original springs (219lb/in front / 291 rear) with 2006 springs (262 front / 269 rear). Stiffening the front spring and softening the rear spring should both reduce oversteer. But these are small changes.
- Increase rear negative camber. I don't have a number because I eyeballed this. I'm just experimenting before I get a real alignment, but I'm guessing I'm somewhere near -2°.

Right now the car still oversteers a lot. Next step: replace OEM rear sway bar (427lb/in) with sway bar from the front of an NC Miata (153lb/in).

Some people run a bunch of rear toe-in because (my understanding) is the geometry of the AP1 rear suspension toes-out under load. But I don't want to run a bunch of toe-in for reasons of tire wear. So I'm coming at it from a few different angles first.

 

It seems that a lot of people crash these cars while trying things they think are effective at dialing out oversteer.

Even more ironically, they're doing all this after knowingly buying a RWD car.

Rob's page is a blog of what items he succesfully used to drive his car in his way on a race track.

Unless you're building your car for Rob to be driving on a race track, the advice is likely completely irrelevant.

In about 100% of the cases where S2000's spin and/or crash, there is 1 commonality. The driver ASKED the car to oversteer. And the car said "ok".

That's an easily solvable problem, right?

With a good set of tires and some restraint on your end, you need *nothing* in order to prevent snap oversteer.

Just chill out a little until you learn how to drive it.

I bought my bone stock, 18K mile MY00 at age 21. 17 years ago. From the time I jumped in, I've never experienced "snap oversteer". I even did my first track day, at Road America, of all places...7 days after buying it. It had S02's on the front and Pirelli All Seasons on the back. I'm still alive, and I still have the same car.

I've had a million different setups on the car.

IMO, people are wasting time with sway bar tuning and all the other ridiculous theories the internet suggests with alignment angles. About as effective as lighting candles and wear two left shoes and touch your nose for good luck.

Now, 23yrs later, people are still trying to "solve the problem", and crazy tire staggers are the next attempt.

If it were that easy, that's the way Honda would have done it.

None of it really works. That's why everyone is still throwing parts at the car for 23 years and nothing has stuck.

If more predictibility and less edginess is what you are after, then the most effective way I've found to stabilize the rear of the car is deleting out the bumpsteer. The best way to achieve that is installing an AP2 rear subframe.

You still can't drive like a buffoon, however. So...delete the buffoonery first. Be honest with yourself.

 

This is ridiculous.

Sway bars, spring rates, tires, alignment, etc. make no difference? Why did Honda change spring and bar rates every other year? I guess they were just wasting their time. I guess every S2000 should have the exact same setup because it doesn't matter. I guess Honda redesigned the AP2 rear subframe for no reason because "people should just drive better".

A couple years ago I had a Mazda2. In stock form it had more body roll than I wanted and terrible understeer. Adding a stiff rear sway bar tamed the body roll and made the car neutral. Lifting or braking in a corner would make the rear end come around. The difference was so dramatic I almost spun it the first time driving the car after installing the sway bar. Because before, I had to stab the brakes to avoid flying off the road.

I've made very small changes so far (+10mm wider rear tire and slightly different OEM spring rates) and haven't noticed much of a difference yet. I have never experienced "snap oversteer" in the car. It's just balanced that way from the start, to oversteer. At least more than my driving style prefers. Yes, I want to drive like a buffoon and feel like I'm not going to crash it. This is not my first RWD car.

 

+1 on the idea of mortals thinking they can become robrob through suspension settings

 

I'm not asking this to be confrontational; but where on earth is this advice coming from? There is a very good reason all this isn't working.

The biggest thing, as I've mentioned, is that you're asking for oversteer when you drive the car.

You're focusing on all the wrong stuff in your setup also.

You're reducing front grip. But doing nothing about what is actually creating the yaw moment and swinging the back of the car around.

You're gonna turn in...understeer a bit...and then you're gonna do *something* to induce oversteer, at which point the car is gonna say "sure, here's all of it". And because you're already adjusting for the understeer you've created, the oversteer is gonna catch you on the wrong foot every time.

The car isn't pivoting around the front tires. So reducing front grip isn't gonna prevent oversteer.

The yaw moment is in the center of the car due to the strong amount of rear bump steer.

Soft rear springs and sway bars are going to INCREASE bump steer due to more suspension movement.

Your thicc and sticky rear tires are going to increase rear grip, but ALSO increase the bumpsteer force. Meaning that the increased bumpsteer will also use the tires to a greater advantage.

Your alignment changed static toe. Not dynamic toe.

All of that is gonna create some sensation of initial understeer...and then transition into violent oversteer while you're not expecting it.

Your NC rear bar is gonna make it worse on the street, but may make steady state cornering under very specific constant on-throttle conditions to be better. You're just making 1 or 2 situations better at the cost of making an infinite amount of situations worse.

 

Ok.

How effective were Honda's various small spring and sway bar changes on the AP1's oversteer tendency? Did it fix one specific year of AP1's?

By your own account, the changes YOU have made are also resulting a very oversteer biased car. Right?



I also said the AP2 subframe and all the fixins were the actual most effective cure. Try that.

Don't just reject what I'm saying. You're admitting it right here....

They changed it every other year. Why? If there was a silver bullet...why not change to that and leave it alone?

You're trying the same changes....and "haven't noticed much of a difference yet".

I'm starting to sound not so ridiculous, eh?

There is one thing, that as a constant, tamed the S2000 for 4 whole years.

Most years of AP2 underwent spring and damper rate changes. The CR underwent major swaybar changes and went back to the more "nervous" steering.

But any AP2 can be described as more tame than any AP1. Why?

They reduced the effing bump steer.

The whole car is more predictible. So you can now use sway bar and spring tuning to *predictibility* tune the car further.