Hi~ I am wondering will my cars handling become horribly over steer if I installed the front and rear Tanabe sway bar to my 2002 S2000 ? I did the research but it seems like no body like to install the rear sway bar....

The reason I want to install both bar is because I want a more natural feeling.

I like how the car's handling now but it is "just a little bit" too over steer to me. However, I don't want to install a big front sway bar only because it will makes my car too under steer...

I am running everything stock with S-02 tires. Any advices for me? Thankyou.

 

Have you installed just the front bar before? If not, try installing just the front to see if that cures your oversteer. Be forewarned, oversteer is a very subjective issue, so a "cure" is different from person to person depending on their driving styles

 

Also have you looked into adjusting your alignment? Possibly some neg camber in the rear to help dial out some oversteer?

And are the bars adjustable?

 

I am running -1 front and -2 rear camber with 0 toe.

I went to the track a couple months b4 and I felt the rear end was almost sliding out for a couple times on the sweeper. I could feel that if I have had left off the gas at that time, the car would have spun immediately.. very scary. But slow corner is doing fine.

 

You should not have 0 toe in the rear. That will make the rear unstable. Change that to around 0.4 degrees total toe in at the rear wheels.

Are the rear SO-2 tires the Honda OEM 225 width or the regular SO-2 225 width? The Honda OEM tires are actually squarer than the typical tire, giving it around the same contact patch width of a normal 245 width tire. If you have a non-Honda OEM tire that is thinner, that would cause more than typical oversteer.

Throttle lift oversteer is normal, so what you felt on the track might just be a sign of pushing too hard on the high speed corners. It might not be the case, but it is something you should consider.

It's hard to judge the effect of the Tanabe swaybars. They are made of cromoly instead of regular steel, so the difference in stiffness cannot be directly compared by bar diameter thickness. To figure it out you would have to do some physics and math. One thing is for certain though, both the front and rear Tanabe swaybars are the same diameter. The stock front swaybar is thicker than the rear swaybar, so if the Tanabe ones are the same thickness the rear will be proportionally stiffer, which typically means more oversteer. Just try the front swaybar and see how that feels, but without knowing how much stiffer it is compared to stock it is hard to estimate how much of an effect there will be. Even if you did know how much stiffer the front swaybar is, without doing some suspension calculations and knowing what the target roll stiffness is, it is still guessing. It just boils down to trying different swaybar stiffnesses with the particular tire and alignment setup until the balance is to your personal liking.

 

Thankyou for your help. But it appears that the sway bar size of the 02 S2000 is:

Late AP1 ('02-'03):
F: 26.5x4.5mm (P/N: 51300-S2A-013)
R: 27.2x4.5mm (P/N: 52300-S2A-J01)

the rear is thicker then the front and that's why I want to make them both the same size to increase the feeling more natural.

I am also running non-OEM S-02

So you guys suggest me to increase the rear toe ? Which way is better ? the alignment setting or sway bar up grade will be better for me ?

Thankyou

 

My mistake, the AP2's have the smaller rear swaybar. So you're right, the Tanabe should shift it to more understeer. Would guess that is a minor balance change, less than than the AP1 change to AP2. The AP2 has the softer rear swaybar and the rear suspension geometry change.

Adjusting the alignment doesn't require buying any parts, so I would try that first. The rear toe setting shouldn't be 0 because of the dynamic toe change when the suspension travels up and down. If it is 0 the rear wheels will toe out and then toe in over bumpy roads. If only one wheel gets a bump, it causes the rear to be unstable in a straight line and in corners. The toe in ensures that it is always in. Increasing rear negative camber should give more rear grip in cornering on stock suspension at the expense of increased inner tire wear.

The swaybars are probably stiffer than stock, so if you want a flatter ride it is the way to go. It will also make the ride rougher. Ultimately changing the swaybars will give more adjustment range.

Another thing that can be done is changing the tire stagger when you get new tires.

There really is no better way, suspension tuning is very application and driver specific. There are a lot of things to adjust, and you can explain the effects over the internet, but it is hard to say which is the best way or for anyones particular situation. It's more of a practical try it out and personal experience. It is a more beneficial to find someone local to get advice from. They can ride in the car and suggest changes or you can ride in other people's S2000 with suspension modifications to see how you like them.

 

Thank you very much!

In fact, the reason I set rear toe to zero is because I don't want my tires to worn out so quickly by toeing in. Moreover, couple of ppl are using zero rear toe for auto crossing, isn't it??

I don't know anything about "dynamic toe change when the suspension travels up and down" ..... Could you explain a little bit? I thought camber is the only thing that change when the suspension moves up and down.

By the way, ppl told me that rear toe in was not good for handling when I was driving my EP3. Is the rear toe making a huge difference between a FF sand FR car ???

 

Do a search for 'bumpsteer' on Google and you will understand

 

The day that you went to the track... did you check your rear tire pressure and make sure that it was at least 35 psi?

Def try a more aggressive alignment. I just had mine done not that long ago and it is outstanding. As stated above, the toe-in in the rear is very important in preventing oversteer.

Def try only the front sway bar first and see how it works out for you. If it doesn't, then you can always just order the rear. Have you looked into the Cusco front sway bar? I think it's the Cusco with the 5 adjustable stiffness levels? Like that, if you notice that you have more understeer, you can always take some stiffness away to get a little more oversteer again.

Andre