surfer_crx

A quick update, I took delivery of this beauty today.

4.625:1 final drive

surfer_crx

Not updated this for a while.

Since my last post I've had only a couple of trackdays but have started to get a better feel for the car, my last day at Blyton saw a marked improvement on lap times when I removed the ABS fuse.

I've ordered a bolt in cage, I still haven't fitted the new final drive and have managed to finally get the brakes to overheat so have plenty of work that needs doing in the not too distant future.

My fastest ever lap of Blyton

surfer_crx

Had a track day at Cadwell and in preparation decided to fit a new final drive, it's a 4.625:1 unit which I managed to source. I was concerned that it might be problematic as it was a bit last minute to fit it but I pulled the diff apart three thime whilst building it as I didn't like the feel of it.



I also went to fit some brake ducts but the adaptors that I ordered for the bumper didn't allow the 2" hose to fit properly so another last minute fix after a trip to machine mart ended up in me using 2" water hose adaptors and a little bit of A-team ingenuity.










Whilst I was working on the brakes I ended up having to change the Yellowstuff pads as the last session at Blyton had killed them, I went for bluestuff this time in the hope that they were designed for my type of car/driving a bit better than the Yellows, coupled with the extra cooling should help them last a while. I will steer away from EBC after I kill these I think but money was tight and they were cheaper than a lot of the alternate options out there.

Whilst under the arches I also put some new HEL brake lines on that I bought from someone on here, and then decided to grease up the clutch release fork, this has made such a difference to the pedal feel it's like I have a new clutch in there. Anyway whilst I was at Cadwell I managed to beat my previous best time, the diff felt good and the gearing more suited to the circuit than the previous 4.1 final drive.

My fastest lap at Cadwell Park 1:48.03 - Enjoy

MB

Lower has a lot of track experience in the S.

Oulton isn't a big braking circuit apart from the hairpin IMO, somewhere like Rockingham shows up brakes more.
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Again

Each to their own, everyones driving style is different, on track or on road.

My S sees an awful lot of weekend B road action, IMO they're harder on the brakes than that stint I had at Oulton.

Never had any grief at all with the yellow stuffs. Same can also be said for my DS2500's ( but much better, think my talent would run out before these gave up )
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I never managed to fade my OEM brakes on the road. In my opinion OEM brakes are fine for the road and if you get them to fade on the road you're driving too fast for the road.

The track is a different story. Most road car brakes are going to struggle on the track (unless its a low brake use circuit like Oulton) but the S2000 rear brakes are just too small.

When the fronts overheat, as they inevitably do, the rears start to do more work and overheat in a very short space of time because the pads are so small. They then rapidly disintegrate.

As for DS2500 pads, they are great in that their friction coefficient is substantially higher than OEM and is pretty constant once you get them past cold. That means that they don't overheat and you don't get any warning that you're overheating your discs. I've managed to get my discs glowing red hot with DS2500 pads on track. The problem with DS2500 is that they can cause adhesion problems (which feels like you've warped the discs), actual warping problems and ultimately cracked discs. The disc in my signature was a spoon disc used for 2 trackdays, the second of which was at Rockingham and cracked after a few hours use used with DS2500.

Even with higher spec discs like the DBA4000 discs i used you get adhesion problems. The answer is either better cooling or much higher spec pads like the Dixcel type Z.

MB- did you bother with brake ducting or just do discs and pads?
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Sorry for the delay No I've never bothered. Spending decent money on discs and pads is the key, along with good fluid, My car is a bit lighter too which helps. Now I've got the Stoptech brake calipers up front it's even more overkill. 40 minute race this weekend so will see how they get on.

surfer_crx

Well I've not updated this in a long time for a couple of reasons, I've not really done anything to the car that has been post worthy and haven't been on anywhere near as many track days this year as I would like to so here is the last few months in summary.

After doing a day at Blyton and seeing how much slower I was through the fastest corner on the track than others that I go to the track with and having a bit of a problem putting the power down on a long medium speed left hander I thought it was time to finally bite the bullet and do the alignment. I ordered a full set of bushes from Strongflex in Poland, compliance bushes from Tegiwa, and some bolts from Honda (because I needed them next day)

A quick trip to Screwfix to pick up this and a large stock of blades.



A couple of hours later and this is how we're looking, all the front suspension and hubs removed and running a die down the threads of the steering rods ready for when it's getting the alignment done.





Lower wishbone and front anti-roll bar with the remains of the recently broken drop link.





More seized bushes



Noticed a couple of other problems whilst looking around, one - the wear on the front pads is uneven and tapers inwards on the front of the pad; two - I need another f@#king set of pads!



Some before and after shots of the rear













With some good advice from the guys on here I made short work of the bush job and it was no way near as bad as the last one I did, the bushes turned up from Strongflex and I got them fitted then took it to the local alignment place and had them set it up for me to my requested settings which ended up something like this.




I've gone 8-10mm lower on the front than on the rear just to give the car a bit more rake, not sure whether this was going to be a good idea or bad but I have to start somewhere. I then took the car to a day at Cadwell Thursday just gone to give it a bit of a test and see whether I'd improved the car, it took a bit of getting used to, the front doesn't turn in as well as it used to(I think it understeers a little) and it's a little more twitchy but it is significantly faster than it every has been around there.

I managed to scrub nearly 3 seconds off my previous best time on a nearly dead set of Dunlops so am now at 1:44.49, there is much more to come from this car without having to up the power just yet. I feel like I'm only just getting started.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzPGU8l8UEA[/media]

Next on the list of upgrades are two piston Accord Type R front calipers and Impreza STi wheels, the calipers are already here and are significantly beefier than the stock S2000 units the only reason I went for these is that they are cheap enough to have a punt with and if it improves my pad life slightly then I'll be happy. I'll be steering away from EBC and trying the Carbotech pads next year as they come highly recommended.

The Impreza wheel thing has many advantages, they are cheap and plentiful, I can move to a 17" tyre which affords me greater tyre choice and better value and the slight increase in width allows me to go a little wider on the front tyre which should reduce the understeer and give slightly better braking performance.

The don't look great but they aren't the worst wheels I've seen. (not my car but you get the idea)

MB

You probably want to swap your front and rear camber around of you have staggered tyres.

Ultra_Nexus

The rake is causing the handling issues I reckon. You'll need to get the car corner weighted, but if you're over 55% on the front, it's gonna cause the symptoms you describe. If you want the rake, try adding a bit of front toe out to get your turn in back and lower the castor. As MB says, the weight distribution issue is magnified with the smaller front tyre and lesser camber.