Today I took my car to ThamesValley RaceTech, Sonning Common, Berkshire http://www.thamesvalleyracetech.co.uk/ the specialise in TVR's and had never worked on the S2000 until today. Harry the owner was welcoming and friendly and I watched the Mechanic - Mike (I think) (I feel a song coming ) during the entire 2

 

On the one the guy at Northway did for mine, it used laser, fed into a computer and that showed the settings. The Caster should always be done first I was told, like Mike found out

Did you take him the Optimum settings Martin? Are you likely to go there again? If so in the near future, let me know!

I guess he doesnt know the S that well, this may be evident from his comment about the settings if the car is to be tracked etc, I'm no expert, but I reckon honda give those as optimum settings for a reason. Given the cars handling, it may well be right to be using settings which he thinks may normally be for a track

 

Did I take the Honda UK Optimum settings? Yep took the printout, and that's what I'm not running, except for caster which we couldn't get that high.
Am I planning to go back? - Hopefully won't need to for at least 12 months
Would I use them again? - Yep, they seemed willing to spend the time to get the settings I wanted, where they could.
Do Caster first. - I did mention this when I first arrived and he dismissed it. The Honda way of doing it isn't the most straight forward.

Personally I think his comments are true to an extent, tunning 2deg of camber on the rears its quite a lot, it is going to wear the inside edges of the tyres. As with all things its a compromise between optimum for handling vs tyre and other component wear.

 

and sliding round corners will probably balance out the inner tread wear

 

I had this done on mine by a tyre fitter in Farnham (Surrey) who has been around for years and aligned many high performance cars (4 hours to align a 911 once!).

He made the same comments to me as your guy did to you, that the settings were more for track use than general road use. However the improvement to my car was amazing, it felt much more grippy and less jittery.

Just make sure you get the alignment checked every 6 months, it can easily get out of line on the great british roads.

- Adam

 

I had my car re-aligned on Monday and I did get the before and after printout.

I also find that the car feels lighter at the front ..... but also at the rear ...... so much so that I am doing big slides on roundabouts that I wouldnt have before.

I think my tyre wear could get even worse as a result

 

Adam, having read your previous thread I am going to Merrow Tyres next week to get mine done. My car's now 3.5 years old and I doubt it's ever been tweaked before. Sounds like the two places are similarly competent and Merrow's half the price

Couldn't give me a good price on the tyres though so will have to go to Bracknell beforehand.

 

Had mine done a couple of months ago, noticed recently that when I am going along if I hit a drain in the road ther back feels very twitchy, almost as if it moves to the left or right !!

 

Wow, isn't that a bit of drive from Chamb

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Frisky
Wow, isn't that a bit of drive from Chamb