After spinning and dinging my car quite badly, I've decided I'd like a bit more understeer. Fortuitously, my tyres do need replacing so I thought I'd get a few opinions from the board.

I'd like to increase the stagger as much as possible, and I'm looking at a 205/50/17 - 255/40/17 combo. Are the fronts ok in this size or should I stick with 215/45's? What of the rears? And the stagger, too much?

Then of course there is tyre choice. At the moment I'm looking at the Yokohama AVS dB, which costs about 60% of the Bridgestone's price over here (here being sunny Cape Town). According to Yoko themselves, it's a "quiet ultra-high performance tire". Anyone used these before?

UPDATE: I checked using Yoko's search tool on their website, the AVS dB isn't one of the recommended tyres for the S2000.

Any help would be appreciated. FYI I don't race with the car but I do enjoy driving fast and I don't need "all weather" tyres, our winter's aren't that bad that we need different tyres for different seasons.

 

What are your alignment settings?
Have you considered ditching the rear sway bar?
Those will affect the car's handling balance more than a ~20mm or so change in front/rear tire width difference will.

Going to a lower-performance tire won't help.

Best thing you could do, really, is a high-performance driving school at a race track. Seriously.

 

Alignment is whatever the standard spec is supposed to be. I assume we have the same alignment specs as Europe.

I'm definitely going to do an advanced driving course in the future. Just for now though my tyres need replacing and obviously I'd like to make the right choice seeing as I'm gonna have to stick with it for a good while. If 215s and 245s are the best mix than I'll go with that.

I'm not interested so much in ultimate performance as long as the back doesn't step out as easily (mind you my tyres really are on their last, that's probably the biggest influence at this point). Also, cost is an important consideration, the Bridgestones are just too expensive compared to the other brands. This is my daily driver so I'll probably do about 25000 kms (16000 mi.) p.a. I wouldn't want to fork out for really expensive tyres every year or so.

So you say the dB isn't really that good? Someone recommended them to me but its a bit disconcerting that Yoko doesn't list it as one of the choices for our car. They do make a big deal of it being an "ultra-high performance" tyre though.

 

AP1 alignment specs are different between U.S. and U.K, dunno about AP2 or South Africa. In any case, the spec is a range. If you wanna reduce oversteer/increase understeer, you'd want to have front camber at or near the lower end of the range (less negative camber), rear camber at or near the max negative, and rear toe at or near max.

"Ultra High Performance" is actually a step down in terms of grip from the "Maximum Performance" OEM tires. Which is probably why Yokohama doesn't recommend these for the S2000.

For sizes, I'd be looking at OEM size, plus 255/40-17 rears, and maybe 225/45-17 fronts (preferably only with the 255 rears, though).

I'm running Hankook RS2's. IMO, a great lower-cost alternative to the Bridgestone or other high-end "max perf" tires.

 

a good performance driving school would help alot! Making your car handle worst is not going to make the car any safer.

 

ah so...that clears things up quite a bit. Thanks for the advice, I'll shop around for Max performance tyres then. FYI I don't think we get Hankooks over here, at least not easily. Import duties and economies of scale probably mean that the popular major brands like Yoko, Pirelli, Goodyear and Bridgestone are actually cheaper than the equivalent cheaper-but-lesser-known-over-here tyres.

Thanks for the advice guys, and yes, advanced driving course ASAP.