Understanding what your car is telling you

Conanius

Conanius

Conanius

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18 Oct 2002
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Ok, so this is s2000 specific with regards the scenario but for the sake of a rounded opinion I'm asking here first !

As you may know a load of us on here did a trackday at Bedford on Saturday. Baring my brake issues and my tyres reminding me how gash they are in the wet it was good fun, however I've found another niggle !

The niggle is as follows... In the faster sweeping corners when you start picking up the pace the car feels like its ... Squirming ? Which makes it feel almost like the tyres are trying to come off the rims and makes me feel like I need to correct the car prior to a spin occuring.

I'm thinking it's related to me uprating my springs and now the car is just putting more froce through the tyre sidewall. I'm running 16's with what I'd describe as a 'considerable' height sidewall, so is it possible 17's will help me ?

My cunning plan was to try more air in the tyres to stiffen them up, but this usually leads to the tyres overheating and me poising grip alltogether.

Anyone got some ideas ?
 
Stiffer sidewalls needed, messing with tyre pressures won't help, higher pressures will simply balloon the tyres as the air inside heats up and expands and you'll end up with the footprint shrinking and wooly steering response.

Bridgestone to the rescue.
 
Honda like to fit tyres that are a bit smaller in width to the rim to keep the sidewalls stiffer, are your tyres definitely the reccomended size? They did this with the EP3, but I don't know about the S2K. Sidewalls don't get much stiffer than the Bridgestones, but maybe that is the problem here. With no give in the sidewall you might feel in cold or wet conditions that the tyres easily break traction for a moment and squirm around as opposed to the sidewalls moving noticiably, which I doubt you would noticiably feel. You could probably feel yourself rolling/leaning into the sidewall heavily but it shouldn't squirm/wobble (as that's how I interpret it)

As a test you could drop the pressures from normal and see if this makes the condition worse. Tyres are a complicated beast, but it's worth a shot.

Also, I beleive you've had a geometry setup done... is this a track oriented setup or a fast road one? The two can differ greatly and this may be why you're feeling that. I would be talking to the guys who did the setup to get their opinion.

My EP3 used to squirm about a bit at the back and this can be cured by a thicker rear anti roll bar which they had on the JDM model. With that being FWD and with 45 profile tyres it's a completely different setup though.
 
Conanius, I know you have done loads of work with WIM so we know it's probably not likely to be your geometry being out.

Mine used to be rather unsettled when pressing on in corners but that was prior to polybushing and a full geo. I have not had the chance to get on-track/airfeld since getting the work done so cant comment on how mine is behaving.

Have you done polybushing or not? The Honda OEM bushes are pretty 'bouncy' compared to polyurethane.

Could what you are describing be some bumpsteer?

The ARBs might be a good call. The 'AP2' ARBs are significantly thicker than the early ones.
 
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16 inch wheels = lots of sidewall.

I had the same issue on T1R on my 17s, went away once I put RE050As all around. Honda's like stiff sidewalls. Do you have the S-02s on?
 
Lots of replies, thanks guys.

I'm running bridgestone potenza re050a's in the correct size.

Car has the following relevant modifications

full powerflex purple polybushes all round bar the caster bushes which are the mugen item
cusco 32mm front anti roll bar with cusco polybushes
cusco 30mm rear anti roll bar with cusco polybushes
cusco uprated front and rear lower braces
cusco front upper strut bar
tein s-tech pogressively coiled springs
wheels in motion 'custom race' geometry.

I say custom race as tony has with my input set the car to these geometry settings. I havnt gone back to him just yet but I will do. Tyres are running the recommended 32psi on all 4 corners.

Not sure if I have missed out any questions ...
 
Conanius said:
just FYI that isn't true. MY99-02 are noticably thicker, they get thinner as revisions occured (02,04,06) until in 08 they went thicker again. Cheers for the suggestion though :-)
Click to expand...

Are you sure they were not revised in 06 along with the suspension/VSA mods?

My powerflex polybushes close very tightly around my ARB a sign the ARB is bigger than what then were designed for.
 
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