dsddcd

I am just a weekend warrior and I am looking for a little bit of input/advise. I am building another S2000 but this time I am going to focus on making a bit more respectable on a road/touring course. I bought a C6 Z last season so I could get to the track more often and not worry about the car but I missed my S and sold it last fall. I am definitely happy over all but want to remedy a few little things. The problems I had with my last car was the instability at speed, 110+ and heat soaking/fading of the front brakes.

Right now the car is getting a simple turbo upgrade, with radiator, oil cooler, clutch, LSD....... probably not exceeding 550WHP.

Lets start with what I do want / have selected.
NT01's in 255's in front and 275's out back on widened AP2 wheels
Wildwoods at all four corners*
Front brake ducts.

*Now I know the Wildwoods are needed for my light duty but it is a nice feeling to have pedal if you come into a corner a bit deep and the cost of the kit is not much more than adding a nice (2) piece rotor with Accord calipers.

Then comes the hard part, sways, shocks & springs. Now my first inclination was to add a simple set of Eibach or White Line sway bars, PSS9's and call it a day. I have driven on a setup like this and it was compliant but felt a bit soft. I believe this to be attributed to a soft spring but I am no expert. To be completely honest I could not dial in a set of coilovers now as I do not have scales, time or patients to do it. Since I am not competing with anyone but myself I figured I could tame the beast with a set of Koni's and keep my AP1 springs. That should lower the car down about 1/2" and get me on a shock with good dampening characteristics.

Now for the high speed stability, is there anything short of adding a wing and front splitter that will help?

For a street car that only visits the track a few times a year what would you recommend?

Sorry for the long read and thank you for your help.

robrob

I tracked my s with PSS9s for a couple of years with the standard springs and they were soft, even on the firmest settings. The best upgrade I ever did to my car was switching from PSS9s to KWV3s. Suddenly I could slide the car around the track with confidence. That first track day with the KWs was amazing. I don't recommend the PSS9s. I highly recommend the KWs. Just set the spring perches the same on the front shocks, then do the same in the rear (front to rear won't be the same)--you don't have to corner balance coil overs.

I also recommend an adjustable front sway bar so you can tune for street or r-compound tires.

You might enjoy this write up of my track mods: http://robrobinette.com/S2000TrackEvolv.htm

CKit

Lol, if you're going to run 550 whp you're going to need a lot more modification than that, IMHO.

It's a lot more complicated than just slapping a turbo on.

dsddcd

WOW, that is an awesome write up, I am very jealous. I am not that serious about the sport but would love to be. Unfortunatly my line of work does not allow me much down time, I am happy just to sneak out every once in a while for a track day. This is why I am not going to crazy with the track mods, most of it will be based on street, strip and road course.

dsddcd

Yes, I wanted to spare you the details but here is a link from my signature to my current build plans, some of which is in process and some of which I am still deciding on.

https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/920...he-kiss-build/

CKit

We have a turbo S2000 and I think you're in for a rude awakening if you're planning on doing this with a shoestring budget. Things WILL cook and break. The drivetrain won't hold up to that power level without upgrades unless you're VERY casual or very slow.

KISS is okay, but there's such a thing as grossly underestimating due to optimistic oversimplification.

robrob

Do it right the first time and get a set of KWV3s. You will end up removing the PSS9s. I would recommend a simple spring upgrade over PSS9s. MY PSS9s sucked on the track. As I said above my confidence and speed on track took a quantum leap with the simple swap from PSS9s to KWV3s.

dsddcd

Thanks for the heads up, but I have built and worked on quite a few S2000's and I have a pretty good working knowledge of the car and have learned through trial and error what it takes to build one reliably for my purposes.

Now you are right that I choose the cheap route to use a Haltech ECM over say a Motec, to use a LSD in the factory diff housing versus an 8.8, I am not installing a V160 or PPG/Par gear set, No twin disc clutch or even a built block. However I can also tell you from experience that unless you over rev, are smashing the gears, launching on sticky tires......you can get a lot of life from the stock components.

The saying doesn't exactly fit but think of it this way "If it isn't broken don't fix it". For my purposes if I have to replace the diff, clutch, tranny even yearly it would still be cheaper in the long haul for me. As for the engine with a good "Conservative Tune" and proper cooling it will go a long time. I had 7K on my last round and when I took off the head I built the cylinder walls were still like new and the compression test and leak down was better than many of the NA cars I have tested in the past.

I do appreciate the input and I am always open to suggestions, which in turn is I why I am posting this and other threads. All I ask is that you offer your suggestions not statements like (grossly underestimating due to optimistic oversimplification) which I take offense to and read as (This guy if full of it, he doesn't know squat). Now if I am reading into it wrong then I apologize otherwise I would prefer if you took your comments to another thread.

dsddcd

I am looking into them now, did you use the 515#/in springs that they are shipped with the set?

Now for the kicker, how long before you got them dialed in, the following (2) specs make me nervous. I could see spending a lot of days testing and tuning at one track let alone multiple.

• Infinitely variable rebound damping adjustment
• 14-way adjustable compression damping

By the way I love you list of hobbies, I am the same way, ME by trade but I have more hobbies than I can keep up with!

robrob

I'd recommend the next stiffer springs. KW lists them as 100N/mm, the 515# are 90N/mm. I'm running 110N/mm front and 100 rear on my race car. There's a lot of info on tuning KW shocks. It's pretty easy to get into the ballpark with KW's recommended:


Bump (bottom adjuster) all around 0.75 turns out from full stiff (out=left)Front rebound (top adjuster) of 0.75 turns out from full stiff (out=counterclockwise)Rear rebound of 1.5 turns out.

On my race car I'm running bump 0.5 all around, front rebound of 0.67, rear 1 so a lot of adjustment and tuning isn't necessary.