If you are someone who drives the S2000 as it was meant to be driven the sidewall stiffness should be considered. I at one point in time had Goodyear gs3's in AP1 sizes on my car. They were undersized as far as tread width and had a soft sidewall. The car was not confidence inspiring when driven aggressively.

When an AP1 was new it came with a 180 tread life tire in the Bridgestone S02.. Honda designed the chassis around such a tire. Tire tech has gotten much better since and the Max and Extreme tires of today are far superior to the S02. So unless you are using your S2000 as point A to point B transportation lesser tires will ruin the experience and I have found could be dangerous if you really push the car.

Also remember the "stickier" you go the shorter the tire life. Some extreme tires will harden off before the tread is gone depending on how many miles you put on the car a year..

I now have S04s on 17 inch AP2v1 wheels and have been very happy with the setup. My car is on CR shocks and springs with an AP2 rear sway bar and on the street I have never approached the loss of traction point.

 

Based on the OP post I would suggest the Conti Extreme Contact or the Firestone Indy 500 in 16 inch. They will both perform very well - as well or better than the S02 I suspect. I have the Conti's right now on 16 inch wheels and they are terrific. I have had both S04 and Conti on 17 inch wheels - I prefer the 16 inch set up for my use. The car is quite a bit more lively and nimble - at least if you compare it to 225s and 255s which some folks run. I tried that - did not like it.

 

Sorry, I know this a wheel/tires thread, but I'm curious on the AP2 rear away bar swap that you have. Most of the sway bar mod threads were about putting a stiffer front. Would a softer rear bar ultimately have the same effect (reduce tail-happiness) as a stiffer front? In what situations would one setup be better than the other? My car is street use only.

 

Assuming you are starting with an oversteering chassis, in general, stiffening the front or softening the rear would both be ways to get to a more neutral chassis. However, my experience with the AP1 is that it's rear bumpsteer that causes tail-happiness. So anything that would limit rear suspension movement would help limit bumpsteer. For example, when I switched to OHLINS and 11k/11k springs, the rear bumpsteer almost went away completely due to the stiffer springs limiting suspension motion and the corresponding changes in toe.

So to your specific question, I wouldn't change front or rear bars until I addressed the bumpsteer issue.

 

To add, generically, not specific to S platform, reducing rear swaybar has same effect on BALANCE as stiffening front bar. That is not the whole story however.

In general:

Stiffer swaybar = less traction
Softer swaybar = more traction

So there could be traction advantage to going with the softer rear instead of stiffer front. But you also don't want too much roll, so its a balancing act, stiffen front or soften rear.

Back to S platform, for the ap1 chassis, stiffer rear has the already mentioned designed in toe change (aka bump steer), that stiffer rear could reduce. Many may prefer reducing that. So another parameter in balancing act equation.

Yet another is that too much roll stiffness rear, combined with track sticky tires and track cornering intensity can result in inside rear tire lift. Dog peeing tripod. This confuses our Torsen rear diff, resulting in all power goes to the unused tire, upsetting cornering balance, killing acceleration, and a handful of nasty once that spinng rear tire lands again. So yet another piece of the balancing act equation to consider when deciding if soften rear or stiffen front.

 

For what its worth - my 02 stock suspension, 16 inch wheels, conti exremecontact sport tires - works well. No mods.

 

I heard the newer firestone indy 500 is a rebranded bridge stone.

Also rated REALLY well on tirerack testing. Possibly able to compete or outperform even tires one range higher.

 

I went with the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S. they feel very good and I don't notice much noise.