My S2000 Weekend/Track day warrior

[eskimo_firefighter]

Thanks for sharing your bumpsteer analysis. Good read

Love the rims. That last photo.

Awesome updates as usual Pete!

Thanks Tom!

Rims rims rims!
So nice

Thanks Bruh.

ahah these wheels are such a slut

Yeah, I think I'll keep these for a while though. I think they look aight.

Ti silver CE28's ftw!


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Indeed. Ti silver is where it's at.

That looks great.

Thanks FelixR

26/03/2016 - New Differential Mounts + service.

Today was spent preparing the car for an upcoming track day some time next week.



Hasport 75A rear differential mounts.

Rear sway bar had to be dropped. Exhaust out of the way would help a lot, luckily mine was removed as I was installing my N1 exhaust back on after my track hiatus. With the track day season starting up for 2016, the Spoon N1 exhaust is on for the rest of 2016. The rear differential had to be dropped slightly to remove the two rear differential mounts as the rear mounts didn't have enough space to get out of the differential mounting bolts.

First drive impressions.

It tightened the driveline, allowing more precise throttle control and response. The rear end felt a lot more solid which should allow power to be put down more efficiently. Another surprising benefit was the improved gear shifting feel. Will give more feedback on these after the track day.

Engine oil was replaced with the Castrol EDGE 5W30 and rear brake pads were replaced with the PMU HC+800. (138,000KM)

With this done, the car is almost ready for the upcoming Winton track day. Looking forward on heading back to a resurfaced Winton track which was finished earlier this year.

[dustinyo]

You must be really efficient now with removing and fitting the stock exhaust all by yourself


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[eskimo_firefighter]

You must be really efficient now with removing and fitting the stock exhaust all by yourself


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Haha it's still a pain in the ass regardless. Although I have a cordless impact gun which I bought yesterday which made life much easier.

[munkaii]

Haha it's still a pain in the ass regardless. Although I have a cordless impact gun which I bought yesterday which made life much easier.

Just don't round those exhaust bolts mate!

I'll try get a ride with you at EXE.

[Toddxxx]

waiting peter...

[eskimo_firefighter]

Just don't round those exhaust bolts mate!

I'll try get a ride with you at EXE.

Confirmed exhaust bolts are still alive, will have to see on the day mate, I'll try my best to get you in a session.

waiting peter...

Done.


Continuation of the FRONT Bumpsteer measurement by Honed Developments.

CLICK LINK to Previous Front Bumpsteer Measurement Update

Just a continuation on the previous update on the the FRONT bumpsteer measurement by Honed Developments.

Below is a graph that plots the toe change under bump and droop.

- Bump would represent the toe change going downwards in ride height.

- Droop would represent the toe change going upwards in ride height.



Below is a summary of the results explained by Tom (ChargeR on the forum).

- The graph shows that the front suspension toes out in bump

- It's a deliberate design choice by Honda as they could have changed the behaviour quite easily given how much freedom they would have had to move the steering rack

- That doesn't mean changing the behaviour is undesirable, as even Honda make mistakes (ie. the changes from AP1 to AP2 in rear bump steer behaviour) and we can optimise the car to a much different set of conditions, considering how different your wheel/tyre and spring/damper rates are compared to an OEM car

- I think that making some changes to reduce the amount of toe out in bump could be worth trying, but not until we've measured the rear to compare.

- Fitting those camber joint/roll centre adjuster things at the front would reduce the amount of toe out in bump

My thoughts
Honda may have designed it to be like this to help give the S2000 its great turn in characteristic. As Honda did not do anything with the AP2 with the front geometry, not to my knowledge anyway. Further research also shows correcting the front bumpsteer doesn't seem make a noticeable difference in terms of driving feel. Despite this I am still thinking of options to alleviate the front bumpsteer.

Rear bumpsteer measurement

The notorious problem with AP1 is that it tends to be a bit tail happy at times due to the bumpsteer behaviour.

Tom did the rear bumpsteer measurement and pretty much confirmed the bumpsteer issue of the AP1. Courtesy of Tom for the pictures.






Below is a graph that shows the OEM bumpsteer behaviour. The graph shows quite a volatile dynamic toe curve.



- Under droop, (when the wheels moves downwards) tends to TOE OUT, suspension going through this motion is typically under braking and corner entry. This is the main reason why the AP1 is so tail happy under braking and corner entry.

- Under bump, (when the wheels moves upwards) tends to TOE IN. This is not that bad of a characteristic in my opinion as mid corner toe in can aid in stability.

J's Racing Rear Bumpsteer Kit



The reason why I preferred this kit is the ability to adjust angle of the arm by using shims at the end shaft that connects to the knuckle. With this information that Tom gathered, I went ahead and installed the rear bumpsteer kit.

First I installed the aftermarket arm with 3 shims on top. This is the most aggressive setting that angles the arm in its most downwards position.

Pictured below is only 1 shim up top and two shims down below, not a good representation of what we did with the 3 shims up top.



This is followed by another bumpsteer measurement done by Tom.



Toe change graph with J's Racing Bumpsteer kit installed with 3 shims.


Results were great! The bumpsteer kit has greatly reduced the amount of bumpsteer. The plot graph shows that the toe change is no way near as aggressive and plot changes are narrow where it matters 320mm and downwards where the range of the suspension will spend most of its time at (I believe, Honed will need to confirm this). Although under bump it is biased to toeing out very slightly.

Tom had suggested to remove one shim to decrease the amount of toe out under bump for more stability. We did not measure the bumpsteer again after doing this as it is a tedious task and Tom had a good grasp of what effect this will have.

Overall this should contribute to a more predictable and stable rear end, which should hopefully give me the confidence to push through the corners harder. We will see this upcoming track day!


J's Racing front camber joint S2.

Suffering from a bit of lack of turn in and under-steer, it was time to install a set of J's Racing front camber joints.



The kit came with a 12mm RCA plate (pictured yellow) which was suggested by the Honed team to not install unless taking in consideration of the rears roll center also.

Installed.



Here is the result once installed.





Added shit loads of camber and lowered the car by at least 1cm, guard smashing height. Makes sense as the S2 camber joints is in built with 9mm of roll center adjustment. So I went ahead and raised the front up by another 1.5cm which gave it a less stupid stance which in turn decreased the -camber.

More camber should allow the front end to utilise the inner tyre more so during cornering which should increase the level of mechanical grip up front and decreasing the level of understeer.

With all the parts installed successfully all that is left is to get a wheel alignment!

Big thanks to the Honed Developments team (Legendary ChargeR and Grant) for all the work put towards my S2000 and for all of the advice. It has been a great and enjoyable learning experience.

Visit their page and follow them for interesting updates on all technical Honda related things.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/honeddevelopments/?fref=ts
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/p/BDc3ImnP...d_developments

[Toddxxx]

top update man!

[Shakeel]

Very informative update Peter, thanks for being the guinea pig

Thank you ChargeR and itsu-san for the research into this!

[dustinyo]

Interesting stuff. My rear end has been quite tail-happy under hard braking especially at the end of the two main straights at Winton. Definitely need to invest in some rear toe arms now hmmm


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[eskimo_firefighter]

top update man!

Thanks! Mostly thanks to Tom's work.

Very informative update Peter, thanks for being the guinea pig

Thank you ChargeR and itsu-san for the research into this!

No worries Shak, more than happy for my car to be the guinea pig on this kind of stuff.

Interesting stuff. My rear end has been quite tail-happy under hard braking especially at the end of the two main straights at Winton. Definitely need to invest in some rear toe arms now hmmm

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Yep, especially without a wing, it can be quite sketchy. Toe arms is a good investment but I will update after the track day to confirm for sure if its made a difference.

[s1 s2]

Excellent build thread, super detail. I recently installed the J's S2 front camber joint as well... was a little sketched out for the rear toe arm, as other toe arms out there usually snap and etc. Please give us your feed back after your track day!

[eskimo_firefighter]

Excellent build thread, super detail. I recently installed the J's S2 front camber joint as well... was a little sketched out for the rear toe arm, as other toe arms out there usually snap and etc. Please give us your feed back after your track day!

Thanks! Yep it's best to not cheap out on important suspension components and to get the good stuff, I've read a lot about rear toe arm failures and the J's Racing arms doesn't seem to have any documentation of failures. Although the spherical ball joints is a wear item and may need replacement every few years or so. Will definitely provide feedback on the toe arms after the track day.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Pre Track Day Preperation/New wheel alignment.

Previous Documented Wheel alignment specs.

Front
Left camber: -2.3 Right camber: -2.2
Left caster: 6.6 Right Caster: 6.4
Left Toe: -1.4mm Right Toe: -1.4mm

Rear
Left camber: -2.5 Right camber: -2.2
Left toe: +1.4mm Right Toe: +1.4mm

Current Wheel alignment specs.


Plenty of camber and caster. Although I initially wanted to try 0 toe up front especially seeing the data from Tom's front bumpsteer measurement, it was suggested to keep the toe specs similar to before to have a better gauge on the improvements of the rear bumpsteer kit that was recently installed.

Driveshaft Vibrations
After a few days of driving on the road I noticed vibration from the rear end. The culprit was worn inner CV joints, frantically getting the car ready for the upcoming track day I had to fix this ASAP.

Hardrace Driveshaft Spacers.
A common remedy for the driveshaft vibration are driveshaft spacers.
If you'd like to read up on why this happens for lowered S2000's. This is a good link.
http://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/6931...r-lowered-car/

Installed
IMG_20160401_151512

FAMUSE REPLICA/FAKE/COUNTERFEIT Amuse R1 front bumper.

After many years of rocking an AP1 front bar that has been through hell.


I decided it was time to get thefront bar painted and fitted after having this front bar from early 2015.
DSC01883

DSC01890

DSC01898

DSC01902

With all this done, the car is officially track ready.

Many things has changed since the last Winton day so I'm excited to test out the new cars setup on the NEW resurfaced Winton Track.

Summary of New Modifications for upcoming Winton track day.
- 17x10J CE28N (previous track wheels were RPF1 17x9)
- Hasport 75A Differntial Mounts
- J's Racing Rear Bumpsteer Control Arms
- J's Racing Front Camber Joints S2
- Ingalls Engine Torque Damper
- Recaro RSG (previous Winton day was still using OEM seat)

[Shakeel]

Yes, yes, yes!!!

About time you got this famuse bar painted and fitted.

Good luck on the next trackday. I eagerly await your feedback about the bumpsteer adjustments.

[felixR]

Looking forward to your suspension feedback too!

Great update.