Project Honda S2000

The stock shocks have a threaded hole that allows this supporting bolt to thread in. With the new setup, you'll need to use a nut to hold the line in.

The stock shocks have a threaded hole that allows this supporting bolt to thread in. With

The Wheel Supply in Industry, California, handled the task of mating Volk to BFG. We installed the finished product and took a quick measurement of the wheel well gap-we didn't want to stray too far from stock. There was a 2.75-inch gap up front and a full three inches in the rear. Mitchell got to work dismantling the stock stuff and installing the coilovers.

Installation couldn't have gone smoother. Mitchell likes to whistle while he works-incredibly irritating for any journalist who might be taking pictures, but at least it's a sign that he likes what he does. Springs mounted on shocks, we were ready to mount the suspension. The front was a bigger pain in the ass than the rear, as the upper A-arm had to be removed in order to slide the spring/shock assembly in (and slide the old one out). The rear shock and spring on the S2000 sit behind the moving geometry, so barring digging through the trunk to unbolt the strut towers, installation and removal was much more straightforward.

The rear spring and shock assembly is easy to remove... just find the nuts in the trunk first.

The rear spring and shock assembly is easy to remove... just find the nuts in the trunk fi

Suspension mounted and height loosely guesstimated, it was time to move on to corner balancing. "There's a critical step many tuners miss when corner-balancing a car," blurts Mitchell. "It's called leveling the floor. It's common sense, really. If your car is sitting at even a slight angle, weight is going to be shifted down the slope, toward the lower end of the car."

Armed with his laser leveler, Mitchell aligned the four tables that would support both the scales and the car. His have additional run-off area (roll-off pads), so the car can be adjusted and rolled on and off in a snap. We still weren't ready to start. Mitchell laid a towel down in the driver's seat before loading my exact weight in sandbags (that number to remain confidential).

The new coilover is installed and sitting pretty.

When the S2000 first hit the scales, we recorded 2974 pounds-with a full tank of gas and the sandbag fat-ass in the driver's seat, which means we have an unnaturally light S2000 on our hands. According to the US Department of Energy, a gallon of gas weighs anywhere from 5.8 to 6.5 pounds. Let's call it 6.15 pounds. The tank's 13.2 gallons, so figure on about 81 pounds in gas alone. Tack on the sandbags, which, I'll regretfully admit, weigh 200 pounds, and we have a total weight of 2693 pounds. Like I said, a light S2000. Oh, and yeah, I'm on a diet, so you can all just stop writing the e-mails now.

The final bolt slides in and the rear is done.

What we're concerned with, though, is weight distribution. As it sat, the car showed a cross weight distribution of 48.8 percent from right front to left rear (and 51.2 percent from LF to RR). Not bad. When we were done, we had managed to equalize the cross weights for near 50/50 distribution. We adjusted the front spring perches to 60mm and the rear to 50mm, closer to the low side than the high side of the adjustment range, but nowhere near over-lowered. The wheel well gap had shortened by 1.5 inches up front and an inch out back, for a total gap of 1.25 and two inches respectively.

The finished rear assembly.

Before we sent the S2000 back out into the wild, we wanted to figure out what had caused the inside of the stock S03s to wear so rapidly. Unsurprisingly, the toe was way off, measuring a remarkable 9.5mm toe-in on each side, which is about 3.5mm out of max spec. And that's a ton. Often, the toe is adjusted in an attempt to compensate for the car's natural tendency for sudden oversteer, when the rear suspension compresses. After double-checking the front toe at zero millimeters, we took the toe back out to max stock specs (6mm a side). Because put simply, over-toeing in the car is a crappy band-aid for the real problem, which is toe-out under compression.

The first test of the revitalized S2000 was on the rugged roads that surround M-Workz. We left the rebound and compression at their factory recommended settings. We were utterly shocked to find that the ride was, if anything, smoother than stock, absorbing imperfections in the road without overreacting to potholes or large dips. At the same time, there was no perceptible body roll. It'd take a day at the track to really dial the suspension in, because for street use, it was more than capable.

These sandbags are what 200 pounds of human looks like in dirt form.

And so we took the car to the Streets of Willow for a few shakedown laps. Right off the bat, the car was brilliant-even Mitchell was impressed with its ability to turn in and carry speed through technical sections. After messing with the coilovers for the better part of four hours, we ended up hovering right around the factory settings. A further quarter-turn of rebound up front was all that was needed to perfect the set-up for Streets' bumpy surface.

Does the car oversteer? Yep. But we're not going to dull its responses by toeing in the rear. We'll tame the rambunctious tail with a bump steer kit, but that's for another installment.

Before putting the S2000 away wet, it was off to our proving grounds in Fontana, Cailfornia. It was positively adjustable through the figure-eight test course, slight lifts of the throttle rotating the car around to find a perfect line in and out of the long corners. When the dust had settled, the S2000 net a 25.9-second average. To put this in perspective. A stock 2006 WRX runs the figure eight in 27 seconds and a Porsche 911 (997) GT3 will do it in 24. On the skidpad, the car managed an impressive 0.9g.

As hard as we try, we can't find the need for any further suspension modifications (short of a bump-steer kit). Thicker anti-roll bars would do nothing to improve the car's perfect balance. Amazingly, we seem to have conquered the suspension situation in one installment. Watch us attempt to tune some individual throttle bodies from Fuji Racing next time around.

By James Tate

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