BILSTEIN PSS COILVOVER KIT FOR HONDA S2000 47-080386

Street+

The S2000 isn't merely a good driver's car. It's arguably one of the best Honda has ever built, and one of the great driver's cars of its era. The goal with a suspension like the B14 isn't to change that character. It's to support it better with modern tires and give the chassis more control without turning the car into something harsh or overly track focused.

That's especially relevant now because the suspension was developed around tire technology from more than 20 years ago. A modern tire like the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S has more grip, a stiffer construction and much better response than the tires these cars were originally tuned around. On an older car with tired factory dampers, simply adding a modern high-performance tire can expose how much the suspension has aged.

That's why we think the B14 is such a good match for the S2000. It gives the chassis the support a modern tire deserves while keeping the car completely usable on the street.

Springs and factory-set damping

The B14 uses 342 lb/in front and 285 lb/in rear linear main springs, along with tender springs front and rear. Those rates are a meaningful step up from the factory suspension but still moderate enough for a car that spends most of its life on the road.

The damping is fixed rather than externally adjustable, and for this use case we see that as a benefit rather than a limitation. The springs and dampers are already matched and the valving is tuned specifically for the application. Set the ride height, align the car properly and drive it.

If the car is headed toward regular track use, wide Super 200 tires or R-compounds, we'd move to a suspension with more spring rate and adjustable damping rather than trying to make the B14 do a job it wasn't designed around.

Monotube dampers and rear reservoirs

One of the best features of this particular kit is the rear piggyback reservoir design.

The S2000 has very tight packaging around the rear dampers. With a conventional monotube shock, the gas chamber normally sits in line with the oil volume, which takes up valuable length inside the damper body. In this application, that packaging is tight enough that the cleaner solution is to move the gas reservoir to the side of the damper.

That is exactly what BILSTEIN does here.

By using a piggyback reservoir, the damper can retain the stroke it needs without compromising the packaging or forcing the gas chamber into the main body. It’s a simple, elegant solution to a real packaging problem, and it mirrors the kind of thinking Honda used in the original rear suspension layout.

The result is a compact monotube damper with good piston area, consistent oil and gas separation, and proper usable travel in a space where a more conventional monotube design would be difficult to package correctly.

1W/car Setup Recommendation

For a street-driven S2000, our target is approximately 20 mm lower than factory, with 25 mm being about as far as we'd normally go.

That gives the car a lower center of gravity and the stance most owners are looking for while preserving the bump travel the suspension needs to work properly. This is not a particularly stiff suspension, and that's part of why it works so well on the street. It also means we don't recommend lowering the car aggressively and then asking the springs and dampers to control a much smaller amount of travel.

We'd much rather see the car at 20–25 mm lower with good suspension travel than another inch lower simply because the threaded perch allows it.

Tires and intended use

Our tire recommendation for this setup is the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S.

That tire is a big part of why this suspension makes sense today. The additional grip and response of a modern max-performance summer tire puts more demand on the chassis than the original tire package ever did, and a fresh, well-controlled suspension lets you actually take advantage of that improvement.

For canyon driving, weekend use, autocross and maybe an occasional introductory track day, we think this combination is extremely hard to beat.

Once the car starts moving toward serious 200TW tires, R-compounds and regular track use, the suspension requirement changes. At that point we'd want more spring rate, stronger damping and external adjustment rather than simply turning the B14 into something it was never intended to be.

Why we like this kit

There are plenty of S2000 coilovers with more adjustment, more spring rate and more colorful hardware. That doesn't automatically make them better.

BILSTEIN has decades of experience in OE suspension development and motorsport, and the basic engineering of this kit reflects that. You get monotube dampers, application-specific valving, a properly engineered rear reservoir system and the durability we'd expect from a major suspension manufacturer.

For a street S2000, we'd rather spend money on those things than on adjustment knobs most owners won't use.

In some ways, this feels like the kind of suspension Honda might have specified if it had taken the S2000 one step farther into a true Type R-style road car: more controlled, better supported and more serious, but still completely usable and OE quality. 

That's really where we think the B14 fits. It doesn't try to turn the S2000 into a race car. It gives one of the best driver's cars ever made a suspension package that makes more sense with the tires and roads we have today.