Stock ride height or lower?

[catharsis]

Springs are terrible, and most coilover kits on the market are terrible as well. Koni shocks and struts plus springs is the best CHEAP option out there for improved handling.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Originally Posted by Dimman

Pet peeve with coilover companies: The use of the words 'ways' for describing adjustment. If you only have one dial/clicker, you only have one 'way'. Each 'way' should be for each aspect that the adjuster controls. Double adjustables are two-way. The amount of detents on the adjuster is hardly relevant, but companies seem to like out-doing themselves by offering "30 WAY ADJUSTABLE SHOCKS!".

/rant

And the Koni Yellows on my car don't have clicks....so does that mean they are infinitely adjustable? OMG!!!!!!!

Yeah, that kills me.

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

THIS. A thousand times this. Springs and shocks are designed to work in unison. Yes, shocks are expensive. However, springs alone are a BAD MOVE if you actually want your car to handle better. It's always fun watching a car with stiff, low springs and stock rebound damping go bouncing down the road with an owner who thinks his car now "handles on rails."

For the 08+ WRX there just isn't any headroom in the valving to support a firmer spring (they can barely handle the OEM springs honestly). So instead of designing a spring for those crappy shocks, we helped design a Bilstein + matched RCE spring package. Hopefully the OEM shocks on this car are a lot better, but we want Bilsteins either way too.

- Andrew

[serialk11r]

Wait so, it sounds like coilovers force you to drop the car quite a bit, so do people who buy coilovers all adjust the other parts of the suspension to compensate?

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering

And the Koni Yellows on my car don't have clicks....so does that mean they are infinitely adjustable? OMG!!!!!!!

Yeah, that kills me.



For the 08+ WRX there just isn't any headroom in the valving to support a firmer spring (they can barely handle the OEM springs honestly). So instead of designing a spring for those crappy shocks, we helped design a Bilstein + matched RCE spring package. Hopefully the OEM shocks on this car are a lot better, but we want Bilsteins either way too.

- Andrew

[Troll Comic?]
How to make better coilovers? Take away clicker. Infinite ways!!! Problem, Marketing?[/Troll Comic]

On a serious note, if we want Konis on the front, are we looking at the surgery required on older Subaru strut housings? (Also is that still current information?)

[Racecomp Engineering]

Yeah, I'm expecting surgery for Konis for the front as opposed to a complete strut. That's the only way they've done for Subaru in the past.

- Andrew

[7thgear]

I'd like to plot the geometry of the car before deciding

MacPherson struts up front pretty much always mean NO LOWERING unless you get some drop ball-joints

if the rear is done the same way as an S2000, then there might also be a conflict (too much lowering = forcing suspension geometry out of intended range)

don't think for a second that any race car worth it's place uses OEM components, if it's scarping the ground and puts in good lap times, then it's all custom underneath those wheel wells.

[Ryephile]

Originally Posted by 7thgear

I'd like to plot the geometry of the car before deciding

don't think for a second that any race car worth it's place uses OEM components, if it's scarping the ground and puts in good lap times, then it's all custom underneath those wheel wells.

Yer preaching to the choir here.

The only race cars using OEM components are cars that are designed to be competitive from the start, or SCCA showroom stock class.

[7thgear]

true say,

if only the choir was bigger

[Pekingduck]

I am going to lower my car as well, but not low enough where I will worry about it. I really don't mind if I have to angle a driveway or two everyday.

[7thgear]

ohh, so you're one of those people that slows down to a crawl driving on to a parking lot right after you did a flyby to change into my lane? (tongue in cheek)

[serialk11r]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I'm eyeballing side pictures of the car, and judging from the fact that the wheel bolts are 100mm diameter, it looks like the car has perhaps 5 inches of ground clearance. I see that for some American cars they make spindles that give 2" drop. I think this may be excessive since that would probably scrape some speed bumps.

So my question is, can I do dropped spindles, and then put like a spacer or something to gain about 0.5" back? Seems like a stupid idea, but this would keep the suspension closer to it's original operating range than coilovers which drop 1.5". Or is there an easy way of using coilovers while moving the joints?

[old greg]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

So my question is, can I do dropped spindles, and then put like a spacer or something to gain about 0.5" back? Seems like a stupid idea, but this would keep the suspension closer to it's original operating range than coilovers which drop 1.5". Or is there an easy way of using coilovers while moving the joints?

Sure. You could use camber plates to do so up front, but I think you'd need longer than stock dampers in the rear. You wouldn't want to increase static ride height with preload though, totally wrong way to do it. The big downside is that doing so would raise the front roll center more than the rear (struts vs. multilink), which means more rear bar to maintain balance which may cause a tendency to lift the inside rear tire midcorner, hot hatch style, and that's very bad business for a rwd car with a torsen diff.

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

They're for race cars.

And mini-trucks

[serialk11r]

Okay...so coilovers can preserve or improve ride quality while allowing a drop, am I reading this correctly? From what I am reading, springs and shocks will have a harsher ride if you lower it.
I would not do wheel to wheel racing, I would want to have at least stock comfort, but a little less ground clearance and perhaps 1-2 inches of fender gap showing.

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Okay...so coilovers can preserve or improve ride quality while allowing a drop, am I reading this correctly?

Can? Yes. (emphasis on the possibility)

Will most of the offerings on the market? No bloody way.