Suspension project questions

Will do. What year is your car/WRX or STi?

 

2010 wrx sedan

 

Just finished installing the rear koni's and swift springs.. I'm so confused right now. From my measurements the struts increased my wheel gap by an inch. Anyone have any ****ing clue why this occurred? I'm seriously second guessing my installation now. I thought it was pretty straight forward. The camber looks messed up but that's to be expected. I need moral support, I'm bummed right now. I will forge on tomorrow with fronts if anyone is available. I'm in Eagan.

 

I'm so mad... The product number for swift sport springs MAPerformance claims is for 2008+ WRX is actually NOT for any car BUT the 2008 WRX. The product code for 09-10 WRX is completely different thus explains my ****ed up ride height. FAIL MAPerformance and shame on me for not double checking. Guess I won't need help tomorrow as I don't have the right springs to finish the job, AWESOME.

 

MAP sent me the right springs... Wrong part number on their website.. Still doesn't explain why my ride height is higher then before. Could still use some help, phone number is 6052162877. Thanks

 

Do the Koni's have an adjustable spring perch? I know the Bilsteins have a clip that will allow you to adjust the rear spring perch. If the Koni's have one, maybe it is set too high?

 

The Konis do have a separate perch, but they usually only cut one ring into the shock for height settings. some do have mulitple though..
I've also heard of people installing the lower perch upside down, that may yield similar results?

double check your part # on the koni's and their compatibility. you might have gotten the wrong one, with a perch ring cut too high.

 

Got it all straightened out thanks to Shane! Thanks again man.

 

Did you get it all put together?

 

Sure did. Just got home from getting an alignment from Jeff. I'll post up pictures tomorrow when it's nice and sunny outside (yea right).

 

looking forward to seeing it. How low did it go?

 

I don't know exactly. I'll measure tomorrow and post how much it dropped. I'm assuming right around an inch.

 

do you have before pictures?

 

Here are the pictures. The front wheel gap was reduced by a little over an inch and the rear by little over a half inch. The car handles great and rides firmer then stock at the softest setting of the Konis. Went to Jeff to get an alignment and the specs are shown in the picture.

Before:



After:




Alignment:

Remind you I did install the Whiteline Com-C top hats for added negative camber adjustment.

 

Looks good! i think i'm gonna go with this set up.

 

anyone know if i really need to go with the white line tophats for street driving? or will the stocks do fine with the koni's

 

You can use the stock top hats, but you won't be able to get that much camber and caster, which are huge benefits to the handling of the vehicle.

Your alignment specs look good, the only thing that's a little weird is the extra camber on the passenger side. Did you have Jeff align it with you in it?
Did that rubbing noise go away after it was aligned?'

dat caster... awesome.

 

Thanks for the response, after doing the research i'm gonna do this exact set up on my 2010, I can feel my stock set up getting bouncy

 

No problem.
After putting this together with boone this weekend, we went for a little test drive. It rides really well, and the little bit aggressive driving felt like handled well just being on full soft.
I'd love to put it through it's paces on a course, as i think this would be an excellent handling street setup, especially with the tunability of the Konis

 

Yeah my thinking! i have 25mm front 22mm rear sways with KB endlinks and whiteline rear braces. So hoping this will make it feel like a true "Sports" car. I want my only bottleneck to be my tires

 

What was the issue with the height? Did you have the spring perch upside down?

 

the suspension hadn't settled. as soon as we loaded up the rear end (jounced it a few times) it came right down to height.

 

You must have gone to Jeff's right after me yesterday...I stopped by in the morning to have my new tires mounted.

Anyway, glad to hear you got everything straightened out. The ride height looks perfect and sounds like it handles well...konis ftw!

Shane - my 08 had a curiously higher negative camber on the right rear, as did Steve's 08 WRX (neither of us were in the car the the time of alignment). I don't know if its a GR/GH chassis issues or what. But that caster...yea, be jealous :-p

 

I wasn't in the car. He kept mumbling **** from under the car like he was having a rough day so I didn't bring up the fact about the difference in camber haha. I haven't heard that same noise yet.

 

I SPECIFICALLY remember you saying "make sure the raised side is facing up"!

 

Haha. Yeah, I was just making sure!

My car also has quite a bit more negative camber in the passenger's side rear vs. driver's.

 

Interesting trend here.

Jeff did mention the large difference on mine, and he spent some extra time loosening, attempting to rearrange, tightening (there is no camber adjust in the rear) and was able to close the difference from 0.8 to 0.6 degrees (was -1.0 and -1.8 and got it to -1.3 and -1.9).

If you want some limited camber adjustability, there are several companies that make offset bushing for the rear lower control arm (Whiteline, I believe SuperPro, etc). Or, you can also step up to adjustable lower control arms. SPC makes a reasonably priced set that work quite well apparently. GTSpec, Cusco, etc also make some that cost a bit more but work quite well also; although I don't have any experience with any of these products yet.

 

Did either of you align with yourself, or some ballast in the driver's seat?
I'm really curious if this isn't compensated for by driver weight.

 

No I wasn't in the car nor was there a ballast...
I'm getting mine re-aligned in a couple weeks after I install some new goodies Not 100% sure what I'm going to do for camber adjustment in the rear, but it probably won't be the stock stuff. Either way, I can report back.

 

No ballast in the car for mine either. One of my last alignments they were able to loosen/wiggle things around and get them pretty close, but it didn't work this time. It is kind of annoying, because with my current wheel/tire setup I (very rarely) will rub in the driver's rear (with a completely full car and highway speed dip, maybe once a month). My fenders are rolled fairly flat and slightly pulled. I may get some adjustable lower control arms at some point.