silly question, but did your car handle like crap today? in minnesota? or were you out of town? my z1s didnt like todays weather too much either. looks like you got the same wheel arch design as the gd... meaning youre gonna end up with a nasty front rake if you try to even out the wheel gap front to back... bummer.
Z1s gripped pretty well for the temperature. I took it out when it was 50F. Drove around conservatively for a bit and they gripped pretty well. My car just handles like crap all the time. May be you should drive it sometime to give me some tips on what to improve. Whadda you say? So you are saying I am stuck with this gape?
Absolutely. I'd love to tell you how much I hate the handling too I'm no pro and I'm not very familiar with that platform, but based on what little I've seen and the little bit I've driving of done in them, I'd guess custom springs (slightly higher rates, stock to slightly lower height), custom (shorter) rear bump stops, and bushings. Dunno what the aftermarket support is like and haven't seen any specs on the stock suspension (geometry or parts) tho... What are the specs on those wheels btw? 17x8 +40?
Your suspension on your bugeye was way way way, better, so thats probably why it handles so crappy to you,
Define way way way better, as the new suspension design is worlds better for a road application. Rally, not so much.
the front wheels look like they have little to no negative camber, add some up front and zero toe all the way round and you'll be golden. Plus tires like those summer ones don't like the cold (anything under 60 degrees) ask me how I know.
Define crappy handling? Does it handle worse then with the stock wheels? What changes that you don't like compaired to the stock rims/tires.?
Maybe you could try getting different springs. Do you have STI pinks? They only lower it 10mm. My husband has cobb springs and he says it handles nicely, but he got front and rear sway bar set with end links. He's getting me Progress sport springs-we can let you know how that works.
They are from racerx123's car. 17X8 +45 is the spec. Really light wheels at 15.6lbs. I can really feel the car accelerating faster and stopping faster. You are right, no negative camber on the front. I will write down ur recommendation. For little negative camber, stock suspension bits are ok? I hear Jeff (the alignment guy) doesn't like camber bolts. Once I get a coilover kit, this should be taken care of. I think I hit some pothole hard. I felt like car was pulling to the right. I checked all tire pressure and every one of them are at 34PSI now. That reduced it a bit. Car was a little jumpy when I took it out for a ride first time. I think the tires needed to be a bit broken in from sitting 6 months. On my 2nd drive they gripped far better. In terms of crappy handling, I get the feeling I am driving a body on frame car. I am thinking SOA cheaped out on the WRX subframe bushings. In a hard turn, it feels the body is disconnected from the chassis. I will see what bushings I can get. There is this subframe bracing for the front that might fix this issue - http://www.rallysportdirect.com/shop/cusco-2008-stiwrx-front-lower-arm-bar-type-p-3654.html Oh, gotta keep them man. Might put snows for next season. BTW, KA-T_240 now owns that car. I am hoping he is liking it. That car gripped pretty well even with the RE92s. Yeah, I have STI pinks. They are pretty soft as well. I am planning on getting sway bars as well. Cobb unfortunately doesn't make a rear bar for the sedan. I am thinking about rallitek (cheaper) or Perrin. Whiteline is also an option. Please do create a thread about your experience with the progress sport springs. I completely agree, it looks part corolla, part Saturn L100/L200. The sedan is in fact quite ugly (my personal opinion). The factory aerokit makes it look a lot better. Why did I get it? That's the only 08 that dealer had at that point that fit my budget. May be I should just shut up and not complain. I will take it in for more aggressive alignment and do some more suspension mods. My gripe is that Subaru really went backwards with the 08 WRX, but we all know that. I should've done my homework and gotten something different.
I have Rallitek front and rear sway bar sets and Cobb springs that dropped the car about 1.5". The whole setup was a nice improvement over stock for daily driving. Here are some after pics.
^^ Thats a nice looking car. That's how I want the wheel gaps on my car. Yours is sitting on an incline and still the gaps are perfect. Very nice!
It's ok if the car doesn't handle the best. That's how you learn to familiarize yourself with the car's handling behavior. Make the MOST out of it before you upgrade. You'll then know what to expect with the new suspension setup on these new Imprezas. SO FAR I've read that they run better with stiffer rear rates. This hold true to the hatches, not sure about Sedans, but if the same suspension setup, the yes, do the same. 8k front 10k rear rates for coilover setup. The GC/GD chassis seemed to like the equal to sometimes stiffer rears. The newer could use stiffer rears. This is dependent on suspension setup. McPherson style is a bit different from double wishbone setup.
I like that Idea. I switched to a different DD so now I will experiment with this car a bit, as finance allows of course. Stiffer rear will reduce understeer, right? Surprisingly, I don't feel much of an understeer, but I haven't been to a track yet with this. So I haven't pushed it to the limit. At "tail of the dragon" I was just too busy trying to stay on the turmac. Car did handle quite alright for it being on snow tires. But that chassis flex (or the "body on frame" car feeling) does hamper with me being able to set up for a long sweeping turn as mid corner car becomes less predictable. Thanks for your inputs guys.
Did you swap over the TPMS or did you buy new sensors? Tire rack wants $200 bucks for a set of TPMS :eek3:
