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Old 07 January 2012, 05:09 PM
  #31  
Arnie_1
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I think the US site has incorrect information up. The Super Streets are usually the softer, street version of their coilovers and, from my experience on them, 4k/3k would be about right.

So, in my opinion, with the tires you plan to run 24mm F/R adjustable would be perfect. Normally GC's don't need that much bar compared to the GD pigs. But the TEIN SS are fairly soft, especially for the R888s. So a bit more bar will be necessary. You can run the bar's softer on the street (full soft front, soft or middle setting rear) and then stiffen them up for the track.
Old 07 January 2012, 05:16 PM
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goffemannen
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Originally Posted by Arnie_1
I think the US site has incorrect information up. The Super Streets are usually the softer, street version of their coilovers and, from my experience on them, 4k/3k would be about right.

So, in my opinion, with the tires you plan to run 24mm F/R adjustable would be perfect. Normally GC's don't need that much bar compared to the GD pigs. But the TEIN SS are fairly soft, especially for the R888s. So a bit more bar will be necessary. You can run the bar's softer on the street (full soft front, soft or middle setting rear) and then stiffen them up for the track.

sounds great. when i finaly get other coilovers(thinking about tein mono flex and KW Ver3) then i can go with stiffer setting on the arb.
Old 07 January 2012, 05:39 PM
  #33  
Arnie_1
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No. Well, you can set it at any way you wish.

On the whole, stickier tires mean you need to increase your spring rate to prevent roll. So you can either set your ARBs stiffer to compensate or get coilovers with stiffer springs like the KWV3s, etc. Once you have the stiffer coilovers, I would set the arbs's at a softer setting first (front full soft, rear full soft) and see how the car handles. Then adjust the bars according to how you want or need the car to handle.

Does that help you?
Old 07 January 2012, 05:44 PM
  #34  
goffemannen
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Originally Posted by Arnie_1
No. Well, you can set it at any way you wish.

On the whole, stickier tires mean you need to increase your spring rate to prevent roll. So you can either set your ARBs stiffer to compensate or get coilovers with stiffer springs like the KWV3s, etc. Once you have the stiffer coilovers, I would set the arbs's at a softer setting first (front full soft, rear full soft) and see how the car handles. Then adjust the bars according to how you want or need the car to handle.

Does that help you?
Yes. That clear things out for me. Thanks for the help .
Old 07 January 2012, 06:19 PM
  #35  
Arnie_1
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Perfect! Cheers!
Old 15 January 2012, 11:41 AM
  #36  
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Ok so ive read this thread and its all very interesting but I still dont have a clue lol, Where do you guys go to get it all setup right, my car has a few issues and i thinks its all geometry related but what i really need is an expert to have a drive of my car and tell me what is wrong with it, one minute it feels like its pulling left the next right its not the normal following the road feel also it feel like if im going round a corner i turn the steering wheel the right a mount for the corner but the car doesn't fell like it turns the whole way and then all of a sudden it will feel like it tightens up and goes where i want it to , also on the motorway it feels like im constantly on edge fells like i have 90% control and the car has the other 10%, ive had it up on the ramp replaced balljoints checked all other bushes for excessive play and cant find any thing,
Almost at a loss as to what it is without just changing everything .

Any advice greatly appreciated.
Old 17 January 2012, 09:54 PM
  #37  
beastturbo
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Pretty sure u need to go get a geometry set up immediately looks like ur toe settings are well out!!!

Iv had mine done and now it handles insanely..... I wasnt confident in pushing the car previous as urself.... But now I feel unstoppable

U won't believe the transformation.....

Wat car u got etc.... I can tell u my setting f u want iv got a fast road set-up nothing too aggressive
Old 18 January 2012, 05:30 AM
  #38  
Markyscoob
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The Impreza is quite sensitive to geometry and tyres. it likes FWD friendly tyres with square profiles and stiff sidewalls best. It HATEs uneven or mismatched tyres.

Your car is permanent AWD so unlike traditional 2wd cars the toe settings will be different. Toe is the angle both front wheels make to each other. the Impreza likes ZERO toe. Under power it will pull on the bushes and toe in slightly and under braking toe out. This gives feel and stability.

If you have static toe, it will mess all this up. Again, the rear has an adjustable rear lower lateral arm that can adjust rear toe. (Not sure of setting but of the top of my head slightly toe in I think).

The car has adjustable camber only in so much as the bolts that hold the struts to the hub carriers are a loose fit and you can get about 1 degree of change by loosening and pulling. Basically you push the top of the front in as far as it will go and pull the top out on the back as far as it will go. Should be -1.5' front and 0.5' rear ish....

Then do the toe and it should be better.

Ideally anywhere that has laser four wheel alignment advertised can do this for you. The only thing the alignment manuals they will use don't say is you want as much neg camber at the front and as little at the rear as they can get equal side to side.

Finally tyres pressures are critical for the health of your diff. Tyres front to rear and side to side should always have similar tread (you need to rotate regularly!!) and backs run 3psi less than the front.

Finally again, if the result makes you feel unstoppable- be warned, no matter how hard you feel you can corner- it doesn't make the tractor or lorry round the blind corner any softer when you hit it! Calm down and keep lunacy on the track where it belongs!
Old 18 January 2012, 07:06 AM
  #39  
goffemannen
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Originally Posted by Markyscoob;
The only thing the alignment manuals they will use don't say is you want as much neg camber at the front and as little at the rear as they can get equal side to side.

Why so little camber at the rear ??
Old 18 January 2012, 06:56 PM
  #40  
beastturbo
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Most people have rear camber slightly more in the rear than the front
I myself have -1.16 minutes front and -1.28 minutes in rear.

Toe in at front is -8. And -2 rear

Exceptional handling and not too aggressive on tyre wear
Old 18 January 2012, 09:39 PM
  #41  
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Just starting down the handling road now just fitted my bc coilovers to my bug sti with CDF drop links so finding this discussion interesting
Old 19 January 2012, 12:23 AM
  #42  
Arnie_1
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Originally Posted by Markyscoob
The car has adjustable camber only in so much as the bolts that hold the struts to the hub carriers are a loose fit and you can get about 1 degree of change by loosening and pulling. Basically you push the top of the front in as far as it will go and pull the top out on the back as far as it will go. Should be -1.5' front and 0.5' rear ish....
Not quite right. Front struts have a camber bolt. Its the upper 19mm bolt. You can get a max of about -1.5 degree camber with that bolt. if you push, pull and tug perhaps a wee bit more.

Rear, as you said, is not adjustable other than through the method you describe. You'll need 14mm Ingalls camber bolts otherwise.

-----------------------


Having less camber in the rear and more in the front is a very broad generalization on one of many setup options. Again, it all depends on what you want. Saying that you want as much in the front and as little possible in the rear is a pretty sweeping statement that can be pretty misleading and/or dangerous.

In general having less camber in the rear creates a rear end that will have less grip than the front in a cornering situation. This is usually seen as less understeer because the rear can break away more easily before the front does. Having less camber in the rear causes it to exceed the grip of its contact patch before the front does. Basically the rear is on the outside sidewall in a turn sooner than the front, causing it to break traction or lose grip.

One thing to keep in mind is that, with less grip in the rear, the rear can step out faster in a turn in lift-throttle situations. In slalom course situations, this "loose" rear can make for a pretty quick car as the rear is very unstable and rotates fast. Something you want in that sort of discipline where the courses are tight and the idea of losing grip in the rear (for quicker rotation) can be faster than having overall higher grip levels.

However, on the road, it can be nasty thing. In a similar way that a very stiff rear ARB can create scary lift-throttle oversteer situations, having very little camber in the rear can do the same.

Unfortunately its pretty tough to say how much rear camber is "bad" and what is "good". Its dependent on so many things (such as how much camber you have up front, what kind of tires you're using, what you have yourARBs set at, what your toe is, etc. etc.) One thing I have found though is that the more negative camber you have in the rear, the more progressive the break away. The less amount of camber the snappier the break away.

With that said, using medium grip/quality tires like T1-S/R or Kumho SPT and the like, I personally like having about .25 to .5 deg less camber in the rear than in the front. However, on the road or circuit I don't like having less than -1.25 in the rear. I actually usually like a bit more, like -1.5. I've found -1 a bit too snappy in the rear (nice for slalom but can be a handful on the road in some situations). The front I usually have at -1.25 to -2 (depending on how hard I plan to drive). I've come to like -1.5 for most day to day driving in the rear. Its got very nice breakaway characteristics. I can do a lift throttle oversteer slide veeeeeeery progressively with that setting. You can let the car just drift and decide exactly when you want to shut it down by getting on the throttle. I can then fine tune how much rotation I want with the rear ARB. If I want it snappier and stronger feeling of rotation=full stiff. General fun daily drive with lots of safety reserves=middle setting. This is with either 22mm F/R bars or 24mm F/R. If you are running standar UK spec staggered bars 22mmF/24mmR then take extra care with the rear bar setting or rear camber. Running that configuration, I personally wouldn't want less than -1.5 in the rear. -1.75 is even a shade more predictable with loads more safety net in it. You'll still have plenty of rear bar settings available if you want the rear to be more snappy. -1.75, is usually what the rear settles to without camber bolts if you lower the car about 3/4" or so. so it works out fine with lowering springs. My general philosophy is set the car up to get as much front end grip as possible and use the rear to tune rotation. The more front end grip you have, i.e. less understeer, the less you have to depend on taking away grip from the rear just to get the car to turn in.

Sorry, more bla, bla, bla....I really do type too much. Apologies gents.

Last edited by Arnie_1; 19 January 2012 at 01:52 AM.
Old 19 January 2012, 05:13 AM
  #43  
goffemannen
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Arnie has spoken again...great writing.

I wont have any problem with camber adjustment in the rear. I've ordered GT Spec Adjustable lateral arms.

I think will go for about 1.6-1.7 up front and i the rear around the same, like 1.5-1.6.

Last edited by goffemannen; 19 January 2012 at 09:24 AM.
Old 19 January 2012, 09:18 AM
  #44  
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Suspension tuning can be tricky because really, you need to know either what you don't like about the car's handling or behaviour, or what you would like to achieve Arnie's post above is great for for helping to work that out

As for toe settings (only as it has been mentioned), I have found toe-in very beneficial for sharpening up the front, and controlling rear grip as well as overall rotation.

When fettling my Type R's suspension I came across Prodrive's Peter Cambridge' Total Impreza article where he advocates -0.15° toe-in on the rear on the classic Impreza (some alignment shops have this data set in their banks for the P1 as this amount of toe was original spec for the P1).

I have settled on about -0.08° (toe-in) all round. I did experiment with more rear (the full 15), and less up front, but found this made for a more lairy rear (as part of the rest of my set-up it must be said). -0.08° seemed to work fine for my New Age too

Here's one of the geo reports for my Type R

Old 19 January 2012, 10:39 AM
  #45  
Arnie_1
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Agreed, toe also very important on the Impreza. Bonesetter has very credible experience on what ended up working for him and I think its a good baseline setting for most people to follow.
Old 19 January 2012, 10:53 AM
  #46  
goffemannen
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Originally Posted by Arnie_1
Agreed, toe also very important on the Impreza. Bonesetter has very credible experience on what ended up working for him and I think its a good baseline setting for most people to follow.

yes. i think i will try that setting on the toe. even if i think it looks a bit much. I can always change it as we got a 4 wheel alignment system at work.
Old 19 January 2012, 05:53 PM
  #47  
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Right fellas coilovers been on car few days now to settle going to try book car in on sat for alignment just after picking your brains

I have a jdm bug sti with bc coilovers and CDF solid drop links only (at present will do arb's at latter date) just wondering what geo settings you would start off with on my car ?

Car is not my daily driver and I have a track day booked for feb at Elvington my first track day in scoob !

Cheers kris
Old 20 January 2012, 09:35 AM
  #48  
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See, I knew more good info would come along quickly, I was only being general. Besides, mine is standard still as my BCs are coming as specials direct. I was trying to find the set up sheet details I got and couldn't get the data. My rear doesn't actually go that upright but fully out still left a fair bit of static camber. The front likewise is not that adjustable and the upper 19mm bolt gives only enough to try to balance both sides.

I have 14mm rear bolts and top adjusters for the front coming for my BC so will enjoy playing this Summer. Manx roads are bumpy as hell itself so you simply cannot drop and stiffen everything up here as it rides terribly and just bounces of the crests in the road.

Some of the rally boys tend to do tarmac rallies with gravel settings in it's that bad!
Old 20 January 2012, 12:32 PM
  #49  
Arnie_1
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Originally Posted by Markyscoob
See, I knew more good info would come along quickly, I was only being general. Besides, mine is standard still as my BCs are coming as specials direct. I was trying to find the set up sheet details I got and couldn't get the data. My rear doesn't actually go that upright but fully out still left a fair bit of static camber. The front likewise is not that adjustable and the upper 19mm bolt gives only enough to try to balance both sides.

I have 14mm rear bolts and top adjusters for the front coming for my BC so will enjoy playing this Summer. Manx roads are bumpy as hell itself so you simply cannot drop and stiffen everything up here as it rides terribly and just bounces of the crests in the road.

Some of the rally boys tend to do tarmac rallies with gravel settings in it's that bad!
IIRC, you won't need the rear 14mm camber bolts on the BC's as the rear top holes are a bit slotted so you can adjust camber a bit with the standard bolt by pushing and pulling the wheel. Its been ages since I installed a set but I think if you use a camber bolt, there's a decent risk that they will slip because the hole is much larger than "standard". Take a good look at the rear strut clevis holes before installing. Also the holes were drilled a bit strange, being inset a bit more than OEM. Leading to a lot of rear negative camber so you may have to tug on the top of the wheel a good bit to get some of the neg camber out. You might want to hold two rears up against each other(OEM and BC) to compare. But who knows, maybe they changed things since I last installed a set.

as far as front standard camber adjustment goes, i'm not sure what you're used to as far as range of adjustability, but the standard bolt has almost 3 deg of adjustability. You can go from almost 1.5 deg positive to 1.5 deg negative camber. That's a decent amount for just a standard camber adjustment. For those that have never adjusted their front camber before, don't forget that you have to loosen the bottom 19mm bolt as well when you adjust the top 19mm camber bolt. If you don't the camber won't change much at all because the strut is being held solid by the tightened lower bolt. Both bolts have to be loose.

Last edited by Arnie_1; 20 January 2012 at 12:34 PM.
Old 20 January 2012, 12:38 PM
  #50  
Arnie_1
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Originally Posted by KrisBuc
Right fellas coilovers been on car few days now to settle going to try book car in on sat for alignment just after picking your brains

I have a jdm bug sti with bc coilovers and CDF solid drop links only (at present will do arb's at latter date) just wondering what geo settings you would start off with on my car ?

Car is not my daily driver and I have a track day booked for feb at Elvington my first track day in scoob !

Cheers kris
Let us know what tires you plan on using (brand, size) and what ride height you are running (measured center of wheel hub to bottom of fender for both front and rear).
Old 22 January 2012, 12:49 PM
  #51  
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Tyres are standard Bridgestone 225/45/17
Ride height is 320mm front and rear any info would be great not my first track time but first in scoob

G

Last edited by KrisBuc; 22 January 2012 at 12:59 PM. Reason: Pic
Old 22 January 2012, 02:27 PM
  #52  
Arnie_1
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Sorry, what b-stone model? Just trying to get an idea how much stick you have to deal with. Big difference recommending a spec for a slick, semi-slick and a cheap chinese all season!

Oh, and what spring rates are you running?

Last edited by Arnie_1; 22 January 2012 at 02:30 PM.
Old 23 January 2012, 08:19 AM
  #53  
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Spring rate is what came with the bc coilovers
tyres are bridgestone potteza
Old 23 January 2012, 02:02 PM
  #54  
Arnie_1
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Kris, sorry to be a jerk, but can you find out what spring rate your BC's come with? I have no idea and can't be bothered to sift through threads to find out. And you realize there are several Potenza models out there? The difference in grip between, say a RE070 and and RE92 is huge.
Old 23 January 2012, 02:56 PM
  #55  
chet123
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Arnie, boy you sure know your way round suspension. Very good read, bit of an education. Although just briefly from me, what do I need to do to stop my newage from having body roll/oversteer when going round bends at speed. Feels I am going to end up in the central reservation at times.

I have BC Coilovers already but would a front/rear ARB and Droplinks upgrades prevent/remove bodyroll/overtsteer? I just want to make the handling better and make the car feel safer round corners.

Cheers
Old 23 January 2012, 03:09 PM
  #56  
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Originally Posted by beastturbo
Iv had mine done and now it handles insanely..... I wasnt confident in pushing the car previous as urself.... But now I feel unstoppable

U won't believe the transformation.....
Beastturbo, what exactly have you had done which transformed the handling of your scooby?

Cheers
Old 23 January 2012, 03:41 PM
  #57  
Arnie_1
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Cheers Chet! Glad its been informative reading for you. Don't forget, its just one point of view and way to do things from the many, many out there. So don't take what I say as gospel. But its a good, general starting point for Imprezas. Lots of suspension specialists out there with their special recipe for making it work one way or another.

Anyway, I saw your post in that other thread.

I don't know what spring rates you're running on your car but, to be honest, you have to be running some pretty massive spring rates to contain the roll that even a moderately uprated ARB provides. So indeed, running say, a Whiteline 22F/22R or 22F/24R with uprated Droplinks would definitely control roll and give you a more planted feel.

In regards to your oversteer, when are you experiencing this? How are you driving when it happens? Please post up your previous geometry spec. It can go a long way in helping everyone see if its a geometry issue, driving style issue, etc.

What's your ride height F/R (center of hub to bottom of fender)? What tire pressures are you running, F/R? What are the condition of your tyres? Decent profile still, F/R?
Old 23 January 2012, 04:09 PM
  #58  
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thanks Arnie, will need to go back and gather that info. One question, when you say "pretty massive spring rates to contain the roll" what do you mean by that?

I've always wanted to upgrade areas of the suspension, no point owning a fast car if it drives like a bus! If I am to notice a difference immediatley with the Whiteline 22F/22R or 22F/24R and uprated Droplinks then I will go with these for starts. Is there a need for changing suspension bushes.

Really and truely I'm more concerned with handling then anything else. Bends in question are the ones on dual carriages ways, too me it feels the cars veering to the right when I am going left. I think personally the handling needs a little care.
Old 23 January 2012, 07:05 PM
  #59  
Arnie_1
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Are you really getting oversteer? Or are you getting understeer? In corners, is the front wanting to go straight when you are turning? Or is the rear stepping out in a corner?
Old 23 January 2012, 07:42 PM
  #60  
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Arnie- Front Spring Rate : 6kg/mm (336lbs/in) Rear Spring Rate : 5kg/mm (280lbs/in)
tyres are Bridgestone RE070 225/45/17


cheers

Last edited by KrisBuc; 23 January 2012 at 08:46 PM.


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