Type R ARB's?
 

With most using 24/22, I was wondering if there should be any variation for a Type R, bearing in mind the reduced weight, especially when compared to the slightly lardy new age?

22mm on mine which seems ok

Front & rear?

Have to say I'm leaning towards this combo

Yup. front and rear. Nice combo for a road car.

Yup, 22mm adjustable F/R is great for a road car. You don't need as much rear bar with the diffs that the Type R has.

Great, just the feedback I was looking for :)

The car has diff lock bars fitted, I'm thinking this may reinforce the 22mm option further?

What are the rear diff lock bars? Are you referring to the sub-frame lock bolts?

These...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-s...0/P1000938.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n...0/P1000939.JPG

I phoned Whiteline today (very helpful chaps), they said 24/22 for all scooby's right up to the hatch

Well I'd disagree with such a blanket statement...
Mine was sorted on old OEM shocks, but was able to soften the rear when I switched to Teins. 22F/22R on mine.

dunx

P.S. On OEM stuff the ARB's add handling, with coilovers added it's less necessary to use such stiff ARB's. IMHO.

It doesn't sit well with me either. I have just had delivered a 24 & 22 from Scoobysports which I ordered on the strength of WL's recommendation :( TBF WHiteline have been good on advise in the past

Thing is I would have liked to have fitted one thing and then another (have some other Whiteline suspension stuff going on too), to see what is happening. Fitting a 24R straight away would not be a good move I would guess making the car tail happy...

Powerstation recommend a 22 rear ONLY on classics... which is what I have on my classic STi wagon and tbf this feels good for smooth quick driving, but for this Type R which might be chucked around a bit more that level of stiffening wouldn't be enough. I fitted some WL stuff to a JDM new age last year and that needed F&R's in the end and was superb for it

So, I'm now looking at a bunch of Whiteline stuff in my hallway :Whatever_

Is it adjustable ? As I learnt recently a 24mm bar on the last hole is = to a 23mm bar...

Yes, both are adjustable. Front's on, starting the rear :)

24 rear 22 front?

With a standard front bar a 24mm rear will be way too much rear bar, IMHO. Sure, it will be fun to drive but it will be pretty snappy in the rear. Potentially dangerous if you aren't ready for the snap! :thumb:

As far as Whiteline's recommendation, its basically sound advice for GC/GG/GD with standard springs/struts. The basic handling bias of this platform is the same across the board. STi's with DCCD and an old GC with standard diffs are all set up to be understeery and safe at the limit. That's how Subaru sets the cars up out of the box. Obviously, when you start tweaking things these general recommendations change.

a 24R/22F will really go a long way towards curing understeer on the stock chassis. With the adjustable bar (F/R) there is more than enough range to cope with a range of strut/spring/coilover setups. however, if you do go to a very stiff coilover setup on semi-slicks then that stiff of a swaybar setup is probably not necessary. People running something like 12/10k setups usually run standard ARBs or a mild adjustable rear bar for quick bias tuning.

Like PS recommendation, I used to run a 22mm adjustable with standard front on my classic as well. I eventually installed a front 22 adjustable. I liked it, gave the front a bit more platform. But I had to run the rear at full stiff to get my balance back.

With the diff's and DCCD you have the potential to have a car that actually oversteers under throttle. So, depending on how you drive or set your DCCD a 22F/24R would be great or a 22/22 would do fine too.

seriously, it really is a "it depends" situation. always. :cuckoo: All Whiteline can do is give a basic, general starting point.

Great post and good sum-up, thanks :thumb:

Car feels very much planted in the corners now, as well as alot sharper on the front

There are more Whiteline goodies being fitted Monday, followed by a slightly more aggressive geo setting, so car should be getting something near by then

Great post and good sum-up, thanks :thumb:

With the 24/22 fitted, car feels very much planted in the corners now, as well as alot sharper on the front

There are more Whiteline goodies being fitted Monday, followed by a slightly more aggressive geo setting, so car should be getting somewhere near by then

Cheers!

Am excited to see how your car ends up. What else do you have planned to install? And what is on their currently?

Car had Tein lowering springs fitted when purchased on stock dampers. Past experience has shown the negative effects of lowering only and so I decided to fit everything I thought would be needed in one go - arbs with drop links, ALK, roll centre correction kit, bump steer correction and rear camper bolts

Other thing is to change from 18" to 17 wheel size

Should be all done by Tuesday.

Oh, nearly forgot, engine is being remapped Sunday - I'm pretty excited too

Are you still running that spring damper combo? TEIN STechs?

Yes...?

he answers with trepidation....;)

Well, just as a heads up, STechs are probably the worst springs out there. They are too low and too soft for how low they are. You'll have very little travel (basically static ride height is on the bumpstops) and with that soft spring you'll pretty much blast through what travel you have left in short order. You'll probably notice that despite your ARB mods that you'll be experiencing lots of midcorner understeer. That's due to the outside spring rate going through the roof as you run out of travel on any small bump you hit midcorner. They look great, no argument there. However these are basically the springs that inspired me to say, "If it looks dope, it probably handles like poop." You're doing a great job with setting the rest of the car up, do yourself a favor and pick up some decent springs.

Is your Type R a V5 or 6? Are you on the inverted red STi struts? If so, do yourself the favor and get some P1 springs. They are a much better spring and perfectly matched to that damper. While you have the dampers off, might as well give them a quick regrease to reduce the knocking and improve on any of the inherent stiction issues those struts have. Hopefully the internals of the damper are still in good shape. If not, you can get them completely rebuilt by some local rally shop or Bilstein. Or try out one of the various coilovers out there. Most on here seem to gravitate towards BC :cuckoo:. But they're cheap so I guess I can understand why. I would do a KW V2/3, Bilstein PSS9 or AST 4100 but most don't want to wait and save for that extra couple of months to get a better setup. Call me crazy! :lol: You can get better than those but the price goes up. I think Ian mentioned he picked up some new Reigers for only 2500. Which is frickin' amazing for that setup. I'd love to run those.

It's a V4 WRX V-Ltd

Wont the bump steer correction kit mitigate the lost damper travel?

I hear what you're saying on the springs, I really had no idea of their poor reputation

The car is understeering badly on the nearside front and despite arb's and having the geo set is still there. I need to find out if it's a damper which I suspect it is.

Other attribute which I'm not happy with is centre feel which is very vague and dull. My wagon is much more positive and that is std suspension all round except a rear arb

There'a alot of changes happening over the next few days so I'll get those up and running and re-asses. Thanks for your help

V4, so that doesn't use the inverted struts, correct? Just the old twin tube non-inverted struts?

The Roll Center Adjustment Kit does not do anything for lost damper travel. What it does do is correct the geometric issues you get by lowering/over-lowering your car. These being lowered front roll center and increased bump steer.

Your understeer on the near side front is, I assume, when making left turns? If so, it could be a few things:

1. not enough negative camber
2. lack of travel mid corner resulting in spring rate "spikes" which leads to understeer
3. roll center too low which increases body roll despite ARBs.
4. Blown damper leading to #2 as well as not controlling the wheel, i.e. whell/tire is bouncing all over the place.

Two of these issues can be easily solved by raising your ride height. The camber issue can be solved when you reset your geometry.

Your on center feel can be improved by installing some WL steering rack bushings. If you are still on the stock bushings, they are guaranteed to be completely knackered. This leads to slop and imprecision in your steering. You actually get a delay in steering response when you turn the wheel. Its a cheap mod to do and I highly suggest on any older car.

Another thing I suggest is to increase your caster. This will also lead to more front end grip, more steering feel and weightier steering as well. You can achieve this by installing a WL ALK or offset caster bushings. You can also use rotated camber plates or Whiteline's Max C camber plates for additional caster but that might be a bit much for a road going car.

Keep us up to date as you add more toys!

Brilliant, thanks. Plenty to be getting on with. Tuesday will be the next opportunity for reassessment. I'll check back in then

Arnie, as you're a suspension man (seen some of your other posts on other boards), what would your recommendation be if I was to go for an adjustable set-up - keeping within a reasonable budget. I would like to stay away from Taiwanese stuff?

Thanks

I applaud you for wanting to stay away from the Taiwanese stuff.

What are you planning, ultimately, for this car? will it become a full time track whore? Mainly b-road bashing with a track day a couple times a year? street tires only or semi-slicks? caged to standard full interior?

Primarily road car, with a rare TD so yes, mainly b-road bashing, Toyo Proxes and er, no roll cage ;)

At this stage, the priority is to get the car driving reasonably well, because as it is there is no damper travel in the corners and I am just damaging the rims as it crashes on the bumps.

I'm tempted to get another set of springs to raise the height some, as I'm liking the idea of shocks & springs rather than the firmer coilovers with less travel...

Wouldn't this be the better option for B-road hooning?

Personally, I think so. I like the travel and simplicity of a strut spring combo over a coilover. coilovers have so much maintenance issues on a road car. Well, if you want to properly maintain them, that is. KW is bit less maintenance with their stainless bodies and plastic spring perches.

For me, the best lowering spring out there for the GC were the Prodrive P1 springs. Only lowered 3/4" over stock. The other really cool spring were the STi Gymkhana springs. No lowering but I think they were 280lb springs (F). They were originally paired with Showa struts but those were damped REALLY firm. We usually paired those with Koni inserts for better ride quality on rough surfaces. I think the P1 springs were 215/195? Something like that. So depending on your tastes and needs I'd go with one of those. naturally, the V5 or 6 springs are a good option too. I think V6 were the stiffest (other than the Gymkhana).

As far as dampers go, you've got STi V5/6 struts if you can find them and have them rebuilt, Koni inserts, and KYB AGX. Not sure if Öhlins is still making a damper for GC.

STi V5/6: usual knocking issues at some point, non adjustable but can be revalved if you have a knowledgeable place. Quite good for the rough stuff at speed. a bit nuggety ride quality at sub-light speeds. ;)

koni: adjustable, great adjustability range, revalve possibilities. however, you need to cut and gut your strut as they are inserts. not suitable for off road. One concern I have always had, though, is oil capacity. Though I haven't really heard of anyone complain about it, I've always wondered if the kOni would suffer from overheating and cavitation issues on several laps of say the Ring (bumpy and fast).

AGX - full strut so no gutting necessary. just throw it on. only 4 clicks front, 8 rear. the clicks are pretty rough in their adjustment. No fine tuning really there as the jump in damping force between clicks is pretty large. but, its better than nothing and gives some benefit. plus they are fairly inexpensive

Öhlins - top dog with all the bling that they are known for. revalving possiblities. adjsutable, etc. etc. however, hard to find I imagine.

I think for cost and damper adjustability, I'd look at the Koni/P1 setup or Koni/STi setup. heck even standard V6 springs are quite nice.

Here's a great spring resource chart from a NASIOC member:

http://www.northursalia.com/techdocs/spring/spring.html

Great info, thanks :thumb: You're becoming somewhat of a voice of reason here...

So, these Koni Sports? to compliment the P1 springs?

It's a toss-up between the Koni's and a new set of V5/6 - I like the idea of a complete strut, plus they aren't too expensive from a stealer