Darren Soothill

Just thought it would be worth posting up my findings of trying to get a compromise setup with the Whiteline ALK with Leda suspension on a Type R.

The first and most important thing to note before I go any further is that the torque split on the Type R is different in that it has a far more rearward bias to the other cars and this I believe has a large bearing on the findings that I have had.

The Anti Lift Kit is designed to do just that prevent the nose of the car from lifting under acceleration. The implications of the nose lifting under acceleration are that weight is transfered from the front of teh car to the rear so that effectively that car becomes lighter at the front. As the maximum grip that a car can achieve is a function of the weight then by transferring weight to the rear of the car you are effectively reducing the amount of grip at the front of the car. This combination then means that the car is more likely to understeer. but far less likely to oversteer underpower hence a safe normal driver setup.

A sporting driver will very quickly find this a limitation and this is one of the reasons that the ALK has come about by altering the geometry at the front of the car then the car does not lift as much you then have less weight transfer to the rear of the car more weight at the front meaning ultimately more grip at the front (assuming you dont overwhelm the total grip of the tyres). This setup is all very well in a car that is more front wheel drive than rear wheel drive such as the UK spec cars or the 4 door STI's but the problem in the Type R is that it already has a rearward bias to the power and reducing the weight transfer makes the rear of the car very lively to put it mildly!

Altering the rear geometry of the car to parallel at the rear also makes the rear end of the car far more lively and I never got round to trying toe out as this I think would have made the car lethal.

As the car was setup the ALK appeared to reduce the responsiveness of the steering to inital turn in and understeered quite alot in steady state cornering and the car oversteered quite alot on corner exit under power.

In the end I have ended up removing the ALK and going back to more conventional ways of trying to sort out the handling by running 2degrees negative camber at the front and 1 degree negative camber at the rear with 1mm toe in all round.

I am not saying that the ALK wouldnt work on a UK spec car but I certainly found that it didnt work on the Type R with Leda suspension and know of at least one other person who has had similar negative results trying to use it on a 4 door STI.

[This message has been edited by Darren Soothill (edited 26-07-2000).]

Neil F

Thanks Darren.

I was considering fitting ALK to my STi4 but was put off by the reports of distorted bushes due to the altered wishbone angle.
It is the first time that I've heard negative reports about it's performance however, although I guess your the first to use in conjunction with Leda?
I was under the impression that even the 4 door STis (like mine) had a different torque split to UK cars? The figures 50:50 UK, 60:40 STi and 65:35 TypeR springs to mind (but I'm not entirely sure).
At present, my handling is so improved since fitting Eibachs to my Bilsteins that I'm quite happy with the reduction in understeer which I now find is apparent only at ludicrous extremes and it can be completely eliminated with a little judged balance of corner approach and power application.
You obviously have a more enquiring mind, what with going to all the expense of Leda and then trying to improve it!
Mind you, it's great for people like me as we don't have to spend the money to see your results .
Thanks again for the update.

Neil

GraemeF

I too was considering having the ALK fitted to my sti5 with Leda C.. still playing with the settings with mine....

GavinP

I think Darren's point about the type of Scoob (and suspension) is very important in this.

I have a 94 WRX and the handling when I first got the car was very poor IMHO - fitting the ALK and rear links improved it no end.

Front end lift was pretty epic and understeer the only handling characteristic.

For early cars I would say it is very worthwhile IMHO but the popular opinion seems to be that the effect is reduced in later years.

When people write "I've just had XYZ suspension fitted and it's brilliant..." posts, I feel that the model that it is fitted to is overlooked sometimes and owners with different OE suspension setups may find it less desirable on their car in comparison.

The distortion issue also seems devoid of the model of Scoob it was fitted to - it certainly hasn't happened on my car - yet!

Thanks

Gavin