Nick Read

Suspension is standard WRX wagon with Whiteline solid drop links front and rear. Goodyear Eagle F1s all round, plenty of tread. Since I've had the solid ARB links on it's done exactly what it says on the tin - the ARBs seem to load up with the same force, but just works sooner than before. I don't particularly want to lower it on Eibachs or anything, unless the factory springs start to sag.

In the dry this setup works fine, grip is phenomenal, through fast sweeping corners you can tell when the limit's coming up as it will go into a very slight four wheel drift, no understeer. Small amounts of power oversteer are available on demand coming out of roundabouts, easily correctable. So far so good, great fun.

But in the wet it's a different story. It will understeer horrendously once you're over the tyres' limits - and from years and years of using Eagles on different cars I have every confidence that if there's grip to be had in the wet, they will find it.

It's not that surprising that eventually the tyres let go in the wet if you keep the hammer down, but seeing as I have the advantage of 4wd, what can I do to push the balance towards neutrality/oversteer rather than understeer?

I'm thinking stiffening up movement at the rear and leaving the front as it is should do the trick...so something like a thicker rear ARB? What will adjusting toe settings / camber do to the car's natural cornering attitude?

Help!

jim litten

Getting the geo set up correctly (subaru's tolerances are a mile wide) and a thicker rear arb will help dial out understeer, if you put the same thickness arbs front and rear you'll just end up with a stiffer roll set up that will still understeer, the rear needs to be stiffer than the front, so reducing grip at the rear making the front end do more work.

Nick Read

Mmm that's what I thought, so swap the rear ARB for something beefier and get the geometry done. Glad I don't need to muck about with dampers or springs. Anything else I can tackle? And what exactly are the geometry settings I want?

jim litten

Depends how you use the car, I've got set up quite aggresively for track work, still ok on the roads but it'll eat tyres, but i don't use the car much, if you call Powerstation they can advise you on settings for how you use the scoob.