rasheedn

I thought we need to have a thread like this and maybe make it a sticky?

As we all know, the new age STi's 01 - 07 don't have the best handling out of the box. Most of us suffer from understeer. And start to wonder what can we do to improve and get more out of the car.

Things to do:

1. Rear ARB or Anti Roll Bar. There are different sizes and some are adjustable and non adjustable. The stock ARB is 19mm and is not adjustable.
It all despends on how hardcore you want to be. If the car is a daily driver and you track it (like me) i would go for a 22-24 mm adjustable.

At first i installed it on the middle hole for medium strength and straight away the car handled so much better with less oversteer, nicer steering on turns and some lift off overteer.

Two weeks later i changed it to the hardest setting (the hole closer to the back of the car) and the car felt better. I prefer it on the hardest setting, some people say its too hard for daily driving... Its easy to try out 1 bolt each side. You can do it on ur drive.


2.ALK or Anti Lift Kit. ALK is still designed to add 0.5 deg static positive castor to both front wheels while introducing a substantial amount of front anti-lift. ALK oppose front lift under acceleration while delivering up to +1 degree more positive caster. This leads to superior traction, reducing understeer allowing more power, faster acceleration and cornering.

When I installed this which was not very easy as it came with the worst instructions ever! It helped a lot the was a lot less front lift off when launching and turn in was smoother.


3.Geometry settings. There are a lot of different settings all depending on what you want to do with your car. If your just like me, want to have fun around some twisties or track it once a while. I went to for max front camber with the stock bolts. 1 degree camber at the back. And stock toe all around the car.

I think this made the car handle so sweet. The stock car comes with 0 camber. So adding around 1.2 degrees transformed the car sooo much. Turning is soo much easier and forget about understeer! The car now feel well planted!

There are so many other setting out there to try out ie..
Prodrive settings:
Front camber -1.3/4 toe 1.0
Rear camber -1.1 toe 1.0

Whiteline suggest:
Front camber -1.5 toe 0.0
Rear camber -1.25 toe 1.0 (rear camber bolts?)


4.Good tires! When I 1st got the car it had two wanley tires on the back! The car used to fish tail when launching hehe. Changed them to yokahama tires and no more fishtailing but the car still didnt' handle so well. I could feel it was going to slide or snap or something. And in the wet! They were hopeless! If i floor it or go on boot the car would just slide and go sideways!!

So i finally decided to go and get what everyone else recomended here. Goodyear Eagle F1 DSG3. WOW the differece is amazing. I never thought only tires can make the car handle so much better. Grip in the dry so amazing. And in the wet its even better.


So this is as far as i've got till now. Got a front ARB to be fitted soon, Will report on that one.

And thinking of suspension. May go for springs(prodrive) or go directly coilovers(tein).


If you have anything to add or any comments on what i've done let me know.

Rasheed

eggy790

iTrader: (20)

bump just found this, seems a good article to push to the top

greatgonzo

iTrader: (1)

Good read that ! I'm saving my Penny's for a Whiteline rear anti roll bar for my SpecD going for the 22mm. Then having a fast road set up

The rookie

iTrader: (1)

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

The ALK INCREASES front end lift under power , that is what Whiteline tells you it will do in their tech docs! Why do people buy stuff without reading what the manufacturer claims it will do? - Oh sorry this is scoobynet and we prefer to continue to propogate the allegation that all scooby owners are mindless chavs perhaps? Instead I would prefer to do the opposite and show that we are intelligent human beings who can do intelligent research and make educated decisions - LOL

http://www.whiteline.com.au/articles...WL%20ALK_b.pdf

Simon

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

Indeed.

What you really need is the anti-anti-lift kit

Potiriadis

Right,

I have just read the Whiteline document, and it appears that an Anti Lift kit works by preventing braking and accelerating forces from locking out or bottoming out the suspension by transferring the load away from the springs and into the suspension components. What we in the mountain bike world used to refer to as active suspension geometry.

Sounds bonkers, hope it works as mine is going on later this month, along with 22mm front and rear ARB's. Can someone tell me what drop links do?

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

They link the suspension to the ARB's which are fastened to the car.

Potiriadis

Seriously though, they replace the drop links that are already on the car, why change to alloy/steel?

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

The plastic ones can flex before the bar starts controlling the movement. Alloy ones will create a more direct link between the movement of the car/suspension with the twisting force on the arb that controls how much body roll is happening.

Potiriadis

Is it therefor possible to infer that maintaining the oem shocks, but upgrading ARBs, anti lift, and also drop links will retain the stock car's comfort/suppleness, while sharpening up the handling and dialing out the body roll and understeer?

I hope so as I am about to blow a few hundred quid to achieve exactly this.

While we are at it, I am trying to find out if the revalved power steering of a type 20 can in bought as an upgrade?

53

iTrader: (41)

Correct, although comfort is somewhat subjective

The rookie

iTrader: (1)

Hmm as that is not what it says at all, try reading it again.......

Many suspension designs include an anti-lift/dive or pro/anti squat (rear) element to achieve certain parameters (jn fact very few have no such feature), it has nothing to do with preventing locking/bottoming out but to do with modifying the vehicles responce to drive/brake force inputs, but yes its a similar principle as say pro-pedal on the rear of a double bumper, although my MTB has the ultimate pro-pedal being a hardtail.

Simon

jd5217

So the anti-lift kit is pointless then?

The rookie

iTrader: (1)

No not at all, it does what it says in the whiteline tech document, slight improvemnet in front end traction and reduced understeer. Its just badly named as it doesn't 'improve' front end lift per se.

Simon