Hi Guys,

Apologies, i guess you have been asked this hundreds of times before? Im thinking of getting coilovers for my 2002 WRX. Question is how low can you go with them? I'm just weighing up the options to see if its worth it for the extra cost versus springs and shocks. Cheers.

 

If your doing nothing next saturday pop along to corley services ,about 20.00 .You will see plenty of scoobs there with many different suspension set ups.Coilovers will lower your car a fair bit when adjusted ,but can also sacrifise the ride quality on our uk roads.Why not upgrade to sti suspension or better still prodrive bilsteins if you can find a set for reasonable money.

 

I went with 635mm from the floor to the top of the arch, no catching at all and is lowered by approx 40mm from standard Sti height.

 

Dont make the front suspension arms level, the geo will go out the window. So yes too low is bad.

dipster.

 

As others say, the lower the worse it can get. Are you going for looks over handling?

 

Agreed, depends on what you want or value more, the aesthetics or performance.

If you use the double adjustable/independent from ride height type of coilover like a BC then you can get pretty low without sacrificing suspension travel at the damper. You just have to watch how low you go as the damper insert can and will protrude from the bottom of the lower bracket and can contact the CV boot, tearing it. You can't get this low with a standard strut/lowering spring or coilovers without losing massive amounts of travel.

So if low is your ultimate goal rather than performance, get the cheapest coilover you can find, because all the rest (ride quality, handling, proper geometry, longevity, etc.) won't matter anyway.

davedipster - Just an FYI, the front wishbone parallel to the ground thing is a bit of a fallacy in the case of the impreza as the position of the outer ball joint is actually positioned higher than the bottom of control arm. So when the arms are parallel to the ground the ball joint is way above parallel and then you are deep into the "bad" area of the arm's arc and into the "positive camber" area. Saying that you should have your arms parallel to the ground is actually the farthest you want your arms to be. But its not the optimal. Because beyond this point, the arc of the arms begins to cause the outside wheel to go into positive camber. Ideally, from a visual standpoint, the arms should be at an angle to the road giving your outside wheel lots of movement while still in the negative camber portion of the arc.

But you are absolutely right, too low is bad.

 

Good info, I have near std ride height on my 03sti with BC coilovers so not a problem.
I suppose you could fit those extended height ball joints, but I don't like the fact that some have failed in service.

dipster

 

Cheers! Yes, you can certainly fit Whiteline's Roll Center Adjustment kits to help correct the geometry of an over-lowered car. They would be better than nothing on a slammed car. I don't think there's anything to worry about with their kit at this point. There was a production error and all the units were exchanged if you had issues. I never personally had an issue with the initial batch version but exchanged mine anyway for peace of mind and they have about 35k miles on them at this point. I'd fit them without a thought.