Help choosing Suspension, Breaks and Swaybars

[kiks]

Heh whats with the lists? Ok I'll bite. Mine currently.

Handling:
Ohlins DFV coilovers. 7kg front spring 9.5kg rear spring (eibach's)
Whiteline rear sway bar
Modified rear subframe for a higher roll centre
Every single bush even remotely related to alignment and suspension replaced with off the shelf whiteline or custom nolothane and crush tubes.
Front strut brace (whiteline)
Front control arm braces (whiteline for a GR impreza)
Full compliment of AVO braces
Whiteline ball joints and custom tie rod ends.
Whiteline rear lateral links
Front sway bar either connected or not depending on if I'm thrashing the shit out of it or not. Too much wheelspin with it on. This will change soon though.
595 RSR federals. I'll probably throw some R888's on after though as I do stuff all KM's and couldnt care less for tyre life.

About 15mm lower than stock. Any less and it seems to lose some anti dive and really loads up the outside fronts a lot. Still working on a fix for this and not sure if this is really the case as I cant monitor tyre temps.
2.3 and 1.5deg camber f/r, 3mm toe out on the rear, 0 front. 8.3deg castor.

Coming in the next month/already sitting at home.
Helical torsen front lsd
Cusco tarmac gear centre open diff
R180 and 2way plated rear diff
Alloy rear hub and trailing arms, Alloy rear upper control arms
GR sti alloy front control arms
Repair rear subframe again as it tears the swaybar mounts off ...zzzzz
Repair front left strut tower that's now bent and make fixed strut top plates at 2deg camber and 9deg castor out of 14mm alloy.
Prodrive GC06 or GC05's to drop some unsprung weight whilst still looking pimp
Probably zero the rear toe and slack off the swaybar a little as it'll be a fairly tail happy throttle steering cat with the cusco centre.

I'd steer clear of any of that tein crap, or random other cheap coilovers. If you want something off the shelf, go ohlins or KW's. Otherwise speak to a decent shock guru and have something made up. Performanceshock.com were looking at 3 way adjustable penske inserts in wrecker bilstein housings with a weld on spring perch, was looking at roughly 4.5g for that option, my choice of valving based on motion ratio and stock spring rate. Murray Coote could do some 3way koni's for about 5 locally using rebuilt second hand struts. Good luck finding them though in a decent timeframe.

I'll say quite bluntly though, a set of good tyres with no front sway bar will be the single best handling improvement you could possibly want.

[kiks]

In addition to John's list, you could add alloy lower control arms too, pending budget and objectives. They're stronger and offer an unsprung weight advantage.

Stronger also isnt a good thing. They arent used on anything used in competition due to the fact they dont crumple like steel pressed control arms. Hot tip, roads are full of gutters and steel control arms do a great job of stopping a chassis from flexing on a big hit where as the alloy arms just destroy everything.

Lighter ftw though.

[teK--]

Very nice setup you have/will have Kiks, look forward to you setting up a build thread with lots of pics of your nice gear.

[kiks]

no threads or pics mate, Im a hopeless photographer and I dont quite care for things looking pretty. I'm sure there'll be some on track vids soon enough. Happy to comment about how it all feels and goes though. If it handles as well as a 1989 mx5 with bald tyres I'll be happy.

[Kekotic]

Happy to comment about how it all feels and goes though.

Can you recommend which bushes or other things to replace to improve overall handling?
I have done the following:
front lower control arm bushes
cusco front & rear sways with aftermarket endlinks and also cusco heavy duty rear swaybar mount.
front tower strut brace
cusco underbody H brace
but that's all so far.
I also purchased these ( http://whiteline.com.au/product_detail. ... mber=W0506 ) from Whiteline but never bothered to put them in as the guy putting in the the other bushes said it wouldn't be worth it (too big of a job for basically no gain he said)

For info I don't plan on tracking my car other than maybe once or twice, so I'm not after a race car. Just some decent upgrades that can be done.

[SegR]

Someone correct me on this, but is there such thing as Spec B springs? I thought the Spec B come with Billies paired with the standard stock springs.

I think PHAT said it's just the stock springs on the Billies, when he was taking mine off the car. I may have misheard though.

Can anyone confirm this?

I'm interested to know what impact throwing bilsteins under a 3.0R will have on ride height (since the wheel power ones come with springs also)

[Kekotic]

Can anyone confirm this?

I'm interested to know what impact throwing bilsteins under a 3.0R will have on ride height (since the wheel power ones come with springs also)

Ride height will probably increase a little (yes you read that correctly) as a few people found out when they put bilsteins in.

[DrivesLikeJehu]

I wonder how accurate this is ?
http://mrtperformance.com.au/forums/sho ... .php?t=184
And, I read somewhere else, that the spring perch on the front billies is 10mm different to the standard ones ? Lower, or higher ?

[Arith]

Ride height will probably increase a little (yes you read that correctly) as a few people found out when they put bilsteins in.

And, I read somewhere else, that the spring perch on the front billies is 10mm different to the standard ones ? Lower, or higher ?

According to the original spec sheet, the Bilstein equipped Libertys were ~10mm higher in ride height than standard. I always thought the stiffer shocks would have more resistance so the car wouldn't be as low. But the perch may be the more technical result.

[DrivesLikeJehu]

I just found another post where a subaru employee told the poster the billies had a 10mm higher seat on the front to allow for 18s plus tyres, versus 17s plus tyres on the Pov-packs/taxi versions.
Might be just sales talk, but it sounds feasible.
It's a shame nobody who has done the upgrade/swapover wasn't interested enough to get the tape measure out while both were on the workshop floor (yet).
It's also worth contemplating the likelihood that some of the lift experienced with the swapover may be due to replacing old tired sagged springs/shocks with new/low-K billies.

[smythie]

Ride height will probably increase a little (yes you read that correctly) as a few people found out when they put bilsteins in.

And, I read somewhere else, that the spring perch on the front billies is 10mm different to the standard ones ? Lower, or higher ?

According to the original spec sheet, the Bilstein equipped Libertys were ~10mm higher in ride height than standard. I always thought the stiffer shocks would have more resistance so the car wouldn't be as low. But the perch may be the more technical result.

I wonder how much of that 10mm would have been affected by the 12.7mm increase in rolling radius by going from 215/45R17 to 215/45R18

[DrivesLikeJehu]

C'mon pimp, don't keep us in suspenders ! How's about an update ?
Wanna try some cheap billie take-offs ?

[Deep Heat]

C'mon pimp, don't keep us in suspenders ! How's about an update ?
Wanna try some cheap billie take-offs ?

I ran out of money after buying some new speakers for the car and a new laptop for school so this got put on hold

Are the $500 Billies from wheelpower a large improvment?
What size and brand swaybars would be best?
Screw brakes there a waste of time its not like Im going to be going that fast anyway.

[DrivesLikeJehu]

Where are you located, Pimp ? Sydney, like most of 'em here ?
You won't believe the difference with the billies in, they're you're first upgrade if you're on a budget.
My version of a budget upgrade would be:
Bilsteins
The used pink springs for sale here, or the next set of Tein springs that list
20mm rear swaybar off an STI with poly bushes
Don't touch the front bar unless the bushes are totally rooted.
Better front control arm bushes that add caster.
A proper wheel aligmnent, giving as much camber as the factory allows, hopefully in the range of at least 1.5 front, 1degree rear.
It'll drive like an entirely different car.

[Rome_BRZ]

Where are you located, Pimp ? Sydney, like most of 'em here ?
You won't believe the difference with the billies in, they're you're first upgrade if you're on a budget.
My version of a budget upgrade would be:
Bilsteins
The used pink springs for sale here, or the next set of Tein springs that list
20mm rear swaybar off an STI with poly bushes
Don't touch the front bar unless the bushes are totally rooted.
Better front control arm bushes that add caster.
A proper wheel aligmnent, giving as much camber as the factory allows, hopefully in the range of at least 1.5 front, 1degree rear.
It'll drive like an entirely different car.

Not my springs you are talking about by any chance?

I also have a used STI rear sway bar hanging around too...