Upgrade path question

After a wheel and tire Package, what would be done next to get best results? Finances limit me to upgrading suspension gradually.

 

Shocks and springs?

Sway Bars and end links?

 

I have searched but can't find a specific answer. Thanks.

Springs and struts.

 

Since you have an LGT, Koni's and pinks/epics would be perfect.

What are your intended goals in seeking to upgrade the suspension?

 

How many miles on current struts?

 

Immediate budget?

Is looks important or handling? If handling go sways. If looks go stuts/springs. If both go sways FIRST. You will need a rear sway bar mounting reinforcement bracket too. Endlinks can be replaced later and are easy enough to swap out.

 

If oem suspension is blown out, struts.

Sways with stock struts and springs are going to make an already over sprung car even worse on bumpy turns.

Define worse. I find ways make the car seem more AWD, more pointable, more steerable yet some "upgrades" to springs and struts are worthy of being called worse too (Megan coils for instance).

 

No matter what the whole suspension needs upgrading for 9/10th driving

a better alignment (more front camber) and just a 20mm rear swaybar is going to make the car a lot more fun to drive with pretty much no drawbacks. It's also cheap and something you won't ever have to change or re-do.

 

Really it depends on your budget. For a grand, yes, go with some new shocks and springs.

$500 initial budget. I'd like better handling (this is a daily driver) but want to avoid lowering the car due to crappy roads. Sounds like the consensus is for sways and rear bracket, then struts and springs to finish things off?

wl 20mm rsb

perrin or avo reinforcement brackets

WL ALK

installation

alignment

 

should come out pretty close to $500

How many miles on your car? (Did I miss it?)

 

That will determine if you should go struts/springs or sways first.

 

If you are at 75k+ you likely need new struts anyway. Also getting your car in a good maintenance place is as important or more important than handling. So what is the last major maintenance you have done?

 

-mike

 

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Another thought, if you have not bought wheels yet, then keep the stock 17's if they are in good shape. Stock wheels are light enough, and the money saved will let you get more done now.

 

Suggested order for budget suspension build:

 

Tires (conti's, PP's, eagles)

GR2's with stock springs

LCA bushings

RSB with brackets

Rallitek end links

Lower braces

I have 82k miles - I have kept up with regular maintenance and already have $ planned for 90k service. After this, $ will be allocated to timing belt at 105k miles. Clutch is still good.

 

I have practically new conti DWS on stock wheels now. Great in snow and rain, but soft sidewall is noticeable compared to the bridge potenza re960 PP I has before.

Would the struts and rsb help compensate for soft sidewall tires?

 

Again, this has been a great help.

I run 39psi front and 38psi rear on my conti's, not the stiffest tire on the market but good all around.

Springs and struts.

The sways were my first upgrade, I went with Hotchkis F&R sway bars $250 for the set :-) plus $100 for the AVO reinforcement. If you do the installation yourself, you can put some money towards struts and springs too and have the best of both worlds. Personally, I'm sticking with stock struts and I might get some STI springs for a bit better handling without lowering the car much.

Stock struts can't handle springs AND those sways.

 

I had the Hotchkis setup with stock suspension for a little while. Car felt OK on smooth roads, but on bumpy turns, the car was grossly oversprung. Almost dangerously so.

 

A 20mm bar is fine for good condition stock suspension, but big bars will hurt bumpy road handling by a LOT.

So bac, do ya think some Koni inserts should be in my future as well?

Absolutely.

I would say it like this for an upgrade path at your mileage:

 

Tires

 

Then, if budget is a constraint, a modest rear sway bar alone - the sway bars on this car aren't that bad, but you get alot of bang for the buck with a RSB upgrade. Further, swapping out sways has been a serious headache for me. $350 Cobb sways that always creaked, so I replaced the bushings with whitelines (which, by the way, don't fit the cobb sway bar brackets themselves...so back to stock brackets). Then the endlinks went out - there's another $200 on kartboy endlinks.

 

Alot of people look at sways as a minimum investment - I've spent ~$700 on my sways over the past 3 years and I still have a bit of noise.

 

Point being: Swap to a medium RSB and use high quality bushings and kartboy rear end links from the git-go. Probably $300 total investment.

 

...

 

As AZP Installs said, if you can do it from the beginning, upgrade your struts to koni inserts. ~$600 if you do it yourself, maybe $1000 for a shop - and that includes a fresh alignment, during which you should dial-in your alignment for a more sporting ride.

 

...then assess where you are at.

 

If I had to do it smart from the start, I'd put aside $1,500 and do, all at once at 60k miles, koni inserts, LCA bushings, alignment, a rear sway bar, rear sway bar bushings, and rear sway bar all at once.

I'd do it all at once, too.

 

I'm surprised by your sway issue, Joe. My hotchkis setup has been trouble free for more than a year now (more than 22k miles).

Stock endlinks are not that hateful. Mine held up to a 22mm bar front and rear for 30k. They hadn't failed yet, I just wanted to upgrade. Rallitek is the best value in Aftermarket endlinks. If I hadn't gone with rallitek, it would have been kartboys for sure.

 

Are you doing the work yourself?

Stock endlinks are not hateful but with less than 10k on mine after upgraded suspension mine were worn out. Not broken but definately done. I also drove harder than most.

 

I had the Hotchkis setup with stock suspension for a little while. Car felt OK on smooth roads, but on bumpy turns, the car was grossly oversprung. Almost dangerously so.

 

"bumpsteer" from springs in turns with bad bumps? I guess technically that would be called spring-steer. Sounds scary. Not being a smartass.

My front stock endlinks took a beating. They were toast with the stock FSB by 15k. Clunked all over the place.

 

It's not "bumpsteer" as the term is correctly used, but it's instability over bumps. It's what happens when a strut is oversprung/underdamped. You can ignore oversprung-ness when you are on a smooth road, making easy transitions to turning (very LONG sweepers), but any kind of slalom movement or bumpy road will show the damping problems pretty clearly.

Bac - 60kish on my Cobb Sways. I had good quality running for maybe 15-20k? And that was with regular greasing - like 4x a year.

 

Eventually, greasing 'em stopped working. It'd quiet down for a few days then get noisy.

 

I haven't had a truly quiet ride since I installed them. Since I put kartboy endlinks all aorund and whiteline bushings in the back, 99% of the noise is gone.

 

I have whiteline bushings for the front, but I only have the cobb bushing straps and they don't fit. And Subaru charges $54 for new front bushing straps (Yeah, I know, I told them they are 2 small c-shaped pieces of cheap metal about 1/4" thick...)...

 

I still get a tad bit of noise, but it's mostly quieted down.

 

There's also a small chance I have another issue in the rear, which might be that the top bolt going through the bushing strap, the reinforcement plate, and the sway bar mounting bolt is not grabbing like it should on one side - i.e. partially stripped or not seating right even after lots of removal and re-installation attempts.. I really don't feel like drilling that out though or taking any other significant measures, so I think I might pawn it off on someone like AZP installs if I take my car there for a number of things all at once....

If I had to do it smart from the start, I'd put aside $1,500 and do, all at once at 60k miles, koni inserts, LCA bushings, alignment, a rear sway bar, rear sway bar bushings, and rear sway bar all at once.

 

Well I've been reading a lot about where to start upgrading my leggy and it seems like bulking up my suspension before trying to dig out any added power is the way to go (besides a Stage 1 tune I intend to do as soon as the weather warms up). I have an 09' LGT 5EAT with ~45K miles on it. Ultimately I wanted to try to put a small investment into some suspension work but the more I read, the more just doing the full package like Joe said seems to be the way to go.

 

Might be worth it to just bite the bullet now and lay down a solid chunk of cash now and do it right rather than do it in pieces and end up wasting the time and extra cash for the work. Plus, if I do that much of an upgrade, I think it should more than quench my appetite for an UP/DP combo and Stage 2 tune for another year or so

 

The only thing I'm not sure on is the Koni inserts, or Bilsteins + ???, or just going with Eibach springs?? At first, it seemed like Bilsteins + Pinks was the way to go for the best performance/DD combo - I really don't want to sacrifice to much of my ride and I also want as minimal drop as possible - but the more I'm reading the less certain I get. Any other recommendations on a spring\strut with a solid ride and small drop? Thanks for the help!