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Old 10-28-2010, 08:39 PM
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Crazy_pilot Crazy_pilot is offline
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Re: STI Suspension Swap Project

TADA!!! 50% done. I only have the fronts installed at the moment, not enough time to get to the rear.

Before and after:



The drill plate I made to locate the new holes in the shock tower:



Camber plates!!! And pillow balls!



And voila, installed:



WOOO!!! I'm happy. I still have to install the rears, so I haven't yet felt the full effect, but so far this is awesome. Of all the coilover-equipped cars I've ridden in this one is by far the best. The ride is firm but not jarring and there's zero "bouncy-ness". There's minimal body lean when cornering. Specs on this system is 8kg/mm front and 6kg rear, or ~450lbs front/335 rear. If I try to bounce the front end of the car by hand... Nothing happens.

There's no rubbing, no odd clunking... And LOTS of height adjustment left. I could drop the car another 2-2.5 inches if I wanted to. Kind of ridiculous actually.

Now, the installation. If you have an aversion to grinders, drilling holes in your car, and making a set of coilovers non-resellable, this modification in not for you. Here's what I had to do:

1. Drill 2 holes in each shock tower
2. The Stance camber plate is a circle. I had to grind the sides down in 2 places (rear and outside) where it didn't fit inside the shock tower. The SVX top mounts are very triangular and the shock tower doesn't fit much more than them.
3. Grinding the knuckles heavily. The section the strut attaches to is a few mm thinner on the WRX. I took the knuckles right out of the car to do this, it would have been almost impossible to do on the car.
3. Oval the holes of the coilover lower mount. The two bolts on the SVX are more widely spaced than the WRX.

This took me an entire afternoon to install these (~7 hours) with the car on a hoist and air tools. A fair amount of it was the grind-test-grind-test-grind process, and a good hour was lost getting the two ABS sensors out of the knuckle. This job is not for someone who has only done oil changes. If you're not comfortable with fabrication work and custom modifications just get someone to build you a Koni/GC system.
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Chris

92 Ebony Mica LS-L "A Rolling Restoration": 223,250 KM - Sleeping
2007 STi 6MT, Stance GR+ coilovers, PWR Rad, JDM hood badge, svxfiles 6000K HIDs, JDM Clear Corners, $15/15 min mod, $20/20 min mod, Energy Swaybar Bushings, Hella Supertones horns, Gold STi BBS rims, Group A lightweight crank pulley, A/C system removed, Custom header-back exhaust, Hybrid carbon/metal rear sway bar, restored headlights with CCFL halos
2008 Subaru Legacy Spec B - Diamond Grey Metallic - Sold
2020 Ram 1500 Longhorn - Red Pearl

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