Honest thoughts on my suspension and BBK plan, with parts list.

[TheMonaLisa]

I found the limit of stock calipers, Stoptech sport pads, and centric premium disks by going from 115 to 10 all while going down a massive hill. My brakes were gone after that and I could smell the glazed pads.

 

 

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[LatentWagen]

I found the limit of stock calipers, Stoptech sport pads, and centric premium disks by going from 115 to 10 all while going down a massive hill. My brakes were gone after that and I could smell the glazed pads.

 

 

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You found the limit of the ST pads, not your calipers

 

I've bumped into that limit with my setup, too. There are always trade-offs for street driving... but, go any more aggressive on the pad, and it doesn't bite well when cold/wet/etc.

[boxkita]

I found the limit of stock calipers, Stoptech sport pads, and centric premium disks by going from 115 to 10 all while going down a massive hill. My brakes were gone after that and I could smell the glazed pads.

 

 

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You could smell braking at the limit. If you re bedded the pads, changed the fluid you would have been fine again. Unless the pad material was fully removed, the brakes would still work. They'll be spongy but workable especially after they cool down.

[TheMonaLisa]

You could smell braking at the limit. If you re bedded the pads, changed the fluid you would have been fine again. Unless the pad material was fully removed, the brakes would still work. They'll be spongy but workable especially after they cool down.

 

 

 

Oh yeah I didn't touch the brakes at all after that. They were very spongy so just let them cool down for 5 mins then went on my way. Ran that set up for 2 years and was very happy with it.

Only problem was I seize 4 front calipers (2 right and 2 left) within 3 years. Went to STI front Brembos and have been trouble free. Still have original rear calipers with 137k miles now.

[Diesel_Jeremiah]

Suspension tuning: If you don't have your c/o adjusted/corner balanced, you wasted your money. A competent shop (Group 2 in Bothell, etc) can make all the difference in how your car handles. You spent all the money on parts, why not get all the performance you paid for?

 

On Boxkita's recommendation, I called Group 2 today. After speaking with Jeremy, I'm going to email him the parts list.

 

Speaking with him for a bit, his suspension and Subie guy (Ben) is a fan of Stoptech brakes.

 

I'll post his response once he replies. I'm interested to see from a professional installers perspective on upgraded stock vs STI/Brembo vs Stoptech.

 

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[shralp]

I can tell you right now that guys that do this (and sell that) for a living will steer you towards getting rid of stock. Its in their DNA. Whether you really NEED them is different story but we've gone over that already. Of course there is always NEED and WANT, I get it

[Diesel_Jeremiah]

I can tell you right now that guys that do this (and sell that) for a living will steer you towards getting rid of stock. Its in their DNA. Whether you really NEED them is different story but we've gone over that already. Of course there is always NEED and WANT, I get it

 

My need vs want radar is a little blurry

 

I feel you completely. Of course sales people want to make their money, and they will either make it once on a big sale and never again. Or sell the customer what is right for them and have a repeat customer, with more recommendations to their business. I haven't talked to them in person yet, so we'll see what angle they play.

 

That being said, how about some of you share pictures of your suspension and brake set ups? Throw in a couple pros/loves and cons/hates... Would you do your same systems again, or go a completely different route if you had a do-over?

[wesleyCrowbar]

I'll play. No pictures, since I have stock wheels (and all seasons) hiding my bling

 

Spec B LCAs

Whiteline Roll Center kit

Koni shocks

H&r springs

Whiteline (I think) camber bolts

OEM top hats

 

StopTech slotted rotors

StopTech stainless lines

Hawk HPS pads

5.1 (I think) fluid

 

Running 1.5* up front and 1* in the rear for camber.

I'd for sure buy this setup again and would easily recommend it to anyone. The only thing I may have done differently is save up a liiitle longer and get coilovers (just for bling and a little more camber adjustability. Most likely fortune auto).

 

Pros are the easy day to day livability. I've got the konis set about half way to full firm both front and rear. It has truly been set it and forget it.

The cons are things we've all learned to live with: lower ride means more scraping driveways, harsher over bumps, and the like. No real complaints.

[TheMonaLisa]

I will give it a shot. Just got it aligned 3 days ago for the first time.

 

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160927/7efda7b9a5e89dbdf677a42374a887e5.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160927/a87f2165641aeee5bae0e1f032a03ddc.png

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160927/d0540c605985b8d331fff20ae5a24c7c.png

 

Eibach springs and Koni struts

Whiteline tophats (-0.5 camber / +0.75 caster)

Whiteline front LCA bushings (+0.5 caster)

Whiteline bump steer / roll center kit

Whiteline rear control arm kit and toe lockout bolts

Whiteline swaybars 22 front and 20 rear

AVO braces

 

STI front calipers and stock rear calipers

DBA 4000 rotors F&R

Stoptech sport pads F&R

Stoptech stainless lines F&R

Grimmspeed master cylinder brace

 

For camber running 1.5* front and 1.0* rear. Caster is 6.7* left and 6.3* right. Toe is 0.00* all around.

 

Probably didn't need the bump steer / roll center kit or the rear control arm kit for the minimal lowering of the Eibach springs. Decided to replace the original ball joints and tie rod ends because the car has 138k miles so picked up the Whiteline kit just cause. Also one rear toe bolts was froze. Cut up one of the rear control arms while cutting out said frozen bolt so opted for the Whiteline control arm kit with toe lockout bolts.

 

Pros:

Minimal lowering so does not scrape. All the additional caster has transformed the car. Steering is much heavier, turn in is better, tacks straiter down the road. The guy who aligning the car said it was a dream to align the Whiteline control arms (which I disassemble and smothered with antiseize).

 

Cons:

The Whiteline rear control arms squeak a little in parking lots. Once in a while the ALK will groan in a parking lot. On the road you can not hear any squeak/ groan noise because its masked by general road noise. This makes it ok and livable.

 

 

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[Diesel_Jeremiah]

Your car is phenomenal by the way...

 

AVO braces

 

I understand the sway bar AVO brace is a must. Though, now that you bring it up I remember you having their front and rear support as well.

 

Do you feel they are worth the money?

Do they help or hurt on "normal" roads?

Do they make your car more responsive? (What is there purpose?)

 

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[TheMonaLisa]

Your car is phenomenal by the way...

 

 

 

I understand the sway bar AVO brace is a must. Though, now that you bring it up I remember you having their front and rear support as well.

 

Do you feel they are worth the money?

Do they help or hurt on "normal" roads?

Do they make your car more responsive? (What is there purpose?)

 

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Thank you sir, much appreciated.

Aside front the necessary swaybar braces, bracing in general has small benefit for the money. The general consensus about bracing is that it's only worth doing when your racing.

I installed them the same time as everything else so I can't comment as to how the braces themselves changed the car. My guess is that you would not feel a difference on normal roads, you would only feel a difference during aggressive driving.

All three brace kits I have are suspension mount stiffening (rear swaybar mount plus front and rear control arm mount). The purpose is to prevent the mounts from flexing under load thus preventing unwanted changes in handling.

 

I chose the AVO braces over the Cusco braces for a couple of minor reasons. If your looking to go crazy, Cusco makes the same control arm mount braces that AVO does plus chassis braces. See below (not my car).

 

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160927/f0e390b94144adb5495a43f6a88c1f92.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160927/7aea725e11f42157886569ee020da6d3.jpg

 

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[Diesel_Jeremiah]

Running 1.5* up front and 1* in the rear for camber.

 

Whiteline tophats (-0.5 camber / +0.75 caster)

Whiteline front LCA bushings (+0.5 caster)

 

That set up looks intense. I've been eyeing the KillerBee oil pan since I had the oil pickup line installed...

 

I found some videos that help me to learn a bit.

I felt like sharing.

 

Caster:

 

Camber:

 

Camber kit explained:

 

Toe In/Out:

 

Steering Axis Inclination:

 

And for funsies:

[LatentWagen]

This is becoming quite the informational thread, D_J!

 

May as well add my spec. B's suspension and braking setup to the list

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=238386&stc=1&d=1475100796

 

 

Suspension:

RCE Tarmac Coilovers 400lb/400lb w/ spec.B tops

Hotchkis Tubular Swaybars F&R 25mm/22mm

AVO Rear Swaybar Reinforcement Brackets

AVO F&R Solid Endlinks

Fresh OEM Bushings all around

 

Brakes:

Brembo STi F&R Calipers

DBA 5000 T3 2-Piece Front Rotors

DBA 4000 T3 Adapter Rear Rotors

Stoptech SS F&R Lines

Stoptech Street Performance Pads

Kartboy Rear Caliper Brackets

ATE Super Blue DOT4

Also have a set of TiC titanium shims and some Carbotech XP-8 pads to swap in for track use (haven't used them yet)...

 

Wheels are SSR Competition 17" x 8.5" +48 with Bridgestone PP S-04 245/40 (worn out, MPSS next, but first I'll switch to Dunlop 4D Winters on '04 STi BBS).

[Diesel_Jeremiah]

This is becoming quite the informational thread, D_J!

 

Suspension:

RCE Tarmac Coilovers 400lb/400lb w/ spec.B tops

Hotchkis Tubular Swaybars F&R 25mm/22mm

AVO Rear Swaybar Reinforcement Brackets

AVO F&R Solid Endlinks

Fresh OEM Bushings all around

 

I'm trying to learn as much as possible, and if everyone posts what they have, like, hate, problems, etc. We all win.

Nice Spec B by the way.

 

1) Why 400lb instead of the 500lb I bought from scoobyscoodle?

Is it preference or a reason?

2) Is there a reason you went with 25mm/22mm F/R instead of 22mm/20mm?

3) Why OEM Bushings? Not a fan of Poly?

[LatentWagen]

I'm trying to learn as much as possible, and if everyone posts what they have, like, hate, problems, etc. We all win.

Nice Spec B by the way.

 

1) Why 400lb instead of the 500lb I bought from scoobyscoodle?

Is it preference or a reason?

2) Is there a reason you went with 25mm/22mm F/R instead of 22mm/20mm?

3) Why OEM Bushings? Not a fan of Poly?

 

Thanks man, it's got 189k and counting on the original motor and turbo, and is still going strong. I'm running an ordinary stage 2+ setup with a custom tune. When choosing the suspension parts, I wanted to maintain a comfortable ride with as few compromises as possible.

 

To answer your Q's:

 

1) It's a daily driver, and I live in the NYC area, where there are plenty of axle breaking potholes to avoid. If I lived in Florida or Las Vegas, or somewhere with decent roads, the 500lb/in springs would be fine.

2) The sway bars are tubular. They're lighter, but weaker, hence the larger diameter bar. IIRC the tubular 25mm/22mm setup equates to about 22mm/20mm with solid bars.

3) Having done the poly thing, I wanted to keep the NVH, squeaks, and fitment issues to a minimum. Since my drop is so mild, I skipped all the WL bits. I'm sure there is a little left on the table in terms of responsiveness (and adjustability), but with the new OEM bushings alone, the improvement over old was drastic. The car still feels good and doesn't make a squeak after 40k+ miles, unless I forget to grease my front swaybar bushes. It holds a good alignment (-2.0F/-1.5R, 0 toe), and wears tires evenly.

[Ellesedil]

I will give it a shot. Just got it aligned 3 days ago for the first time.

 

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160927/7efda7b9a5e89dbdf677a42374a887e5.jpg

 

I may have missed this, but what wheels are you running?

[TheMonaLisa]

I may have missed this, but what wheels are you running?

 

 

 

You didn't, I omitted listing my wheels.

They are Enkei Racing RSM9 in 18x8 et48.

This exact size is being discontinued btw.

 

 

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[Diesel_Jeremiah]

Ok everyone, I got a price quote from G2 Motorsports...

I emailed them the parts list, only to install parts.

 

Their hourly rate is $125/hr.

The overall hours add up to 40.4

This doesn't include the cost of the parts.

So all together, it added up to $5732 to INSTALL the parts.

 

I am also having the local shop I have all my "normal" work done make me up a quote as well.

 

Does this look right?

[magnusonsubie]

I think those times are drastically overdone. Techs who know what they are doing should be able to get that whole list done in a day. With 2 people working that would be 16hrs of labor and thats really all you need. Especially cause they'll have it up on a lift. Even if it were one person it wouldn't take them a whole week to do that list. I'd talk to other shops for sure. Or do it yourself if you are able to. I'm pretty certain my brother and I would be able to bust that whole list out, with the car on jack stands in a weekend.

 

I'm no master tech but I'm fairly agile with a wrench and it took me 4 hours from pulling into the garage to car back on the ground and tools put away to do my coilovers. Granted when I put them on I went WAY too low but I could still drive it around.

 

Sway bar endlinks probably take 5 min each since they'll already have the car on the lift.

 

Control arm swap while swapping in the bushings is probably listed an hour longer than it will actually take them.

 

Motor mounts, Transmission, and pitch stop all together should really probably be 2.5 hrs, not the 4.8 they quoted.

 

The ride height adjustment and alignment is definitely quoted more than fair though. I spent probably 4 hours alone messing with my height till I got it where I wanted it and then the alignment took another 2 hours.

 

Brakes shouldn't take 6.5 hours. I'd say an hour between 2 techs to swap rotors, lines, and calipers on all 4 and then another 30 min to bleed the system. So 3 hours total billed time.

 

TL;DR Those rates are pretty absurd for install times. I'd recommend doing the work yourself if able or finding a different shop.

[magnusonsubie]

That being said, how about some of you share pictures of your suspension and brake set ups? Throw in a couple pros/loves and cons/hates... Would you do your same systems again, or go a completely different route if you had a do-over?

 

I've been meaning to do this for the past couple days.

 

This is my short list of current suspension stuff on my car.

 

Suspension & Wheels & Brakes:

ISC N1 Coilovers 8k front 6k rear springs

Whiteline 20mm rear sway bar w/polybushings and lateral locks

Whiteline 24mm front sway bar w/ polybushings and lateral locks

Whiteline KCA313 Bumpsteer/Roll center kit

AVO Rear Sway Bar Brackets

Rota Gravel wheels 18x8.5 et44 w/ Bridgestone S-04 pole position 245/35

Hawk HPS pads

Centric slotted rotors

 

-1.5* Camber front

0* Toe front and rear

6.35* caster front

-2.25* camber rear (I need to get whiteline lateral links)

 

This set up has a nice aesthetic quality but it definitely isn't super comfortable. But I do still drive it hard and have an absolute blast. I don't have much understeer especially if I brake late into a corner to throw the weight forward. The uncomfortable part is just because I have quite a bit of preload on the springs and the rebound pretty high to eliminate rubbing issues.

This is how it sits with this set up:

 

Previously I had this set up for a year. The only reason I switched was purely aesthetic because I didn't like the amount of wheel gap I had.

 

Koni Yellow Struts/strut inserts W/H&R sport springs

Whiteline 20mm rear sway bar w/polybushings and lateral locks

Whiteline 24mm front sway bar w/ polybushings and lateral locks

AVO Rear Sway Bar Brackets

Rota Gravel wheels 18x8.5 et44 w/ Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetric 235/40

Hawk HPS pads

Centric slotted rotors

 

This set up was absolutely awesome driving wise! I could turn up the rebound a little for weekend fun drives or turn it down a little for more comfort while just normal driving. I ended up just leaving it around 3/4 of full firm all around though just because it gave a good comfort and sport aspect to it. And here's how it sat with those struts and springs.

 

 

 

If I could do it over again. I would have stayed on the struts and springs longer and bought Ohlin's coils when I could afford them. I do still need to buy a few suspension items but I'm not trying to do everything at once and I'm kinda trying to limit myself to a yearly alignment schedule. So next summer will probably be the WL rear lateral links.

[LatentWagen]

TL;DR Those rates are pretty absurd for install times. I'd recommend doing the work yourself if able or finding a different shop.

 

I almost spit my coffee out of my mouth looking at those estimated hours. Six hours to install some coilovers?!? My RCE's came assembled with ride-height preset by Myles. Took them out of the box and had them installed in under 3 hours, and I'm a hack.

 

D_J, you really need to find another shop, this one is trying to screw you.

[Diesel_Jeremiah]

I'm going to see what my local shop quotes me. She said either today or Monday she'll email it to me.

 

If nothing else, I'll keep buying parts and use a friend's garage. He and I could get it done in a weekend or so. But, he also worked at Kitsap Tire for years.

 

Like I've said before, I'm learning. I just had a feeling that was an outrageous quote.

 

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[Diesel_Jeremiah]

Your wagon looks super clean.

I'm growing to appreciate wagons more, now that I'm seeing them done right.

 

The only reason I switched was purely aesthetic because I didn't like the amount of wheel gap I had.

 

Do you remember the gap before and after?

 

I have about 1" rear & 1-3/4" front currently. That Sub, Amp, & Box weigh quite a bit. But the car also had a bit of ass sag before.

 

I'm really looking at 3/4" +/- after everything is done.

 

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[magnusonsubie]

I didn't actually measure it. Just know there was gap and now there is not. Especially in the rear. I actually tuck a little bit in the rear because of the way the body panels are.

[shralp]

Day-umm! That install estimate is waaaay to high!