Just bought 06 WRX tr...springs question
 

hey guys i live in reno and just got a new dub. my 01 dodge dakota got totalled out in front of my house by my drunk neighbor so i put the money from that into a downpayment for the dub. anyways i was thinking of putting some prodrive springs on my car. has anyone done a spring install on there cars yet? how hard would this be for me to do? also i think it drops the car like an inch, should this be a problem with the small amount of snow we see here in reno and the drives to northstar for snowboarding? heres pics of my old truck and new car.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...r/IMG_0482.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...r/sideview.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...manunr/wrx.jpg

Very nice........the subaru, sorry about the dodge. Welcome!

Welcome.

Prodrive springs are great performance springs. The drop shouldn't be a problem unless you find some deep chunky snow.

how hard would these be to put on?

Its pretty easy about 3hrs with the right tools!

I have Prodrives on my RS and it has never caused me any problems in the snow. Like qksubi said it's not too difficult. I'm sure you could intice some folks to help you when the time comes with some beer or what not.

Welcome to the board man!

What's up guy. <----noiwontusea?

Welcome! Congrats on the new WRX. :) It's fun car you'll enjoy it. Springs are indeed easy to install. The sti pinks are also good springs.

D- Baby
Wife- What D?
D- Look, it's a 06 with a 2.5 liter engine.
Wife- My Jeep has a 4.7 liter, you can race it.
D- Dear, it's a Jeep. I can't race a Jeep.
Wife- Why not Dale Jarret wants to race the truck. :lol:

Wow...Wrong thread maybe?

What's a "dub"?

http://www.cruzinonchrome.com/dub-esinem-car_large.JPG

Nice TR though. Don't park it on the street unless your neighbor's moved out! :eek:

Nope, it's the correct thread. That's how the conversation went as I showed her the new black 06. I told her that they will be in my class with a bigger engine and it went on from there.

haha i call the wrx a "dub". i was also looking into the tein htechs and the crucials for springs. basically i want to drop it about 1.5" and even out the wheel wells without to bad of a ride. i dont really plan on doing any autox, maybe some drag racing out in fallon but thats about it. but i dont want it to bumpy or to stiff. can anyone recommend any one of these springs?

I believe people around here have gone with the S-Tech springs in the past, but then moved on to coilovers. I'm not sure what the difference is between the S-Techs and H-Techs are... but pictures of the H-Techs look good... not overly low like many of the lowering springs.

Remember that anything lower than 13.5" from hub to fender results in fairly poor front suspension geometry on these cars. Plus on stock struts lowering springs will speed strut wear, and high rates will make the car bouncy. Anything that's close to stock rate and drops the front around 1" while leaving the rear around stock height should be ideal for improving the looks of the car w/o compromising handling.

I moved from coilovers to Prodrive springs and I'm pretty happy with them. Looks and rides much better than stock, and doesn't require Dramamine for daily driving. :P

(arg! no typing in of html tags)
 

STI ride height and suspension stiffness works Fine on snow, assuming you have on some snow tires. Northstar had a good parking lot (in terms of not needing ground clearance) and they plow their parking lots well.

I've gone through upwards 2+ feet of unplowed / untouched snow before in my car . (pretty much up to level with the hood) and didn't have any problems. well besides not seeing shit when you go over 15 mph . :)

I've also had mine stuck in 8" of sierra cement. It all depends on the type of snow. Light dry snow is easy. It's the heavy wet stuff that can make it impossible to move.

alright so i checked out the h-techs, there the ones ill probably get. heres the info on them. spring rate: F 229 R 196, drop F 1.8" R 0.7". what do u guys think? would the ride height be ok for reno? what about the bounciness? i want the feel of the car to be just like stock, just lower. also, can anyone recommend someone to put these in and how much it would cost? i thought about doing it but i dont have a torque wrench and really no clue on how to do it other than the tutorials that are out there.

Boy, a drop that low is not going to feel much like stock. The suspension geometry mentioned above is what creates the majority of the ride issues, such as bounciness. I would guess it's going to bounce a good deal, it all depends on how much of that you can handle.

IMO those sound like they're a little too low... -1"F/-.5"R would be more ideal, but certainly won't look as good. I don't remember the stock rates, so I can't give you an opinion on them... if they're not more than 10-15% stiffer, I'd say you're in the green.

nKoan, what's the drop and % rate increase on your LGT? I'd say your car is just a little too stiff for the stock struts... so that might be a bit of a baseline to compare against, even though you've got different dampers and rear-geometry.

The eibachs I had on were 1"drop front and 0.5" in rear I thought it rode better then stock and looked perfect. eibach still makes a prokit for the 06 I'm guesing.

I should put those back on. meh, winter.

So you aren't selling your car? Still gotta figure out your house situation I suppose huh?

I've heard bad reviews of both the H-Techs and the S-Techs. I feel my Prokit is a little soft although the addition of it and the KYB AGX's made a dramatic improvement over stock. Honestly, for a daily driver, I've heard great things about Prodrives and I really like the way Ed's wagon handles on Crucialracing springs. The crucial springs are progressive, not linear like the Prodrives so they may be more comfortable. Ed's wagon is stiffer than mine, but it still takes bumps very comfortably and he definately has less body roll than me on the Prokit.

The swifts were supposed to be 25mm front, 15mm rear. (~1" front and ~.6" rear), but I think its a little bit more than that. The rates went from 3.5 kg/mm front and 5.5kg/mm rear to 4.25kg/mm front and 6.6 kg/mm rear, so that's a 20% increase in stiffness front and rear. (EDIT: Keep in mind those are Legacy GT stock rates, not the WRX rates)

IMO, looks wise I think its great. Performance wise, I fully agree. A little too stiff on stock struts, and I think a little less drop would also be better. If I was shopping again, I'd be shooting for less drop and less stiffness for the stock setup, or go to aftermarket shocks or coilovers.

what happens when the car hits gravel on the road? Can it react fast enough or will you be in the ditch?

how do you feel about Nitrogen in the tires?

Prodrives springs for the STI are progressive, same with the WRX.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/arch.../t-598390.html (look for the post by Stephen.Ramm@aerosim-research.com)

Whats up Dan, this is Dave. I had springs on my car and the ride was not bouncey, about an inch of drop all around. It did not like big bumps very much and you could hear the suspension more because of the camber plates. I still have them all together from when i switched to coilovers. There were still gaps between the wheels in the front, which is one of the reasons i went to coilovers. The spring rates of my coilovers are 8kg/mm and 6kg/mm. If you want, i could take you for a ride so you can see how it feels. It will not feel like the springs you want though. The main thing is, if you go to low with to high of a spring rate, your struts specs will not match the springs, giving you a harder ride. This will make your struts wear out faster, but they wouldn't make aftermarket springs if they weren't ment to be compatible with you car. Some sights you could check for springs and stuff are jscspeed.com, grupp-s.com, subydude.com, scoobytuner.com. you could probably find these all on google. Gimme a ring if you wanna chat.

Dave

Those questions are odd.

When the car hits gravel in the road, you can spin out and crash regarless of what springs you have. Installing performance springs wouldn't make gravel more dangerous unless it was super deep or somthing.

The car will react fast enough if you react fast enough. Installing performance springs will make your car more nimble.

I feel nitrogen in the tires is a good punchline to any joke about people crashing their Subarus. Just kidding. Nitrogen in the tires is fine. Theoretically Nitrogen filled tires will hold a constant pressure better than air filled tires. It's really overkill to worry about that though.

:fail:

dave ya i should go for a ride whenever u get some time. i dont really mind the bumpiness, its the bounciness. ive seen cars that are way to low and they look like there hopping around on the road, this is defnitly what i dont want. the bumpiness is ok. also im trying to get rid of the wheel gap, i just dont know if the prodrives are enough to get rid ofthe gap.

The reason the gap is so noticable on Subaru's is because the front wheel well is actually bigger than the rear... so when the car's level, there's more front gap. Finding a -1"/-0.5" set of springs seems to really level things out, without screwing the handling.

Bounce comes from under-damped springs. i.e. springs that are too stiff for the struts. This is terrible for handling, terrible for ride quality, and terrible for the life of the struts, and gets even worse if the car's lowered too much. What you really want is a spring as close to OEM rates as possible... something that is only stiffer so it makes up for the lower ride height and doesn't bottom out. Even then, going lower and stiffer will reduce the life of the struts no matter what, which is why going to something like some KYB AGX adjustable struts is a great solution for lowering springs.

any idea on the stock spring rates? i thought they were around like 170?

Yeah, they are around 180 lb/in front and 170 lb/in which is about 3.2 kg/mm front and 3 kg/mm rear.

so is that why the 229 and 196 spring rates of the htechs arent recommended? there to much for the strut and would cause bounce? if i found something around the stock 170 i would be ok?

Just off the cuff, I'd say a -1" 200lb/in front and -0.5" 190lb/in rear setup would be a pretty nice looking, yet stock handling setup. I'm not sure what's out there like that though.

well i have heard great things about the prodrives, i have searched around though and have found no information on there drop other than "about 25 mm" and there are no published springg rates, why are these considered such a "good" spring?

Prodrive has been secretive about their rates because they seem to work so well and they don't want people to copy them. However, I think the prodrive springs are progressive, which may allow them to run a higher rate w/o the associated bounce over smaller bumps and on the freeway. Figure, less bounce and more handling out of a well designed progressive spring on stock struts. But you can't lower the car quite as much, which IMO is a good thing.

Better?

i just ordered the prodrive springs, i was going to get the htechs but i was afraid of getting bounce. should have them by this weekend, any tips when putting these on? my biggest question is people say to mark the bottom strut bolts or something to keep alignment. can anyone explain what exactly this means.

The top of the two bolts that attach the strut to the knuckle is an eccentric bolt... if you twist it the camber changes. Usually when you take the the strut off, you mark the bolt so you can put it back w/o changing the alighnment.

However, since you're installing springs, you'll need to get the car realigned anyway after you're done, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just do the install, and "eyeball" the camber when you put it back together. Then take it to a shop and have them align it. Considering the limited range of adjustment w/ the stock struts, it's not a big deal to drive on an unaligned car for a day or two until you get it taken care of, just don't drive it hard.

i have heard to allow a week for the springs to settle, do u think this is necessary or too much time? also where in reno would u recommend getting an alignment done at?

As has been discussed on the forums prevously, quality springs should need much time to "settle". Once you've driven a few miles, all the slack in them should be taken up. Hell, just backing down the driveway should do it IMO. The prodrive springs are about as quality as they come. I would think installing 'em then driving straight to the alignment folks for an alignment would be fine.

I'd recommend C&C for a race alignment, but they're expensive and always busy as hell... and since you're not going to need anything exceptionally special done, you could go just about anywhere. I've used Big-O on Mae Ann in the past, there's a badass old-school JDM racer guy there named Pat (IIRC)... he knows what's up and will get you as good of a performance alignment as you'll be able to get on the car.

Well, having the springs settle is necessary. But, its not like you have a choice, it's not something active you have to 'do.' Once you put them on your car, it'll take a week or so before they reach their specified height. Until then, they will ride a little high.