Heyo chaps. The hatch is running great after a few tuning issues (worn throttle shafts) and will be going to the dyno on Saturday. Finally got the last bits of the engine and trans swap finished and now she's drivable again.

 

Everythings coming along nicely and im rushing a little bit to get the car as good as possible for the ClubSUB national meet on April 15th. At this meet i plan on throwing the hatch around Taupo racetrack and am hoping to lower it beforehand.

 

Ive seen another fellah on here who used EG Civic coilover struts in the front. I was hoping someone could give me more information on this or ideas on another transplant that could work.

 

Ive got some whiteline sway bars for it and have been replacing rusty panels all summer so now its time to drop it and have some fun.

I need similar help to my brat....have rear suspension completely apart for paint. Would like to lower by resplining torsion bars a tooth on adjuster..but not sure how to measure...do you set side arms at certain angle in related to torsion tube mounting pads.

Ts

Front I read cut half a coil or use Turbo springs.but using some coilovers would be real nice

I can tell you what i did with mine. I used KYB Gr2's at all for corners and cut one full coil out of a set of turbo EA81 springs in the front. I also put a turbo EA81 sway bar in front along with welding a XT6 rear sway bar to the rear control arms. It handles a lot better than stock but still not to the degree i would like it. There is a seller on ebay selling addco sway bars for our cars for the 160 dollar range that are 1 inch diameter solid bars that should def help keep it flat in the turns. The biggest thing holding the suspension on these cars back in my opinion is the lack of aftermarket struts and shocks that are performance oriented. The GR2's are great for returning a slightly better than stock road feel but they are no where close to what i would call a performance shock. You can however get a KYB gas adjust for the rear but the front is where the issue is. Mine..even with the cut down turbo springs and fresh-ish kybs is still a bit too mushy in the turns and as the tendency to lean alot in the corners. But then again...i push my car a bit too

Hatchsub is running a setup that I cooked up after doing a lot of research on what was out there. The idea was to basically use off-the-shelf parts to make incremental improvements in handling. I think the mods he listed will make 80% of gen 2 owners happy with the way their car handles.

 

If you want to go even further, you have two routes. First, pony up the cash and have a company custom manufacture coilovers front and rear with camber plates. Big money, but if anything breaks, you can revert to stock components.

 

The second route is to convert to 5-lug impreza/legacy parts and use off-the-shelf parts for those cars.

 

In the end, anything besides my "Handling Recipe" is going to require custom fabrication or big money.

I am beyond interested in the Civic coilover setup. Where did you find out about it?

 

Jacob

The biggest thing holding the suspension on these cars back in my opinion is the lack of aftermarket struts and shocks that are performance oriented. The GR2's are great for returning a slightly better than stock road feel but they are no where close to what i would call a performance shock. You can however get a KYB gas adjust for the rear but the front is where the issue is. Mine..even with the cut down turbo springs and fresh-ish kybs is still a bit too mushy in the turns and as the tendency to lean alot in the corners. But then again...i push my car a bit too

 

I have replaced the fluid in my stock EA82 struts, maybe you can do the same to get more damping. Here is my thread here:

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=94388

If you put allt he time into suspension, you need good quality tire, to help hug the road, and there is not many 13 inch tires that are performance

maybe so, but if you are going to put that much time and effort into the suspension and probably a fair bit of money also. I should think you would spring for some ole custom pug wheels that you can put decent rubber on. Sorry I just had my ornery moment for the week.

 

Mike

Yeah this whole exercise would be a bit pointless keeping with 13 inch rims. Ive already stuck a carbed ej22 with imp trans in the car. Re-drilling hubs to 6x139 shouldnt be out of the question. Ive gone with the cutting springs method for the very short term but will be looking into the civic strut option or just making my own adjustable coil overs.