The second WRX came with some very very low Prodrive springs on stock WRX struts with missing bump stops. Needless to say, it was VERY bad over bumps and had lots of understeer. WRX’s (and most if not all strut cars) don’t like to be lowered too much as it makes the camber curves and roll centers do bad things. After a lot of research and digging around on nasioc and other places I ended up picking a tried and true hybrid that works well on the street and in many casual track environments. Here’s what’s needed:
- 2004-2006 STi springs
- 2002-2003 KYB AGX shocks
- 2004-2006 WRX or STi (same part #) rear strut mounts
- Reuse or get new front strut mounts, depending on how worn your old mounts are. Everything from 2002-2006 (at minimum) fits identically. Stock 2004-2006 STi parts are a nice compromise between the stock WRX parts and the Group-N bits.
- TiC rear strut spacers
- 2002-2003 bump stops
- Reuse front dust covers
- 2004-2006 rear dust covers
- Reuse front top hats and funky tapered washer
With the exception of using the 2004+ rear top mounts everything assembles by the book. There is no need to use a spring compressor on the rear. You might be able to get away without using a spring compressor for the front as well, as the spring preload is less than 100 pounds. Be sure to reinstall the rubber silencers on both the front and rear unless you want some occasional nasty noises. When installing the front, be sure to index the top hat the same way as stock, with the center of the three holes near the edge facing directly to the outside of the car. When tightening the strut rods, be sure to fully tighten them before reinstalling the strut assembly, as it’s easy to unintentionally twist up the top hats and put preload on the spring by mistake.
Here’s the alignment specs I ended up using:
Front
- -1.4 camber (No camber bolts on the front.)
- 0 toe
- ~-3 caster
Rear
- -1.8 camber (there were camber bolts on the rear and it wouldn’t go any lower. Since remedied.)
- 0 toe
The end result is very smooth riding, with very minimal bounce. It’s about 1/2″ lower than stock and the wheel gaps (if you care about that) look even. The handling is great, very responsive and feeling very planted even when pushing hard over bumpy pavement. This is one thing I like about the WRX over almost all other cars and don’t want to give up. The original plan on the alignment was to get about -2 front and -1 rear; this car has some Eibach bolts on the rear that didn’t allow the camber to go that low. The front has stock camber bolts so the -2 goal was optimistic. I probably should have bought some stock rear bolts and moved the Eibach’s to the front. After the next project (Bushings. It is a 6 yr old car!) I’ll probably do that.
After living with this for about 6 months now I’m getting tired of the little bounce it still has. From what I can tell it’s probably because the rear bumpstops are a bit too long and there’s only about 1/2 inch of suspension travel before the bump stop comes into play.
