Here are some simple ways to
improve the handling of your car
without having a massive budget.
We’re talking specifically here
about the Subaru Impreza models,
whether it’s a Subaru Impreza
STI, or an Impreza WRX, turbo or
a non-turbo. If you’re looking
to dramatically or just simply
improve the handling of your car
so you can have a bit more
sporty feel and a bit more fun,
the trend sometimes is to fit a
front strut brace and a rear
strut brace because they look
snazzy when you lift the bonnet
and have a look inside the trunk
or boot of your car.
The unfortunate thing is whilst
they look good, they are not
necessarily the first thing that
you should fit to your Subaru.
The best-value way of upgrading
your Subaru is by getting down
underneath the car and actually
starting at the back. Depending
on what year model you’ve got,
this can be affected by some of
the components.
Basically to make it easy for
you to understand, the rear sway
bars that change the stiffness
of the body roll or resists body
roll are factory fitted on the
front and rear of your Subaru
Impreza and are connected to the
suspension by a series of links
that move through an arc as the
suspension travels up and down.
On some Impreza models it’s a
plastic link, on other models
it’s a stiff, ball-joint style
link.
For this example, we’ll just
assume that you want to improve
these connections to increase
the effectiveness of the Subaru
factory sway bar.
On the rear suspension of your
Subaru, if you’ve got a plastic
style link which is relatively
easy to identify, you need to
replace that with either a
spring steel or an alloy style
replacement link, which is quite
easy to source from
MRT Performance off their
website. Effectively what this
does is takes the stretch and
the movement of that joint out
of the equation, so therefore
when your suspension goes up and
down the more travel is not
absorbed in the replacement
part, but taken up by the sway
bar.
What that effectively does is
increase the rate of the sway
bar and puts more load on your
suspension as you go around the
corner, therefore making the
sway bar work better and
obviously reducing your body
roll. The similar thing applies
on the front. Some models have a
plastic link on the front, some
have this type of solid joint
with bolts, a ball-joint type
knuckle assembly.
If you get down underneath you
can have a look, but to make it
easy typically the early Subaru
Impreza models up until around
MY01/MY02, had the plastic style
links front and rear. So you’ve
replaced the rear sway bar links
and the front sway bar links
with new snazzy alloy ones, they
look great, and you’ll feel the
difference straight away. The
next thing to do as you want to
invest a little bit more in your
suspension is to change the rear
sway bar.
You don’t start at the front,
you actually start at the rear,
because by stiffening the rear
sway bar, it effectively reduces
the under steer in your Impreza.
By going to a stiffer rear sway
bar you can reduce the under
steer of the front and have the
car a little bit more fun to
drive, and it’s actually quite
dramatic in the way that you can
feel it.
Typically we recommend going to
an adjustable rear sway bar
because the small added cost in
having the adjustable feature
gives you a long-term ability to
effectively fine tune that sway
bar to suit your preferred
driving style instead of not
having the other alternative.
The way the sway bar works by
having it adjustable is it has
multiple holes in the arm of the
bar on the back.
Changing the pick-up point from
the sway bar link to one of
those holes effectively changes
the leverage ratio of the sway
bar, and of course that has a
big effect on the effective
stiffness of the sway bar when
it travels through its
suspension arc. Of course the
shorter the lever, the stiffer
the sway bar, and the longer the
lever, the softer the sway bar.
So you’ve improved the rear
suspension and now you’re
looking at ways to improve the
front suspension.
The next step after all of this
is obviously, you guessed it
right, changing the front sway
bar. You can actually get that
front sway bar as an adjustable
sway bar, but as it’s quite
awkward to get to from under the
car, typically a lot of people
don’t always do that. If you are
going to be fairly accurate and
enthusiastic about getting your
car to handle absolutely the
best way you can, then again,
it’s a good, wise move to go for
an adjustable unit.
You don’t have as much
adjustability as you do on the
rear but there is obviously some
adjustment which can be noted
when you do change it, which
long term is an advantage. So
you’ve done the front sway bar
links, the rear sway bar links,
the rear sway bar, and the front
sway bar. I might point out in
order of value, you do rear sway
bar links first, then front sway
bar links, then rear sway bar,
and then front sway bar.
Finally you can go and fit the
fantastic looking front top
strut brace and the rear top
strut brace, and effectively
what that will do is stiffen up
the chassis and make the car
perform better by putting more
load through the suspension and
making the suspension work the
desired way it should.
Find out lots more great
information just like this in
the Subaru Performance Handbook. |
