I've been doing Solo II for a while now but I've never had anyone on the sidelines actually watching my car till last time and they said that, on the sharp corners, my inside rear tire was lifting off the groud slightly. My question is how do I fix this; how do I keep all four wheels on the ground in the corners?

I have an '03 wagon, stage 2 with front & rear Perrin endlinks and rear Perrin adjustable sway bar set on the middle option, all other suspension components are stock. I've also about 55,000 miles on it and I know my struts are getting kinda worn as I do a lot of nose diving when braking.

The only thing I can think of is that with the struts getting worn, the nose is diving enough to lift the rear wheel off the ground. Is this assumption correct? I plan on getting some adjustable coilovers here in the future once I decide on what to get and when I do this, I should be staying level once again in the corners?

I'm running Tein Flex coilovers (12K front and 10 K rear) and aftermarket F/R sway bars...they help but may not completely get rid of the inside rear lift.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v409/matthuntman/16v.jpg

Yeah I’m running Zzyzx coilovers with #600f/#500r, stock front bar, and no rear bar, the inside rear lifts just about as much as the picture above. About the only thing I could do is go with higher rates in front to stop it, but even then I don't know.

You need a bigger front swaybar.

the WRX actually does better with rear lift due to the rear LSD not being mechanical (it's viscous IIRC)

my STi stock rear diff bucks like crazy when I try to throttle hard with a tire in the air.

My current setup is the Hotchkis "race" sway bar set(soft setting in rear), Tanabe sustec coilovers(10k/8k), race alignment and 17x10 CCW's on 275wide V710's. I still pick up the inside tire. Although less than before with 8k/6k and the rear sway at middle setting.
I think it's inevitable, due to the vehicle's wheelbase

Jose

I used to have the same problem with my old Tein FLEX 10kg/8kg setup, was running Cusco 22mm swaybars front and back. I do not have this problem now. I am running Whiteline G4 9kg/ 8kg with Strano front bar and Cusco rear sway bar set to middle. Whitleline has more droop, combined with the big front sway bar, no more problem. :)

Ya, less rear sway will help with keeping the tires planted. I personally LOVE my RS with no bars whatsoever, but then I'm rallycrossing it not autocrossing.

The cornering benefits of the large rear bar and auto-x shocks/springs seem to overwhelm the acceleration advantage of keeping all 4 tires planted for auto-x. Unless you're lifting the rear wheel a LOT (think A1/A2 VW) I would put that somewhat down the priority list. From your description, good shocks and a much bigger front sway bar are the first things I'd worry about. The front sway will go a long way to minimizing rear wheel lift but it'll still happen in some situations.

--Kevin H.

I agree with Kevin H's analysis. :)

-Biggly

I dropped my rear bar last week and it helped a lot, my 0.02

The question is: do you want to accelarate or turn?(warning, tradeoffs about to occur) With suspension, almost everything you can do to make something better will make something else worse. The reason to put on stiff springs and bars in the first place is to resist roll in the attempt to control the contact patch of the tires. Transferring weight to the outside wheels like this actually hurts our cornering potential by stressing the laden tires more, but it is more than made up for the fact that the tire stays in it's optimum camber range. The net effect is an increase in cornering. Tire lift like that is a symtom that the roll resistence you already have for the rear is working. In corner entry like that, in my opinion the weight is where it is supposed to be, on the front wheels.

It widely known though that the imprezza chassis has a crappy camber curve, and that increasing the front roll resistence will combat this. Increasing the front bar will definately help your cornering, and with the change in roll resistence bias front to rear, will get rid of alot of the lift. But don't confuse your performance gain with having all four wheel on the ground. You'll be faster because you are maximizing the contact patch on the front tires.

Chris Lock

I have an '03 wagon, stage 2 with front & rear Perrin endlinks and rear Perrin adjustable sway bar set on the middle option, all other suspension components are stock.Get a large front bar and see what you've been missing ;)

I dropped my rear bar last week and it helped a lot, my 0.02

Ditto, my rear bar was also holding the car back.

I dropped mine about 3 months ago and was very pleased. 12k springs is all the rear wheel rate the car needs. ....of course AUTOwrXer told me that about 6 months ago but I had to find out on my own. :lol:

Thanks guys, I appreciate the info. Now the question becomes: what front bars are compatable with a wagon? I know Whiteline makes one and I've heard good and bad about them but know nothing about the company. A lot of the other manufactures say theirs are made for sedan and wagon but the wagon is narrower in the front so, what would be recommended? The only one I know of made specifically for the wagon is Whiteline...

Whiteline makes several bars that fit the turbo GCs, which have the same track and subframe as the GD wagons.

From another thread (http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13802680&postcount=63): Whiteline makes GC8 WRX/STi front bars...

BSF20 22mm solid
BSF20X 24mm solid
BSF20Z 22-24mm adjustable
BSF20XZ 24-26mm adjustable
XSF20XXZ 27-29mm adjustable



A GD WRX Wagon bar should also fit your car with no problem. The Whiteline part would be the BSF12Z. That is 22-24mm I believe. Should be easier to get your hands on here in the US.

Whiteline is an Australian company that has been manufacturing Subaru performance parts for at least 11 years. I've never heard a bad thing about their parts except for some earlier paint issues.

Global Performance Parts (http://www.globalperformanceparts.com/) is their US distributor.

12k springs is all the rear wheel rate the car needs. ....of course AUTOwrXer told me that about 6 months ago but I had to find out on my own. :lol:

what about the front rates? :D

I am running close to 900 lbs/in (12k springs and a 24mm bar). AUTOwrXER was running 1000 lbs/in (on just springs) and thought that was the way to go based on a bunch of car setup engineering mobo-jumbo. He know his shiot so I trust his numbers are pretty close to optimal. Note his ratio of 1000/700 is close to the ratio of the actual F/R weights of the car.

I may fool around with the front setup next year when I switch shocks.

I remember a thread like this 3(ish) years ago. We had post after post of people posting bigger and better "sway bars" and thier tire still lifting. We all stopped worrying about it when Gary Sheehan posted his subie doing it.

I remember a thread like this 3(ish) years ago. We had post after post of people posting bigger and better "sway bars" and thier tire still lifting. We all stopped worrying about it when Gary Sheehan posted his subie doing it.

it isn't the BAR that prevents wheel lift, it is total front roll stiffness. even then you can still get the rear tire up in the air with combined dive and roll. i do it in my car in the rain on street tires. :shrug:

i wouldn't stop caring about lifting the inside rear though. on a mac strut front suspension car, you don't want the inside tire off the ground in steady state at peak g's. lifting it in combined braking/cornering doesn't seem to hurt much, though anything in access is not a good idea.

nate