What can I do to improve handling does Lowering work and cost alot of money?How much?

Question

Hello, I have a 2000 RS Impreza and recently Ive noticed it doesn't handle as well as it used to, despite having new tyres. My Dad rekons it needs new Struts I think. But If this is the case would it be good to replace the springs and maybe lower the car so that it handles like its on rails. Does anyone know a good specific setup for the RS? How Much should I lower the car to notice a significant difference? Does anyone know a ball park figure of how much the whole thing may cost including fitting?? Any advice tips would be greatly appreciated! Cheers

Answer 1

Just replacing the struts and putting a good alignment on it will go a long way to improving handling. Beyond 50k miles the OE struts are pretty well worn and putting better tires on the car only makes things worse, not better.

You could go with OE type struts or a high-performance type with stiffer valving. Some of those are even externally adjustable so you can set it up how you like. A bit of overkill for just street driving, well worth it though if you do autocross, track days or road racing.

While you have the struts out you could of course replace the coil springs since they have to come out anyway. These can improve handling if you don't go too stiff or too low. Back in the mid-1990's Honda guys would go crazy and do 2-3" drops on their cars. You could do that on a 90's Honda because they don't use McPherson strut type suspensions. Unfortunately, most cars (your Imprezza included) do use McPherson struts and these are far less tolerant of lowering. Screws up the camber curve big time which degrades, not improves handing. That doesn't stop a lot of company's though from offering products that will drop a strut suspended car 2 or 3 inches. Those are the ones you see on the road bouncing over every expansion joint and with so much negative camber the contact patch of the tire is as narrow as a pencil.

For a streetable car with a useful improvement in handling I would suggest going no lower than 1-inch below stock ride height.

For coil springs you have the option of drop-in springs which will lower the car a set amount and are direct replacements for theOE springs. These are available from a variety of suppliers. Most manufacturers will advertise the average ride heigh reduction of their springs but may not advertise spring stiffness. Some will be much stiffer than others. For street use I wouldn't go too much stiffer than stock.

Or you could go with coil-overs. On a coil-over the ride height can be adjusted because the lower spring perch on the strut is modified with a threaded collar that you can turn to raise or lower the spring perch. These are obviously going to be more expensive and to set up properly really require a lot of extra equipment (corner weight scales, additional springs in a variety of lengths and stiffness), an available test track and a lot of suspension knowledge. Coil-over replacement strut/springs got their start in SCCA production-based road racing. For street use these are serious overkill but they are all the rage with the kids these days anyway - for those who have to have all the latest toys, even if they don't know how to use them.

There is another option too. Replacement stabilizer/anti-sway bar kits. These fine-tune the handling, helping to reduce body roll while also reducing understeer (under most circumstances - hey, it's AWD). These are inexpensive and simple to install (usually) and combined even with just new high performance struts, a good alignment and stock springs can really improve handling quite a bit without making it ride like a milk truck. Since slamming cars down to the ground became all the rage about 10 years ago a lot of people seem to have all but forgotten about this handy little item but stabilizer bars will do more than springs to improve the handling of a street car. Most guys who drop their cars don't actually care about handling, just looks, which I guess explains things. If you care about handling, look at some stabilizer bars before you look at lowering springs.

Answer 2

You dont say how many miles are on the car, which would help answer the question if you need new struts. If the care has many miles on it new struts would help, along with firmer shocks in the struts. High mileage might also mean you need to have some of the suspension components replaced such as bushings. Since you have new tires, my next suggestion is too late, but larger diameter wheels with lower profile tires would also help. I would not recommend lowering the suspension for daily street use.

Answer 3

Lowering will 99% of the time make a car handle worse, not better. Get the car back to factory specs, or if that is not enough for you add stiffer sway bars, heavier duty struts top of the line shocks and if your budget will handle the shock upgrade the brakes.

Answer 4

Lowering the centre of gravity in any car will improve handling as long as you do not weaken the suspension system. An alignment is a must as you have just changed the entire way the tires meet the road and if not corrected, it will actually drive worse.

Answer 5

I dont know exaclty what kind of set up but i suggest (if u have the money) upgrade it to a good supsension system. my friend has a WRX kit in his 2.5RS and it handles great. Lowering can help but dont make it too low cause scraping your car is the worst. Lowering is probably the cheapest but you might get more out of like the WRX suspension kit

Answer 6

Alignment will help if thats needed. It sounds like it wasn't handling too good before you had new tires put on. I would have agarage check this and see what they say. It would be a better way to go than making a lot of changes and still no improvement.