Thursday, October 21, 2010

Scooby Moddification #1

Someday we will find a picture of Scooby Doo riding a Vespa and the joke will be complete.


In the mean time I've got a down and dirty low budget suspension mod for yous guys. I did this mod right after getting my second gen Legacy wagon. The wagons are known to have smaller (15mm) rear sway bars to compensate for higher loads. I scoured an uprated large diameter (18mm) bar from the Outback version of the car, which is larger to reduce roll with the greater suspension height. Bingo Bango reduced understeer.

Most think that this is the end of sway bar work and discussion. However I have more for you. When swapping one factory sway bar for another you need to make sure you are using the same generation and body styles. When switching generations Subaru switches rear suspension types for the Legacy from 2000 (from strut to multi-link). What this means is a third gen legacy sway bar is much smaller and an entirely different shape than a second gen's, so it's not really an option. Wagons and sedans might have different front and rear track widths along with different load classifications.  Legacys don't change width, but if you had an Impreza and wanted to swap in a turbo'd Impreza rear sway bar (pretty much the only thing that causes the sway bar to get thicker is the presence of a turbo on the Imprezas) you'd have to consider.

Many enthusiasts opt for non-factory sway bar upgrades. However anyone who has worked with these systems learns rule number 2 of sway bar modification. More isn't always more. When you start working with nonfactory uprated sway bars you remove the invisible safety net of factory conservatism.  Say I asked you how your car behaves under midcorner liftoff? If you don't know how to answer you might want to hold off on and major upgrades. A bigger rear bar can introduce liftoff oversteer and an unstable ride on rough terrain.  Another factory consideration thrown to the wind is reliability. Even after staying in the conservative realm of factory bars I quickly wore out my original rear struts and had to install new ones. If you are driving a higher millage vehicle you have to take these factors into account before a cheap modification becomes a potentially expensive suspension rework.

This brings us onto rule number 3, too much sway bar. A little stiffness upgrade limits the rear body roll so that you have a better handle of it at the wheel and don't have to take the car from lock to lock to get the rear end to shift. Too much leverage from the sway bar causes the suspension to bind up and loose traction on rough surfaces. Turns minor weight shift and steering correction into snap over steer and spin outs and stress out the rear suspension and bushings.

Whiteline and other brands offer a versatile adjustable sway bar system. At first the adjust ability sounds appealing so you can provide yourself a road and a track set up.  The aftermarket systems are designed to work with a wider range of setups and spring rates. What this means for the user is a little experimentation is required to find the sweet spot.

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