2008 WRX Update, Better Handling
After driving our new 2008 project car, Nemo, around for about a week now, one thing has become glaringly clear: This car needs suspension upgrades. And not needs in the sense of, I need to because I am a driving junky, it needs it because it flat needs it.
During hard cornering on a freeway on-ramp round-about, we were able to get the car to rock back and forth, while under cornering load by getting our trunk monkey to bounce around in the rear seat. Even tracking straight down the road, the car would undulate over bumps. While this is very comfortable for highway driving, it is no good for any sort of performance situation. Why Subaru decided to tune the suspension for Miss Daisy and not Mr. Solberg is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps they thought that the hot hatch market was getting older, perhaps they thought that we really all wanted a vague and “floaty” suspension, or perhaps they just got a killer deal on springs from Buick. There is help though.
To the rescue was PDXTuning with a set of Cobb lowering springs. While coilovers would be the ideal, replacement springs are inexpensive, a little easier to live with and still give great performance gains. They also work well with stock struts.
While installation is strightforward, experience and airtools help greatly. Jarrad Bowen of PDXTuning, offered up his Saturday morning to quickly swap out the stock springs for the Cobb coils.
The Cobb springs are about 1.5-inches shorter than the stock springs and that makes a big difference in the looks department. We also took this opportunity to swap on a set of wheels and tires that we had kicking around the office.
The stock WRX uses a 17-inch wheel with 205/50-17 tires, these are 225/45-17 so are a touch taller and do a little better to accent the looks of the WRX. Better still, would be a set of 18-inch wheels and tires, like those found on PDX's own 2008 World Rally Blue, WRX.
Handling feel is much improved and the car feels much more solid and planted. This is the way the car should feel and it is a wonder why Subaru felt the need to under-spring the car. Still for a couple hundred bucks, you get much better handling, with the stock struts and you still get the same great ride feel and comfort.
Look for an install article in a future issue of Subiesport Magazine.
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