Re: My 2005 WRX STi - coilovers and everything else installed!
This past week was my spring break so I took the whole week off from both of my jobs and busted out a ton of work on the STi. To follow are 55 pictures of the mayhem.
I'll start with the suspension build:
- RCE Tarmac 0 coilovers
- GTWorx GD style front camber plates
- GroupN rear tophats
- Kartboy solid endlinks, front (with spacers) and rear
- Whiteline BSF36XZ 24mm adjustable front sway bar
- Whiteline BSR37XZ 24mm adjustable rear sway bar
- Whiteline KCA359 Sport Anti-Lift kit
- TurnInConceprts Fender braces
- Doing the "free caster mod"
two of my good friends came over Friday after I got home from work and we started tearing into everything. We had the front sway bar/endlinks, front coils/camber plates and inner fender braces all done within a few hours. The trouble came when I went to do the free caster mod, which involves flipping a mount on my aluminum control arms, 3 of the 4 steel bolts took the threads out of the aluminum with them. I ended up having to pull both control arms and take them to my friends uncles machine shop were he fixed them for me.
Since I pulled the control arms I decided to replace the ball joints. Mine weren't bad but I know that if I hadn't replaced them they would have gone bad within 5000 miles and I'd have to go back and do it all over. Once the control arms were back in everything went smoothly.
Here's the way the car sat before any work began:
I started out taking comparison pictures of everything but I forgot all about the camera once I started getting into the work. Here's what I did take though.
Front sway bar:
Inner fender braces:
Front coilover:
Rear coilover:
Here's what the car looked like partway though (car was level, picture is crooked):
Control arm fiasco:
Ball joints (Old OEM, new OEM, Moog, I ended up installing the Moogs):
I wasn't aware that my subframe H-brace wasn't going to fit properly with the ALK and spacers so i ended up mounting it above the subframe. It most likely isn't as effective, but mounting it below wasn't going to happen:
The rest are just pictures of everything installed, I've made them small, click-able thumbnails:
I had my alignment done to my specs and my new tires mounted the other day. The car is a completely different car now.