I have some new parts. Long travel inverted Bilstein’s were the first item, and the only planned item, but I tend to buy more and more parts while waiting for others to arrive. I was going to stay legal for stock class, but it’s too easy to leave that behind.
As I said, it started with the Bilsteins. The old shocks were a little tired, and Bilsteins are… Bilsteins. They are inverted, with a LOT of travel (almost double what my Celica had), DIY rebuildable and revalvable, but still stock legal. So is the rear sway bar that I ordered while waiting for the shocks to arrive, but of course when they did the sway bar was still in transit. I changed the suspension, and left the car on jack stands in anticipation of the sway bar swap.
But then, with the car on stands, I just started poking around at things. I pulled the air conditioning out one day on a whim. It wasn’t charged, didn’t blow cold, and since I barely drive this car in the summer anyways, I decided to save 30lbs off the nose of the car. Just like that I wasn’t stock legal anymore. The flood gates opened. Instead of swapping brake pads like I had planned, I decided to buy 4-pot calipers and pads… and brake lines… and a front lip. All cars with upgraded brakes must have some kind of front lip. I kept myself entertained by de-skirting the kick panels and filling the holes underneath, as well as building a splitter while waiting for those parts to show up.
Then the day came when all my parts had arrived, were installed, and I was ready to go for a drive. Except… no one was around to help me bleed my brakes. The local vendor didn’t have any Speed Bleeders in stock, and my tool shop wanted $300 for a pressure bleeder. Reasonable maybe, but not when friends would be back in town the next week… or when there was a catless up-pipe on Kijiji for $50. I made a phone call, took the wife’s car for a drive, and came home to take my car back apart.
Subaru’s are not easy cars to work on… to install the simple up-pipe I had to undo the engine mounts, jack the engine up, remove the intake, pull the down pipe and…
… Hyeh!?
This is what the stock downpipe looked like, and there was no way in hell I was putting that back on the car. Subaru’s really are glorified tractors. After more parts were ordered, the cycle of waiting continues.
Did you upgrade the rear calipers as well? or the master cylinder? cause otherwise your pedal travel and bias will suffer. I’m sure you learned all about the middle pedal on the 86 right?
It’s another post… but I actually did some maths and checked it with some other resources… and then shelved the corresponding rear calipers. The 4-pot fronts and with stock rears actually net me around 7% more rear bias. Certainly a change… but I don’t feel like that is suffering. That might be a bit much for auto-x, but out on ice and snow where there is minimal weight transfer the stock fbias easily over works the front tires abilities. I think it will be a very good thing.
Re: MC size and pedal travel, my 2002 actually came with a bigger MC (26.99mm is actually the same size as the GD STI) than the 06-07 WRX (25.4mm) which came stock with the 4-pot calipers. It will be good and stiff, which I tend to like.
If after driving I want less rear bias, I can throw the 2-pot calipers on. If I want more, I can do an H6 upgrade in the back to get another 8%.
I’m sure some will feel like I’m hacking it together. I admit that I am, but it’s just a tractor in the end.
I could just throw the 2-pots on, buy another proportioning valve and plumb it in, but that seems too serious for this car.
So you’re keeping the stock MC? Unless I misread something, this will mean that your pedal will be softer, but yes your bias will be a little more rearward. Now that I think of it, a softer pedal (less lockup) will be better on ice, but really it won’t be so stiff that you can’t simply get used to driving with it. I know on the street though, I would prefer a stiffer pedal.
A bigger MC pushes more fluid for the same pedal travel, and thus makes the pedal feel stiffer… but because the piston volume of the 4-pots is greater than the stock brakes, yes the pedal will be a bit softer.
It should still be stiffer however, than the pedal of an 06-07 WRX which came with the same calipers, but a smaller master cylinder.
I’m most interested to know how the pads I bought (Hawk HP-Plus) will do. They have by far been my favorite pad in the past, because they work so well without needing to be warmed up and offer great feel and modulation ability. Not sure how that’s going to translate to minus temperatures though.