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| The 2006 STi with the basic Whiteline Handling pack also impressed me. This is how it should be straight from Subaru. |
As we were intending to start with a mild suspension upgrade, Whiteline brought out a 2006 STi with their stage one Handling Pack suspension kit for us to evaluate. The Handling Pack is designed to greatly improve handling with no detrimental effect on ride comfort. The handling pack consists of a steering rack bushing kit, front and rear adjustable sway bars, front and rear camber adjusting bolts and a Caster /Anti Lift kit. The ‘06 were noticeably better handling than a stock STi. It had better on and off power cornering balance and much less understeer. Steering response and body roll was greatly reduced as well. It was not as good as the P25 by any means but it was impressive compared to a bone stock STi considering the short list of parts used.
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| The Whiteline crew reviews the datalogs to show that I am slower than Brett. Wow look at all these times of zero acceleration when shifts should be taking place. Damn computers can’t tell tall tails. |
Whiteline’s handling pack sway bars are 22mm in diameter for both the front and rear of the car up from the stock 20mm. This difference in diameter equates to approximately 45% greater stiffness from stock. Both bars are adjustable to give the ability to tune the balance of the car to the driver’s preference. The holes closer to the inboard side of the bar make it stiffer, the outboard holes softer. If you wanted more oversteer you can make the rear bar stiffer, the front softer or any combination of the two biasing towards more rear roll stiffness. For more understeer, you would make the front stiffer, the rear softer or any combination of the two in that direction. The bars feature forged ends that are superior for strength compared to the more common welded on ends and are CNC bent from a high grade of spring steel. They feature urethane bushings and a powdercoated finish.
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| A Whiteline sway bar starts as a piece of spring steel bar stock. |
The STi has very soft and compliant steering rack mounts. This is especially true with the 2004 cars. The bushings are so soft that steering wheel centering is a problem and the steering has a rubbery feel. Whiteline replace the rubber with hard polyurethane. This small part makes a huge difference in what we think is one of the most irritating attributes of the STi. Now instead of feeling vague, the steering is much more crisp and direct. We feel that every single STi should use these bushings, especially the pre-2005 spec ones.
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| The proper program is loaded into the CNC bender. |
