Owner: Periodic Review Of NASIOC
Make: Subaru
Model: WRX Wagon
Year: 2002
State: NH
When building our project car, The Periodic Review was looking for a suspension which would provide a good compromise between daily driveability and weekend performance. The Endura-Tech system offered the perfect balance with carefully-chosen spring rates and quick access to damping adjustments. REVIEW UPDATE: August 21, 2007 Three or four months ago we installed a set of Endura-Tech coilovers on the Periodic Review of NASIOC project car: a 2002 WRX Wagon. The installation went very smoothly and the included instructions were plenty descriptive for a group of people who had already performed multiple suspension installs. We had the old suspension out and the new one in withinin two hours, which included taking time to videotape various parts of the process. During the first test-ride, everyone in the car commented on how smooth the coilovers were. We were able to quickly adjust the ride height using the included spanners and lower the car to a comfortable ride height. Using 17" Prodrive P1 wheels, it looked as though we may have had rubbing issues, but after four months of driving the car on all sorts of roads, I'm pleased to report no rubbing whatsoever. Shortly after the installation, we took the car to Synaptic3 for an alignment and corner balancing. With 1.75 degrees of negative camber up front, the car turns-in nicely and is comfortable and predictable at all speeds. The front camber plates make it easy to dial-in a much greater degree of negative camber, but we opted not to in the name of daily driveability and saving tires. On the highway, the car can start to feel a little bouncy. This is IMMEDIATELY remedied by dialing out the damping on the front struts, which is quick and simple thanks to adjuster dials located at the top of each corner. Adjusting all four corners takes no more than 60 seconds with the wagon, since the rear strut tops are so accessable. Another nice benefit of the Endura-Tech coilovers is that they weigh significantly less than the stock strut-and-spring setup. After driving around on the streets for a few months, it was finally time to test the suspension at an Autocross. We drove the car to northern Vermont and participated in a Sports Car Club of Vermont auto-x at Sugarbush. We started the day with the damping dialed to zero on all four corners and the car performed well. After lunch we started making adjustments. The course we were running involved a few large skidpads.. basically giant rings. We found that dialing the rear adjusters up to about halfway (5 clicks) helped the car to come around, but maxing it out at ten clicks made the car just FLY around the skidpad. The back end simply followed the front very predictably and neutrally. Unfortunately we didn't figure this out until our last run, so we were left wishing we had started tweaking earlier in the day. The Endura-Tech coilovers are a perfect choice for anybody who wants the freedom to adjust their suspension with minimal effort. There's no need to crawl underneath the car to adjust the damping, which makes it incredibly easy to soften the car up for the drive to wherever an event is being held, stiffen it up for the day, and dial it back down for a nice smooth ride home. Everyone who rides in this car is amazed that it's on a set of full coilovers, they say the ride is much better than other coilovers they've ridden on. That being said, these are probably not the pinnacle of suspension performance. If you're building a dedicated track car, you may be best to look elsewhere. But if your car will see more time on the street than the track, this could very well be the perfect setup for you.