hello i-club,

I am going to install some coilovers soon and i was wondering how did some of you guys did it. I own a 05 STi so this is really aimed toward the STi owners. A few questions of mine are:

1. How did you get the rear coilovers on/off?
2. Any problems that you guys encountered during the installation?

Thanks for any help

 

to get to the rear strut assemblies, you have to take out the back seat (2 bolts on the bottom and 3 bolts for the seat back), take out the seat, and you may need to take out the seat belt tensioners to get to the strut top bolts, on the outside of the car, it's pretty straight forward, 2 bolts on the bottom + the brake line needs to come off. reverse steps for installation of the coilover

 

are on TIGHT!

Most likely, you will need an Air Impact gun to get them off...especially the bottom one...

There is very little room to work on that nut...some have been successful with a breaker bar...but on the other hand, my friend, who is 280lbs or so, was up in the air with my breaker bar...and it didn't budge his nut...it deformed the craftsman socket badly...ended up taking it to his friends shop with an impact gun...made short work of that pain...

Moral: If you have access to an Air Compressor/Air Impact Gun....your life will be much easier during the install...

 

Make sure you use a 6 sided socket to get the 19mm bolts off on the bottom of the strut. Subaru used LOCKT TITE!!!!!!!!! on mine so it took a breaker bar, and HUGE impact gun to the the frickers off.

I even prepped them with some penetrating oil for 30min-1hr and it was still hard to get them off. Once you do though its straight forward.

For the tops, take out the back seat(simple) and you will have to loosen the seat belt tensioners to fit a socket in there. The nuts up top are fairly easy to get off.

Good Luck

 

ok update time:

i took out the old coilover and i put in the new one. i tightened the top bolts behind the backseats and i tried to bring up the lower part (brakes, control arm, etc) and tried to align it to the bottom part of the coilover to put the 19mm bolt through. however the coilover would be like | and the lower parts would be like /. and i couldn't get the coilover to be flush. any clues to solve this problem?

 

Do you mean the steering knuckle? where the larger lower bolts go in?

If so the solution is to get a floor jack and jack up the lower suspension components so that they will line up with the coilover, once the height is equal and final adjustments can be made by muscle, and an assistant(key)

 

it helps to undo the rear sway bar...I found by doing this, it is easier to move the member up and down...

I also did this with the fronts with very good success...

 

You don't really need to remove the swaybars. The key is to jack the car up from the middle, not on the sides. On the rear you can use the rear differential as a jacking point, and on the front the jacking point is right behing the oil pan. You might want to use a piece of wood between the jack and the rear diff to protect the rear diff from any scrathces.

Once the car is in the air you can move the suspension arm with your hands and line it up with the coilover. It helps to have a friend ready to push the bolts back in when everything is lined up.

 

if i remember correctly, the two lower strut bolts are torqued to 126ft/lbs....i think. so yes, they are a PITA to get off if you don't have the right tools. i myself broke a 19mm socket removing my rear shocks. had to get impact sockets to do the job. if i broke one of those, i would have given up.

as for me, the impact gun didn't help at all. lots of a$$ behind the breaker bar and it came off!

.02

 

I used the lug nut tool and a long pipe to get the camber bolts off with no problems.

Torque specs for an 02 WRX.

Top nuts-14.5'#

Speed sensor/ brake hose-24.3'#

Front-129'#

Rear-162'#

 

thats it! i remember it was crazy number. most people don't have torque wrenches that go that high. but when you get your alignment done, the shop should take care of it then.

 

That's what I did since I only have an 80'# torque wrench.

BTW, I'm not sure if the STI has different torque specs.

 

I got them on!!!

jeeze that was a pain in the **** to put them on. but i would say it was worth it.