For those who do not know, having the bumpstops with aftermarket springs (which tend to lower your car) decrease the travel you have on your strut. In particlar, the 04 sti has roughly 65-75mm of travel before hitting the bumpstops. This leaves us with oh 2inches of travel after the springs are on. The car just does not have enough roll stiffness to prevent sucking up all of that travel in a hard corner and what happens is you make soft contact on the stops. What this does is cause a very large increase in effective spring rate at that wheel which drastically increases the tire's loading and thus reduces its grip. This manifests itself as a loss of traction. Leaving too much can have negative consequences, as well as leaving too little. The trick is to have just enough so that you gain travel, but also leave the struts internals protected. When I first did my springs, I didnt realize these had to be trimmed, and most likely this is the case with my mount wearing as it has (live and learn....and then upgrade to better! :wiggle: ). Now, if you're concerened about the rear struts, on the sti at least (so WRX can expect slightly more), there is something like 100mm -- no need to worry there. This seems to be yet another explanation for why adding a front swaybar to an impreza has the effect of drastically increasing front traction whereas traditionally, it would lower front traction. Cheers, Alex
Alex is right. We spent a few hours cutting those down today. It's not so bad, and there are very convenient places to cut it down by say 1/2" to 3/4". If you can get the struts out and all that then you should have not problems taking down the stops. Out of curiosity, are the standard WRX's at the top?