I know this has been asked before but I just wanted to ask here do 04 tophats fit in an 02 wagon and if so do the 04 sti wagon specific springs fit the 04 tophats, also are there sti struts?
You're doing what I'm going to do with my car when I've got suspension money. The front tophats are the same from 02-05. Rears are different on 04-05 cars, the springs taper towards the top and the updated tophats work with them. The newer tophats will bolt into the body of the car but your 02 struts wont work with the newer tops unless you use the really ghetto 'washer mod' Sedan rear struts will work in the back but if you use sedan struts in the front you'll have some camber issues (read as positive camber). You can use Koni shocks on 04 struts and everything will bolt up OEM. Another option is mismatching 01 Impreza RS KYB AGX front struts and 04 WRX KYB AGX rear struts; the fronts fit pretty well but still require a little custom work, rears bolt in directly. Saab 9-2Xs are supposed to have stiffer struts than WRXs, I'd imagine its halfway between an STI strut and a WRX strut based on how the rest of the Saabarus were built. Any JDM STI wagon strut for the current bodies will fit (granted you'll need ver8 rears to work with the tophats). Might be able to mismatch some ver7 JDM front struts with USDM ver8 rear struts, I dont know if its been done before. Sounds like you're dissatisfied with the options for decent wagon springs for bugeyes just like myself. I've done a good bit of research on this topic if you have any other questions, I just dont have the cash to do suspension right now.
working with wagon struts sucks :bigthumb: as you found out. The reason you can't use sedan struts is because the ear length (the part of metal where the camber bolts mount to the brake disc) is 10mm shorter for the wagon than the sedan. Putting sedan struts on a wagon will give you positive static camber, which is bad. Koni's are very popular with wagons, and AGX isn't bad. Usually any spring combination you want will work fine as long at they fit your model year, but don't try and mix struts. 04+ struts are longer than 03's and have a different top. For struts alone, only STi makes wagon specific struts, but in the realm of coilovers, Tein makes wagon specific Flexes. If you have your heart set on a pair of sedan struts, you can cancel the negative effects of sedan struts with camber plates or better camber bolts. You'll never get as much negative camber as a sedan, but you'll still do better than stock bolts.