Driving DynamicsDriving techniques (trail braking, power slides, donuts, scandinavian flicks, etc), and vehicle dynamics (roll centres, c/g weigh transfer, etc)
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Interesting stuff for the track
For the road i would keep tyre pressures standard and concentrate on your driving.
Tyres seem a bit overlooked since they are your point of contact with the road. I am suprised at the amount of Impreza's running cheap tyres .
Get 24mm front and rear (adjustable) ARB's. The 24mm front will keep the car in the effective dynamic camber curve the car needs to be in to maintain good front traction. The 24mmm rear will get you the rotation you need for the car to turn in well. If you feel the car needs to rotate more quickly then you can adjust the rear bar up to it's 26mm setting, or if it feels to rotate to much for your taste, down to the 22mm setting. The front is also able to adjust up one size to 26mm. (You will be glad you opted for adjustables especially when it gets wet out).
As far as for wet driving, you generally want to loosen up your roll bars a bit, (on both ends) as well as soften the dampers some (if possible). a car more softly set up will be able to better maintain traction in the wet.
Dont forget to mind your tire pressures either. A lower tire pressure then what you run in the dry will keep a greater contact patch on the ground.
Another one to add would be camber. If you have a way to adjust camber, you want to run less negative on both ends in a wet condition. Reason for this is, that when it's warm and dry, the negative camber is beneficial to help keep more contact patch on the road when the sidewall flexes and the tires generates grip. When there is less grip available from the surface (ie. being wet) the tire will not flex nearly as much, and at this point, the negative camber will only be keeping a portion of contact patch off the road resulting in less grip.
A fast car on the track in the dry, and a fast car in very wet conditions can be two very different things. This may seem like a lot of adjusting before an event, but will make your time out on the track much more pleasant.
As for the O.P who is running stock suspension, and has no way to adjust, the best thing to adjust would be your driving style for the wet as others have mentioned, and also try playing with the tire pressure's as I was saying .
-Anthony
don't agree with the equal sized arb's front and rear...thicker at the back is the way to go in my experience.
That is very interesting, i havent been on a track day yet, but i have STi suspension and no way to adjust, but my next mod is to get Whiteline ARB's and maybe look @ new suspension, what tyres would every one suggest as im running Avon ZZ3's all round
don't agree with the equal sized arb's front and rear...thicker at the back is the way to go in my experience.
Yeah, normally, in many cars understeering can be cured by adding a larger rear bar. And even in the Impreza's case, a rear bar will help a bit, but also give the "illusion" of correcting understeer (the problem will not truly be completely cured).
Whats really happening, is the rear of the car is now being forced to rotate more quickly then the front, helping the car to turn in. But after initial turn in, the front end is still understeering and going wide. This is more of a band aid solution (albeit a fairly affective one, but not a real cure to the original problem).
With a larger front bar, your helping to control/reduce the front end roll, which in turn allows the front suspension to stay more in the "sweet spot" of the dynamic camber curve, which then in turn increases front grip, which equals more "overall grip" from all wheels, which means faster lap times
As far as front to rear bar sizing bias, the beauty of the adjustable bars, is that if you we're running say a 24mm front/24mm rear, and the car feels as if it's not rotating enough to your taste, you can adjust the rear bar higher (or the front bar lower depending where you we're intially) to increase the cars amount of rotation. You may end up at a setting like f 24mm/r 26mm. This type of thing really come down to personal preference. Some people are faster in a really loose car, some in a car with neutral to over,or neutral to under.
Main point being, the front roll bar is not to be neglected!
To the OP sorry for stealing your thread for a mintue Now back on topic lol...
^^^I'm probably not a good enough driver to notice the difference between reality and illusion, all I can tell you is I find it easier going sideways with a 22mm front and 24mm adj rear set in the middle
Now back on topic lol...
