Got a new car? You should WRECK-IT right now!

MOOG has an STi, and not one requiring a topical cream to fix. SPOILER ALERT, but MOOG has a new car (watch it get chopped by Super Gramps HERE), as he goes looking for analogue engagement from a street car he can comfortably daily driver but still get the kinds of old school visceral thrills late-model VAG products seem to miss (remember manual transmissions?).

The show isn't called Mighty Stock Cars, so of course the first course of action was for MOOG to chop in and start modding his new daily driver STi. We all want our cars lower, a bit louder, with some more performance and more attitude, but qualified Internet Engineers (aka Sensible Sebastians) claim this just wrecks finely engineered modern cars. 

MOOG agrees and this is why he came up with the WRECK-IT plan (CLICK HERE) for any new car: Wheels, Rubber, Exhaust, Coils, Kit, Intake, and Tune. Do these and it is an excellent base level with which to start enjoying a car. 

To celebrate their new partnership with the Aussie suspension gurus at Whiteline the lads grabbed a set of their upgraded springs for MOOG's new daily. Sure, lowering a car is rad and beaut and is basically your favourite 69 flavours of ice cream all rolled into one glittery hot dog, but there are significant engineering improvements you can unlock here.  

The Whiteline springs come in a set of fronts (large diametre) and rears (the narrower springs), which can be swapped onto the stock MacPherson coil-over struts. With a 15mm drop compared to stock, these aren't the max-slammage super-super-super-super-low hard parking specials that'll win you Max R3sp3ct at Maccanats, instead they're designed to improve your car's cornering while keeping your stock shocks happy. 

You see shock absorbers don't actually absorb shock - this is why Clever Cecils call them "dampers" (not the delicious Australian baked bread), because they damp (or, resist) the oscillation of the coil spring as it compresses and rebounds.

If you put radically low springs in your car they won't work with stock shocks as the damper isn't the entire length of its whole stroke to absorb the spring's energy. Sometimes the damper can even be running on its internal bump stop, rendering it useless, which would make Clever Cecil sad (poor Clever Cecil).   

Above is a stock spring (left) with the new Whiteline spring on the right. The aftermarket spring is made of thicker, heavier steel with more tightly-wound coils for better resistance to cornering roll. 

Another benefit of the new springs is cutting some unwanted ride height to get the all-important shoe-gap correct. Lowering the ride height of cars is important to try and improve the vehicle's roll centre, which is an invisible point the car leans from as it goes around corners.  

The idea is to get the roll centre and centre of gravity as low as possible, so your car doesn't lose cornering energy flopping around as it goes around a corner. Think of how a jacked-up 4x4 leans over as it goes around a bend as an extreme example. 

However, slamming your car too low puts the roll centre out of whack, so Whiteline designed these springs to keep the all important geometry in check, leaving MOOG spare time to look up new recipes for tofu shakes.

Of course, springs are only one facet to a proper suspension upgrade, as your suspension is designed as a whole system working in with the chassis, swaybars, dampers (shock absorbers), wheels and tyres, control arm geometry, wheel alignment, and more. For MOOG's daily driver STi these springs will work perfectly to give the right attitude adjustment without overloading the stock shocks and swaybars, however once he goes back to the track we'll see if he gets itchy for more anti-roll control! 

You can read all about swaybars HERE in this earlier blog post