IMO, lowering your car will create a domino effect, in order to maintain the OEM handling (both steady state & transient) you'll have to spend fairly serious $. Also "100% flat handling" is not necessarily the safest way to corner, the AP1 is twitchy enough. If you accept that getting rid of the wheel gap will NOT make your car handle better, you should be OK.

 

I want to improve handling, that is very important to me. I also want to get rid of fender gap. I'm not really looking for a suggestion on coilover choice, but rather understand what the effects of certain mods are. Spring rates, dampening, braces, etc...

I have a 4pnt strut brace, and I felt like it gave me a little bit of understeer. My buddy sugested getting a rear one to balance, but I don't want to waste money on something that won't do anything.

I'm not worried about spending money, not too much of an issue. In college, but tuition is covered and I'm living at home. I'm going to make some bank this summer, and making payments on this car isn't an issue at all. I would like to save enough to not work over the next two semesters, but don't care because I like my job. I definitely don't want to "slam" the car, I think tucked rear wheels look STUPID on this car.

I just like not having fender gap.

I was thinking about getting koni yellows with GC coilovers with 12k(F)/10k

 

ahh, very nice. so it seems your not just some crazy guy who likes spending money for no reason.

i'll try to help you on some terms.

Spring Rate: All springs compress and decompress. With that being said, springs on cars are obviously no different. the spring rate measures how much force is needed to compress the spring. so lets say for example, that it was 1lb for 1mm (just random numbers used to help explain) then it takes 1lb of force to push down the spring 1mm. Basically, springs with a low rate are soft and springs with a high rate are stiff..
moving on...
Damping: i believe its how fast the shock moves during compression. some shocks have the bump and rebound adjustable separately and some can only have the rebound adjusted and not the bump, some have bump and rebound adjusted together. ok so what is bump and rebound? bump is the movement of the car going up and bump is the movement of the car coming down

stiff=bumpy, soft=smooth. stiff=better control, soft=not so good control
now theres also a difference between the front and rear. front stiff= understeer, rear stiff=oversteer.

*most people forget to take into consideration that tires play a big role in how your car "handles". Tire pressure and tire size all count. Also your camber setup plays a big role too. Since your car is a DD, keeping tread life high is a must but whilst not giving up performance.

im going to stop here, just in case you already know all of this and didnt ask to be taught crap you already know. what if i have done all of this for no reason... lol
also i would like to save face in case all of my info is wrong. im 85% sure im correct. well thanks for giving me something to do while i wait for my food.

 

That you for the explanation. I did understand what spring rates are, but I'm not sure exactly how they affect the car, and that's really what I'm asking. If I increase the spring rates, how does that affect the car?

 

higher spring rates will increase the stiffness of that part of the car. so if you go stiffer in the front and little softer in the back the car will understeer. if you do the opposite the car will oversteer.

However, if this is your DD higher spring rates might make your everyday drive uncomfortable. Also it all depends how you like to drive. Some people dotn like understeer while others love it.

 

I want a balance of under/over steer and I don't care if the car is uncomfortable, I didn't buy it to be comfortable.

 

If you stiffen the spring rate on stock damper's the car will handle worse than stock. The car will have too much rebound (bounce a few times after a bump). Also, lowering the car will change the roll center and increase your center of gravity. If you lower your car you need roll center adjusters to keep the stock suspenstion geometry. You may also want to consider driveshaft spacers because you will be stretching your driveshaft joints. AP2's have longer control arms and dont need spacers. Your stock wheels and tires have 60mm less rubber on the road than AP2's. Buy some ap2 wheels for cheap and slap some 225/45/17F and 255/40/17R Bridgestone re-01r (+10mm width from stock ap2). This will add an extra 100mm (4in.) of rubber!! WORLD OF DIFFERENCE! I did this and the car has a neutral feel while cornering and I highly recommend it!

 

I'm a step ahead of you

 

I think you have a typo, you can't be serious....

 

yep, im serious...lowering a car makes the roll center higher. search around and you'll find diagrams with explanations