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I'm not a suspension expert but I suspect that a lot of it has to do with the damping profile of the shocks in the car. MCA and other decent suspension companies use a digressive damping profile meaning that over smaller bumps the damper remains very stiff but when a bigger hit occurs it softens up. You can control roll extremely well while maintaining ride and wheel independence. When sway bars were introduced as 'the' silver bullet subaru handling cure all in the 90's/early 00's this sort of damping was not as common. Believe MCA has a more modern approach than Whiteline.

Having spent some time on a sportsbike I'm of the opinion that too soft is just as sketchy as too firm. I personally run mca performance series with whiteline bars and links I have softened the mca's up by like 4 clicks f+r as I'm running 9kg/mm front and 8kg/mm rears as it's a occasional track/autocross/fast road type setup. It's going to be some trial and error, and to be fair bars are cheaper than struts to swap around. Most people do one or the other, I appear to be in the very small section of people that have done both. My setup is firm, and I know the alignment is a little out, but so far it's been really good. Can't really comment too much though, as I've only got maybe 1500km on it since putting in the struts, most of which has been work commute

So a coilover manufacturer told you that struts are more important, and a bushing manufacturer told you that bushings are more important? Now there's the surprise of the century. /sarcasm. If the factory bushings are so s*** hot, why do the WRC Subarus use pillowballs pretty much everywhere? Also, #unpopularopinion but I would say (total spitball figure) probably 80% of adjusty/coilover installs reduce the car's cornering grip. Best thing I ever did for my car's handling was make it a whole s***load softer.

Yes never go SOFT, but in comparison to track setups it’s good to be near factory settings for the road. For example, on some bikes you can adjust the preload on the rear shock on a sports bike, setting this one thing too hard means there is very little give and the force will go through the bike and not the shock and either give you a good jolt and wobble the bike or cause the tyre to break traction. Too soft and you pogo or there’s moments where there’s very little weight on the rear wheel I have both coilovers and upgraded sways. Halfway through changing out bushes and also ticked off quite a bit of chassis bracing on my car 😁. My experience so far -stiff sway bars on stock suspension -one position softer on sway bars with stiffer coilovers

Riding sports bikes I can definitely say it’s better to be soft than too hard. Any little bump would upset the bike. Struts are supposed to absorb bumps in the road. The thing upgraded coilovers are supposed to offer is improved rebound and compression (individually adjustable that is) while not getting too hot or aerating the shock fluid.

Independent roll control at each corner by using coilovers doesn’t address the other issue which occurs during hard cornering, that is the wheel itself trying to roll under itself from lateral force and creating less than ideal wheel alignment. Sway bars help keep the wheel in place while also limiting body roll, the drawback with this is that you lose wheel independence and whatever happens to one wheel more or less happens to the other to some degree. I can’t remember clearly but I recall an episode of Top gear or the Grand tour where they were driving a new Mclaren at the time and one of the key features was independent wheel control ? They attributed this to the tremendous handling ability of the car, each wheel was completely independent (power delivery, movement etc?) edit: 4 wheel independent steering

The track is usually nice a smooth, no pot holes, dips etc - good scenario for suspension, no sudden change in force i.e hitting a pot hole or one wheel getting stuck in a groove and pulling the car in a different direction causing random movement in the arms etc) Road: all sorts of s*** surfaces, suspension components are being pushed and pulled in all sorts of directions - in this situation I would not want soft bushes allowing multiple components to move around at weird angles. A car can be made to go straight really well. A car can be made to corner really well. Doing both is hard and where compromise is needed (or a big wallet and R&D team) Sway bars are good on a level road, going over bumps can cause the car to act very squirmy - but generally an upgraded sway bar makes the car feel more solid. Bushes if they are too soft and have a lot of play can mean that the alignment can changes a few degrees under force. I experienced first hand when I was working on my car. I took the rear coilovers off the rear control arm to make adjustments to my sway bar etc, to get them back in I had to push the tyres in/out to get the bolts to line back up, and it was amazing to see how much the tyre would flex on certain angles as i pushed it (soft control arm / toe bushes). Bushes are generally there to isolate vibration and provide cushioning so the ride is improved. You don't want movement in these places, but for the general public you don't want noise and vibration on a road car. Coilovers have their place when they are designed well and tested.

Cheers for doing the research and posting this up, its really good info. This is one of those 'it all depends on the application' topics. TLDR: I trust MCA's advince - They are based in our hemisphere and drive the same cars as we do on very simliar roads/tracks we do. IMO: MCA is in a better position to be calling the shots. Whiteline make some good products but if i was going to take anyones word, it would be the chap that is passing on feedback directly from the man in the seat of the car. I've run MCA Coilovers and have no doubt they know what they are doing. If running their products take their advice. On the flipside when running some generic BC or YellowSpeed Coilovers that dont nesaserily have spring rates tailored to your car, you may be able to create a better overall result with off the shelf items such as differnet bushings or swaybards. This is not the route I would take however. Furthermore! I think this is a humours topic in someways due to the fact that Swaybars are one of the common DIY driveway mods for street car enthousiats, its cute because arguably you are really just making your car less comfortable for the street. But we always do things like this to our delightful street cars anyway so i'm not pointing fingers, I've run Coilovers way to low and ruied ride comfort purily for easthetics... but i refuse to drop $200+ on swaybars that simply do not help the vehicle perform "better" but rather "differntly" on the street.

It's called the FA20 and it's been around for years now?

And finally installed after work!