Thanks! Mike and Raechel are the only ones who touch my GTI.. love PMW.
7
Do it all Sportwagen - street/hoon/track/drag you name it....this is the way...
- Thread starter tigeo
- Start date
tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
They did my turbo and downpipe..great shop.
Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk
tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
312mm f. brake upgrade complete ~3K miles ago. Found some used Alltrack calipers to snag the carriers from for $120 and did Stoptech slotted rotors/EBC Redstuff pad kit from shopdap.com. Install was simple. Braking performance seems v. good and not as grabby as before. Pads are fully broken in per EBC's instructions but they are actually quite dusty TBH for their "low dust" pad. At least it's brown not black and comes off v. easily.
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tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
Ok, dropped it on some H&R Sport springs this week after much deliberation, research, talking with some folks here/vortex/FB that had used H&Rs, and they are what the shop I use recommended. Part no. for the 4Mo GSW and AT are the same – 54789 you just get more drop out of them on the AT due to the stock springs being longer. I liked that H&R had a spring set just for the 4Mo cars b/c they weigh more. Eibach uses the same spring for the fwd and 4Mo. Probalby makes fuck all of difference. I am riding on the stock dampers against conventional wisdom and even the stock mounts. The shop that does my work said it would be fine in their experience since my car is only a year old/30K mainly highway miles which jived with what some folks that I talked to that had done the same said. Here are the before and after shots. Measurements before:15” f/14.5” r and after: 13.8” f/14.0” r. Drop is: 1.2” f/0.5” r. We will see if they settle any – H&R says these springs don’t settle…we will see. Shop said they would. Not overly concerned with drop amount, it looks and rides fantastic. It is better to have the back end slightly higher for cargo carrying/usability to me.
Initial impressions after a few hundred miles:
Highway. Feels very stock like. Entrance/exit ramps are great now with less body roll (I also have a Golf R RSB on there which also helps a bit). No discernable bouncing/negative ride characteristics that I can feel. Just firmer overall.
Around town. Feels more “sporty” - firmer over sharp bumps, holes, etc. I’d say it feels fine on the OE dampers but I don’t have a lot of experience with aftermarket suspension. When I need dampers I’ll do either Koni Sports or Bilstein B8s – those would make it even more firm. The main issue with stock dampers is rebound – I don’t feel like it’s under-damped..yet.
The place where you get “bounce” is dips – it’s not really bounce buy faster-than-stock rebound vs. floating over these with the stock setup. Performance dampers should mute that some but that will likely come at the expense of ride quality/increased firmness.
Initial impressions after a few hundred miles:
Highway. Feels very stock like. Entrance/exit ramps are great now with less body roll (I also have a Golf R RSB on there which also helps a bit). No discernable bouncing/negative ride characteristics that I can feel. Just firmer overall.
Around town. Feels more “sporty” - firmer over sharp bumps, holes, etc. I’d say it feels fine on the OE dampers but I don’t have a lot of experience with aftermarket suspension. When I need dampers I’ll do either Koni Sports or Bilstein B8s – those would make it even more firm. The main issue with stock dampers is rebound – I don’t feel like it’s under-damped..yet.
The place where you get “bounce” is dips – it’s not really bounce buy faster-than-stock rebound vs. floating over these with the stock setup. Performance dampers should mute that some but that will likely come at the expense of ride quality/increased firmness.
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Faceman
Autocross Newbie
- Location
- Long Island
- Car(s)
- '17 GSW 4Mo
Looks great, but don't be surprised if the struts wear prematurely.
tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
Maintenance discussion:
I'm at 30K miles/1 year/3 mos. I've changed my oil at an average of 7.5K intervals with it as low as 6K and as high as my most recent change at 9K. I've had tune(s)/hardware on my car since 3K miles and haven't babied it; plenty of launches/hard driving. I've changed the plugs/coils with Denso IHK24s (gapped at 0.028" as they came) and RS3 coils once after the IS20 due to misfires around 27K. That problem was completely sorted after that. I've used Liquimoly Leichtlauf High Tech 5W40 the whole time with VW filters. Used oil analysis from Blackstone have looked great with low wear metals, low silicon/insolubles (related to air filtration), and low fuel dilution. I used Ceratec at 20K and recently changed out and used MoS2...will be interesting to see how the UOAs look with the friction modifier(s) when I get the most recent change's data back. I've changed out the wipers with Bosch OEs and the rear with cheapies from Amazon. I've changed the cabin filter with a Mann Frecious Plus.
I'm at 30K miles/1 year/3 mos. I've changed my oil at an average of 7.5K intervals with it as low as 6K and as high as my most recent change at 9K. I've had tune(s)/hardware on my car since 3K miles and haven't babied it; plenty of launches/hard driving. I've changed the plugs/coils with Denso IHK24s (gapped at 0.028" as they came) and RS3 coils once after the IS20 due to misfires around 27K. That problem was completely sorted after that. I've used Liquimoly Leichtlauf High Tech 5W40 the whole time with VW filters. Used oil analysis from Blackstone have looked great with low wear metals, low silicon/insolubles (related to air filtration), and low fuel dilution. I used Ceratec at 20K and recently changed out and used MoS2...will be interesting to see how the UOAs look with the friction modifier(s) when I get the most recent change's data back. I've changed out the wipers with Bosch OEs and the rear with cheapies from Amazon. I've changed the cabin filter with a Mann Frecious Plus.
tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
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tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
Detail of weight.
tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
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tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
Here are my spring data. You can see that I went from a slight visual "negative rake" to a slight "positive rake" which I like on a wagon.
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tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
Stage 2 IS20 Unitronic update. Was having intermittent EPC/limp mode issues for overboost (code P0234). Did this since IS20 install and in fact that shop noted it to me when I picked it up that they had it happen to them while testing it after install. It was mainly when getting on the gas while moving at highway speeds. I also starting having misfires associated with these occurrences. Plugs/coils sorted the misfire issue completely but still was having the overboost issue. Checked my wastegate and it was returning voltages in the normal range. After some online discussions here, vortex, FB pages, John with Unitronic revised the tune. The issue is completely gone now so props to Unitronic for dealing with this so quickly/effectively. Who knows what the issue was but it's gone for good.
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tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
Understood/noted/makes sense. I'll change them when it's time. For now they ride just fine to me. Should be easy to tell - the rebound/compression damping should drop out and they should get more bouncy. I feel like the issue is more related to just having a higher spring rate vs. the length of the damper issue that many point out.
tigeo
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Richmond, VA area
Found this shot - dealer pic for my car before I bought and today. Wow!
