Now you guys are getting into some of my eventual questions... I'm looking for advice and trying to decide on a few things. Probably should mention that my goal (beyond the fun of the retrofit) is to have car that feels good highways/imperfect roads (comfort mode), maybe a bit firmer on good roads (normal mode, probably won't use this much) and can be a little stiffer and provide good control on canyon drives (sport mode). Canyon drives are the most aggressive driving I will do.
My preference would be a more comfortable comfort mode versus a sportier sport mode. I would like to be lower than stock Golf height but not as low as I am now on B6's with H&R Sports. Somewhere just a little lower than stock GTI height would be good.
First is to go with OEM dampers or B6 Damptronics. From what I've read the B6 Damptronics are 1 step above each stock mode... so B6 comfort is equivalent to OEM Normal (and so on). Unless someone has a different experience this is not what I want. So that means OEM.
The next question then is which of the OEM struts.
GTI and R both spec a different front strut... and the strut that each car specs is used for manual and DSG... so 2 front strut choices.
GTI and R both spec a different spring based on being manual or DSG... and 4 spring choices.
I seem to remember reading that the TDI was slightly heavier than a GTI but I can't find anything to definitively prove that. I would suspect the difference is still less than the weight difference between a GTI/R. My car is a manual and I wouldn't mind being a touch lower than a stock GTI so I'm thinking GTI strut with GTI manual springs. For reasons unknown the GTI DCC strut is ~150 more expensive than the R DCC strut, why VW?
Thoughts, opinions....
I'll get into the discussion about the rear in a separate post later, it's a bit complicated since the TDI is torsion beam and not IRS.
