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Pineapple's Express 2.0: Dude Where's My Car?

Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
@DerHase @mrmatto tagging yall because the Koni review thread was what got me to buy these

Thoughts on the rear rub issue? I do like how the ride height looks currently but I'm not committed to the eibach springs. If I'm already taking major suspension components off then putting on the stock springs wouldn't be much extra work. Side question would I want to get fresh bump stops since I trimmed up the stocks? The spring pads 19birel mentioned might help, but I'm also wondering how much performance I'm leaving on the table for lowered looks.
 

DerHase

Autocross Champion
Location
Hampton Roads, VA
Car(s)
2019 GTI Rabbit
@DerHase @mrmatto tagging yall because the Koni review thread was what got me to buy these

Thoughts on the rear rub issue? I do like how the ride height looks currently but I'm not committed to the eibach springs. If I'm already taking major suspension components off then putting on the stock springs wouldn't be much extra work. Side question would I want to get fresh bump stops since I trimmed up the stocks? The spring pads 19birel mentioned might help, but I'm also wondering how much performance I'm leaving on the table for lowered looks.

The only rear rub I ever had was on the fuel filler neck due to running 17x9 ET43 and wide-ass 245/40R17 RT660s. Was never an issue with 255 V730s or 245 RE71RS on the same spec wheels.

On the 034 springs and after a lot of fiddling with bump stops I think I found a really decent setup that works pretty well.

1718305222851.png


Rear bump stops are trimmed 10mm off the TOPS of each side. Bottom is untouched. There wasn't any real scientific process to this as the rear just needs to ride OK and not do anything dumb. I had a tiny bit of bounce over bumps and the 10mm top trim fixed it.

Front bump stops were replaced with these:
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo-bump-stop-front-s60-s80-v70-xc70-8672087-1

And I trimmed 5mm off the tops of them.

1718305555419.png


Basically I was previously running cut down stock bumps (15mm off the bottom, and like 11-12mm off the top eventually) which worked great EXCEPT large high speed "yumps" at highway speeds. The front end would slam. This happened maybe 3-4 times over the course of a few months, but was enough to annoy me.

So I bought a few bump stops and "dyno'd" them using a corner weight scale and a shop press w/ a dial indicator to measure travel vs force required to compress.

The CorrDistance chart is most relevent to as-installed on the car as it basically takes into account the different lengths of the bump stops.

Based off what I found, I went from the light blue line to the orange line essentially. Cutting the top off the bump stops keeps the nice progressive "nose" and you never even feel that you're engaging the bump stops... it just is nice and progressive acting like a supplementary spring rate.

The key is not being real heavy into the bump stops at 1in compression or else the Koni Special Actives will lose their magic.

IMO the 034 springs are a TAD lower than I'd like, but the car performs pretty well and I don't think they're necessarily "worse" than stock, though I think at some point I might try Golf R front springs and pick up some BC coilover "cups" for the rear and run a 250 or 300lb rear coilover spring so I can fine tune ride height.


But to actually answer your question:
If your Pro Kit front sits any lower than 340mm center of wheel to fender, I'd probably go back to stock springs and just get some new OEM bump stops.

Also your rubbing can probably be fixed by alignment settings. Adding a little more or less camber depending on where you're rubbing.
 
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Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
Checking in again after a break from journaling.

Suspension is feeling nice! Big thanks to Acadia's Garage for giving me the space and help to learn as I install components. I've definitely begun to forget what the old setup felt like, but I'm often appreciative of the Konis on wavy rough roads like River Street in Cambridge. I feel confident charging along at 25-30 while everyone else is timid and afraid of the pace. The LCAs were very worth the time and money, turning feels much more precise and direct, both leaving center and maintaining a steering angle. As soon as I installed them I took the car out of sport mode (heavier steering) and have left off since then. I think sport mode was masking the bushing imprecision just off center. After that session of installation I ran into some confusing rub issues, that turned out to be because one tire that got rotated to the front was two sizes too big. Upgraded the tires to conti dws just to be set on tires for the next year at least. Thanks to my work-local garage that inspected my work, figured out the tire size issue, and didn't charge me for their time.

Currently experiencing some squeak/groan that is likely top hat related. I'm thinking install error, either aligning, tightening, or materials. Bought new strut mount and bearing just in case.

I've got a bunch of small installs queued up that each should take 1-2 hours that I've been putting off: engine mount, trans bushing, stabilizer arm & puck, head lights, pedal spacer, super pin & bushings, tail light harness. Looking forward to getting the bushing situation completely upgraded and stabilizing power delivery through the engine and transmission, as well as completing the lighting upgrades.

Lately, I've been hearing a whining sound that I'm concerned isn't normal. It seems to be present throughout the rpm range, with pitch changing with rpm. It's most notable from 2k-3k, after which the noisy unresonated magnaflow exhaust takes over. My first thoughts was that it's normal induction noises, but then anxiety set in. I made the association with straight cut gearbox noises and wondered about my transmission, having already wanted to change out gear oil. The noise volume cuts when disconnecting clutch and seems to increase with engine load. Now I'm wondering if it could be belt related. I haven't inspected any belts such as serpentine in my ownership, and deferred the timing belt replacement during the water pump install. At close to 85k miles I'm coming into the territory where anything could be aging out on this car, and the paranoia is real lol

On a positive note, looking to the future I'm excited to go properly stage 2. Dreaming of a full turbo back setup from Baun Performance, likely getting rid of the magnaflow catback. That plus the mild blurbles has been amusing, albeit a bit juvenile. I find myself apologizing to new passengers for the vroom vroom noises. The resonance is pretty not great, and I'm guessing the rich af tune is the reason my oil reeked of fuel when I changed it recently. I plan on self-tuning through open source. I want to gain experience in a more simple stage 2 tune and then consider moving towards spicier things such as mpi and big turbo.

Also on a positive note, my gf is getting a car, so automobile transportation duty is no longer exclusively my responsibility. We'll take road trips in hers to limit my mileage and save on gas. It also means a lot of stress is off of me for needing my car to work every day - if I suffer a breakdown or repair work takes longer than expected I can borrow hers.
 
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Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
Just noticed in the past 24 hrs an intermittent squeaking noise. After diving down the rabbit hole of "oh god my car is making a new noise" I'm coming up with either serpentine belt noises or crank pulley noises. Might have to do with the sound I commented on earlier. I found TSB 13-18-01TT, I'm gonna talk with my new shop and see what they have to say.
 

Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
No cause for concern here if I read this correctly. Couldn't expand columns on my tablet.
 

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Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
Went over to @Acadia18 's garage last weekend for another productive session.

Took care of OSRAM headlights, BFI engine mount, roc euro torque arm, power flex hybrid puck, and Amsoil gear oil. Was going to do transmission inserts but I bungled the purchase and got bfi-mount inserts.

First 150 miles impressions:

The headlights are gorgeous, and worth every buckeroo. Nothing really to remark on the installation except that having a buddy familiar with removing bumpers helps. I will need to adjust them upwards at bare minimum. They're also golf units with the chrome trim, so I might do a red-delete in favor of chrome.

The combination of mounts was more noticeable than I expected, but even before break-in is complete I'm quite happy with the results. The clutch engagement is much nicer and almost all of the rubber band feeling under changing acceleration is gone. Still some bucking under certain conditions that I'll chalk to the transmission mount. The added vibration isn't bad, both start, idle, AC. Reverse is noticeable but not awful.

One thing that did surprise me is the amount of additional/changed "engine" noise. Startup and acceleration are pronouncedly different, with a sound that I would describe as "grrraw". Any sudden change in sound makes me paranoid, but the tone isn't unwelcome.

The gear oil did not fix the whine that I'm continued to be concerned about. Next step in diagnosing that is probably asking a shop to assess turbo for shaft play. Don't really have time to dig around the engine bay with a stethoscope. Regardless, the old oil was very overdue. Getting into 1st in a roll is tougher after touching my transmission. It wasn't dialed in at all before, and now I clearly need to take some time with the side-to-side on my shifter. 3-4 shift however feel very smooth, with much less delay getting in and out. Pretty satisfied with that, but I can't enjoy it till the side-to-side is dialed.

Lastly, I've got my a0 dongle set and simos loaded on my new $50 Amazon phone. Next steps are doing my homework on what can be done and getting the switchpatch/high speed logging in place.
 

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Acadia18

Autocross Champion
Location
dang
Car(s)
yo
Assorted badgeskins (chrome) = ~$60

Porsche Macan Calipers (matte black) = $550

What else am I missing 🤔

Then you gotta paint your rear calipers too. You can't try and delete all the red, get matte black front calipers, then have red rears...
 

MonkeyMD

Autocross Champion
My vote is for yellow. Yellow stripe, yellow calipers. I think Adamsheik did that if I'm not mistaken.

R400 replica

1000035446.jpg
 

Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
So more reflections on the still-present whining sound. I was in a dark place a couple days ago wondering if it's my turbo dying, and if so how I should go about fixing it. Today I thought about it from a different angle and looked into the serpentine belt system and AC system. A few pieces of information seem important:

1. My AC has never been very cold. It hasn't bothered me as I prefer windows down anyway. I assumed it was low refrigerant.

2. Sometimes water pools under the car.

3. The pulley on my AC condenser looks worn.

4. Apparently not all of our AC condensers have clutches and stay engaged regardless of hvac setting.

I think the next step should be to have the belt and belt tensioner checked, since it's easy and should be done at this mileage anyway. The apparent wear could be from bad tensioning? After that, assess the AC compressor.
 

Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
Delete your red accents with one easy step! Badgeskins hates this!

Other goodies also on the way, because why spend money fixing noises when I can spend money on cosmetics 👀
 

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Pineapple

Autocross Champion
Location
Boston, MA
Car(s)
2017 Golf GTI S
$15 and about 15 minutes of work with the exacto and box cutter. Looks "okay" right now, some parts need smoothing but as a test mockup I'd call it a success. I'm not trying to present this car at a show or anything, and my front bumper is still ugly so I think this method is adequate. Curious to see how it holds up in weather.
 

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