winter beater Golf R

[kep]

I figured I'd make a thread to document my car.

Car 2016 Golf R DSG (non-DCC)
Objective I bought the car to be a comfortable daily driver during winter months. Throughout the year it is used for for track, autocross, and ice racing. I usually use my Miata for summer commuting and driving events, but the Golf serves as a backup car if the Miata needs repairs or I just want to mix things up. Therefore, the modifications on my car are focused on comfort first and performance second

Turns out my car fits nicely in to the SCCA Sport 3 TT ruleset. I will explore having fun getting stomped on by Civic Type R's now

Modifications
Engine/transmission
Stratified custom ECU tune
Stratified TCU tune
RS7 plugs gapped to .024"
ECS Catch Can
BL revision PCV

Suspension/Handling
APR lowering springs
Bilstein B6 dampers
Eurosport Steet Camber Kit
24mm solid whiteline rear sway bar
Moog rear endlinks

Alignment
Front: Camber: -1.9°, Caster 7°, Toe 0"
Rear: Camber: -1.8°, Toe -1/16"

Wheels & Tires
Summer: OE Cadiz 18x7.5 with 225/40/r18 Bridgestone Potenza Sport
Track: Neuspeed RSE10 18x8.5 with 235/40/r18 Kumho v730
Winter: Sparco Asseto Gara 17x7.5 with 225/45/r17 Bridgestone Blizzak WS90

Brakes
OEM front pads (Street), Pagid RSL29 pads (Track)
Ferodo DS2500 rear pads
RS3 brake ducts
Motul RBF600 DOT4

Electronic changes
XDS fully disabled
Straight ahead brake stabilization disabled
Starting vibration reduction disabled

Cosmetic/convenience
2nd trunk light installed
cheap aluminum shift paddles
Ecohitch 1.25" hitch receiver
Audi A4 rear headrests


Previously Installed Parts
CTS Turbo exhuast resonator delete - I have no idea how people are able to daily this. After listening to it drone on the highway for 2 weeks, I reverted back to stock
Porsche GT3 brake ducts - fitment wasn't wasn't great and they hang a bit below the LCAs. RS3 ducts are a better option and only slightly more expensive
OEM brake pads - They don't hold up to track use, don't even try it. Perfectly fine on street, of course
Pagid RSL29 brake pads - Great track performance. Conistant bite, good release characteristics, and never faded on me. On the street they rattle around once they get low
Ferodo DS2500 brake pads - Not much to say since I have them on the rear axle. Low noise, medium dust, and never displayed any strange behavior,
Continental ECS Tires: Great on the street, great in the rain, sucks for performance driving. Sidewalls are too soft, requiring the front tires to roll over and have no grip. I've good experiences with these on other cars, so they may work if your car has sufficient roll stiffness and camber.
Accelera 651 Sport Tires - Read below for full review. They were meh, I'll be switching to something more competitive.
Falken RT660 Tires - Significantly more grip than the Acceleras, needs a little heat to work best, but will fall off towards the end of a track session. Durability was poor on my low camber setup.
Toyo R888R Tires - I got these used, so I don't have a full perspective of them. Grip level was less than the RT660, but the sidewalls were very stiff, preventing the excessive shoulder wear I've seen on most other tires. Absurdly loud when driven on the street.
Khumo v730 Tires: By far the most fun tire I've had on this car. Needs a little bit of heat to grip up, but the car has great rotation on corner entry, resulting in silly 4 wheel drifts at autocross. Wish they would last longer on track, but that's a result of my car's setup


Feel free to ask questions/provide feedback

 

[kep]

I finished off my set of Accelera 651 Sport tires this last weekend and wanted to post a quick review, since very little information is available about them online.

I only driven GTI/R on a few different tires so I don't have the greatest perspective on how it stacks up against the most competitive in tires in its class. However, I was impressed with the overall construction of the carcass. The sidewalls were stiff enough that I was able to run 38psi front, without any excess tire roll (I'm about -2 deg front camber). Road comfort was okay, a bit harsher than a max performance tire, but fine. However, road noise was really bad. It sounds like you're driving around a jeep with all terrain tires. It's livable, but there's no reason you should have to deal with that for street driving. Dynamically, they were fun, and exhibited a surprising amount of overseer at autocross and track. The absolute grip level was low. Even before they started overheating and getting greasy they offered significantly less grip than the Khumo v730 that I drove back to back. Durability was meh, it took 7 track hours, and a couple thousand street miles to cord them (my driving style probably plays a part here).

Overall I'm not really sure who this tire is for. It's too loud for street driving, and too slow for autocross/track. It's extremely cheap and can be had for about $100/tire even in Golf sizes. I guess maybe a decent option if you're jealous of your rwd friends and want to do some sick skids? I assume it's closest competition would be the Falken 615k+, but I haven't driven that tire for comparison.

A roasted 651 in 255

 

[kep]

A mysterious rattle

So, for a while I was getting some on and off clunking from the front of my car. Initially I thought it was a loose suspension component, so I pulled the struts, re-torqued everything and re-assembled. Recently, it started getting really bad, enough so that I was concerned something was seriously wrong. I followed a gut instinct, and swapped my front brakes from RSL29 track pads to some OEM pads I had sitting around. Turns out, I was right. The pagids don't have any sort of backing plate, so they rattle around on bumps. I'm guessing the noise was worse since the pads were down to around 4mm or so. While I was happy with their track performance, the rattle was awful and I'll probably go with DS2500 as a replacement.

 

[gixxerfool]

Your build is similar to mine in that performance isn’t the first goal. There are a lot of builds with just go fast bits. That’s fine and all, but comfort and convenience certainly has its place.

 

[kep]

Clunking sounds

So, I my car was nice and quiet after swapping to street pads... for a little while. Then I got a new clunking sound. I was experiencing it under the following circumstances: square edge bumps, certain accel/decel laods, and heavy cornering. Also was getting almost a grinding type sound when going from a standstill to reverse. The noise sounded from around the front left of the car, somewhere around the subframe. I swapped the sway end link in that corner as a potential fix, but that wasn't the issue. The noise ended up being the pendulum mount. After replacing it, all of the noises went away. I don't think I've seen many instances of those going bad, so I was somewhat surprised.

 

[kep]

Got a fun picture of my car on two wheels from a few weeks ago. Gotta find the track limits somehow.

 

[kep]

Latest Blackstone report came in. Only object of interest was the sudden presence of Manganese, but I suspect that's because the funnel I used for oil was previously used for octane booster containing MMT. A boring report is a good report.

 

[kep]

ice racin'

 

[Mreed055]

That’s looks awesome, looks like a scene Clarkson would be filming for Grand Tour.

 

[kep]

One of my favorite shots from ice racing this winter

 

[kep]

First track day of 2022 in the books. Didn't run telemetry, lap timing, or video, but did get some excellent pictures from our local photographer. I started the day on Conti ECS tires due to the rain and low temperatures. Once it warmed up I switched over to RT660s, and man it felt like I enabled cheat codes with how much more grip they provided. Car was flawless with no mechanical issues whatsoever.

 

[kep]

Casual autocross in the rain. The car's launch control is pretty silly, as it will spin all four tires and hovercraft to the side for a moment before hooking up

 

[kep]

Track day at Thompson on saturday. Most of the VW friends that day were struggling with all sorts of mechanical issues. Among those includes the front-outer tire which got roasted. 120+mph into two 40-50mph right handers did it in. Hopefully I can leave this car parked for most of the summer and get back into the Miata.

 

[kep]

My entire windshield spider webbed last week. Luckily i was able to get it replaced day before Thompson and the glue seemed to hold despite track stress.

 

[kep]

Got the car detailed and ceramic coated. It's significantly more shiny and slippery than before.