Make Golf R more fun

Al, why would you consider that silly tube construction, which is obviously affecting
ground clearence and prone to corrosion, for that amount of money, when you could
fit the A3/CSS aluminium subframe instead? No corrosion, no loss of ground clearence,
supposedly stiffer, even shedding some weight. The CSS comes with it, the RS3 and
S3 do come with it, the TT/TTS/TT-RS come with it. I have no doubt it's the smarter
choice.
On a side note, there's also a CSS strut (tower) brace. Sadly I don't have seen any
pictures of it so far.

c0nman23 said:

It looks like a sweet mod! Would an APR tune do the same thing as far as tune the throttle response?

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I honestly don't really know as I'm not tuned. Saving that for when warranty is out.

c0nman23 said:

What made you go with that tune as opposed to APR?

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The Eurodyne tune can be flashed at home so I can easily flash back to stock, upgrade from stage 1 to stage 2 (as I did previously) and also flash the TCU for a DSG tune. One time cost, no need to visit an authorized dealer and pay them labor.

My DCC in Normal does NOT feel "squishy!"

In Comfort mode maybe.

breaking badly said:

Al, why would you consider that silly tube construction, which is obviously affecting
ground clearence and prone to corrosion, for that amount of money, when you could
fit the A3/CSS aluminium subframe instead? No corrosion, no loss of ground clearence,
supposedly stiffer, even shedding some weight. The CSS comes with it, the RS3 and
S3 do come with it, the TT/TTS/TT-RS come with it. I have no doubt it's the smarter
choice.
On a side note, there's also a CSS strut (tower) brace. Sadly I don't have seen any
pictures of it so far.

Click to expand...

It's a simple cost benefit rationale. While I agree that going the Audi factory piece is by far the more elegant solution, and you don't have any loss of ground clearance with it, it ain't cheap. ECS sells them for $564 (at a discount!), but that's just the start. Dropping the subframe is something I wouldn't think of doing myself, and of course doing that would require a realignment as well; I'd guess it'd be around $300 for my mechanic to do. So we're talking near $900 for that added precision from the front end. That's a bit steep for me. The Piercemotorsport add-on does the same thing, but with a slight ground clearance penalty (between the wheels where it matters the least). I can do the install myself as it only requires 4 nuts/bolts to be taken off and reinstalled, without dropping the subframe nor requiring a fresh alignment. Total cost $230 plus shipping--that's less than a third of what going with the Audi part swap would hurt my wallet.

As per the strut brace, I'm already running the one from Eurocode (https://www.ecodetuning.com/eurocode-8v-mk7-mqb-front-chassis-brace.html) --it's very nice. Really well built; goes on easily (though you do need to take most of the weight off of the front wheels); and it's out of the way under the plastic cover at the base of the windshield. As stiff as the MQB chassis is, you can feel a noticeable difference at the wheel. That sort of brings me back to the subframe: with my strut towers already not moving on me, how much more will stiffening up the bottom end give me in road feel, and would that really be worth spending $900 on for a car which will never be taken to the track?

Pragmatics really suck sometimes.