Race suspension

Currently looking to upgrade my suspension pretty heavily. Already have an idea on struts and springs Im just having trouble find an adjustable contol arm that says it fits tdi's. I found tubular control arms that said mk3 vr6 corrado but I dont think those will work. If anyone had any insight it would be appreciated.

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Mk3 Jetta VR6, Mk3 GTI VR6 and Corrado SLC (VR6) all share the same front control arms and spindles so if you've found something that works on Corrado with six cylinder it will work on the Mk3 with the same engine.

You can convert any 4 cylinder Mk3 car to the 'Plus' front suspension used on 6 cylinder cars by using the spindles, control arms, axles and sway bar from a six cylinder car. The sway bar might have to come specifically from the GTI or Jetta, I haven't looked at that part to know for sure.

There aren't too many performance parts for the base suspension (4x100 bolt pattern), and even now there's not all that much for 6 cylinder stuff.

Good luck

Steve

As far as the cv axles would they bolt straight up to an 02A or would I need a bigger drive flange. Im working on a tdi not 6cyl

Tdi Junkie said:

As far as the cv axles would they bolt straight up to an 02A or would I need a bigger drive flange. Im working on a tdi not 6cyl

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I only talked about 6 cylinder above in reference to performance improvements and how to make your car work with the performance parts you found for the Corrado. That's what I thought you were interested in, otherwise there's nothing out there for performance for the 4 cylinder cars, gas or diesel (tdi)

You have to upgrade your front suspension to 'Plus' suspension before you can use those control arms you found.

Outer CV joint on 6 cyl is different from TDI, inner CV joint is the same since they both use the 02A transmission. Outer and Inner CV on 4 cylinder cars are the same and the axles are the same length but the actual axle shaft specification might be slightly different. This is all in context of MT, not AT.

It's best to keep your original axles and just get replacement joints, the passenger axle on the tdi cars is hollow and the aftermarket replacements are sometimes not. For that matter you could just repack and install new boot if your CV is in good shape.

Steve

It’s a lot of work to make a mk3 into a “race car.” I don’t recommend it. USRT makes some cool tubular control arms but converting a TDI to the 5-lug plus suspension is not a small amount of work and money. You basically need an entire VR6 car ready to go for the spindles, steering rack, brakes, etc.

Your money would be better spent simply getting some BFI control arms with the updated R32 bushings,, adjustable coilovers and some good tires. About $1500. You’ll spend a load of cash making the car faster...$1000-3000 for a marginal increase in power. At which point you could have just bought a VR6 (or something more appropriate like a Miata) and driven it on the track many times.

If you want a race car, go buy a $4,000 porsche Boxter
If you want a beefy suspention that is as "race as it gets" for a mk3, BilsteinHD struts and shocks, Ebach springs lower, Prothane bushings, LSD and some trans work and a beefy fork, Clutch, nozzles, turbo, map, and now your in the rabbit hole
No seriously, go buy a porsche boxter, or an old 944, they are cheep, fairly easy to work on, and will spank the crap out of anything you can do especially for that price.
I have been doing autocross for a good bit now and im doing a best of both worlds by putting my AHU into a Porsche 944 and stripping it down to be a meger 2600~ lb car.
dont waste your time trying to go race car with your rust bucket want to be econemy car. trust me. you will be much happier with a real race car and there very affordable, as long as you dont damage them lol.

Thanks for all the responses. I decieded just to get new struts springs a arms and ball joints. Should still be night and day difference. Its going to be a while before I need anything stronger suspension wise anyways. Might just lightly mod this and get a mk4 Ive heard good things about the alh and there are way better looking performance parts for that series

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Best bang for buck to do what you want is prothane bushings and a quality heavy duty struts up front, and a rear away bar brace.

Yeah ended up getting koni struts and eibachs anti roll kit for springs and sway arms. Currently waiting on bfi to ship control arms and ball joints. Ill let everyone know how she rides when it all goes in.

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Koni's are Ok, problem is the only real struts worth buying are the Bilsteing HD's but there not made any more and for some time now.
Koni's dont last very long.
PROTHANE bushings are amazing though. no seriously, you want to NOT roll in a corner, get them. btw i never once has any issues with squeaking.
The real thing you need to do is upgrade your breaks to the best they can be and get some mad sick tires.
Its not the car, its the driver. but breaks and tires do half the work for you.

Sorry to bring this back to life but does anyone know if you can replace the front sway bar and bushings without dropping the subframe

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Tdi Junkie said:

Sorry to bring this back to life but does anyone know if you can replace the front sway bar and bushings without dropping the subframe

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No, since it's captured between the body and subframe, and the bushings reside in a 'pocket'.

only real point here is that you need a pile of parts to make it as stiff as possible and a set of tires with 300 UTQG or less.
Prothane bushings all around, coilovers or Bilstien HD struts and lowered spring, not too much, you dont want to make the A arm go more than 90*. Darkforst sells a set of lowering kit plates so you can get lower with a higher suspension


The thing is, VW, especially Jetta's or golfs, are NOT race cars, you can race car them to death but if you buy a $3,000 Porsche boxter you already have a base line of performance better than you will ever get in a million years on a VW no matter how much you spend because you dont have billions to spend on R&D like Porsche does.

So update I got everythi g put on control arms, ball joints front hub assembly struts springs all around and new front and rear sway bar. So finally got it all together and the rear wheels are seizing on a certain spot in the rotation of the tire, both sides. Ive already decieded to just buy a kit and swap the rear drums out for disc brakes and new rear hub and e brake cable. I was just wondering if anyone knows what could have caused this. The rear brakes were practically nonexsistent already so it doesnt surprise me that any of those parts went out it just worries me that it is both sides and it happened right after all these new parts. Ive already checked and rechecked tire and wheel clearence and its all fine

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Also I did have to mess with the hard lines for the brakes but it was just pulling them out of the brakets. The e brake when I first got in was waay harder to engage the first time then got a little better but not back to normal

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Need more specific information on the brake problem to know what the cause is. Is it a hydraulic issue or a cable operated e-brake issue?

Also, don't know extent of the suspension work you did and what how that might have impacted the braking system.

Certainly it's unusual to have suspension replacement impact braking but depending on what you did it could cause problems.

Since I don't know what was changed and with what I can't offer any other advice.

Steve

Lowered coils and struts, new control arms, ball joints, new front hub assembly, bigger front sway bar added rear sway bar new bushings all around. Whenever I first went to take off I immediately felt the rear acting weird. Pulled back into the garage tried to set the e brake was waay harder to pull than before. Set the e brake jacked rear end up. The wheels spun freely until they got to a certain point then I could narely spin past thay point by hand. Once it got past that point it spun freely again until it got to the same point again. Both sides did this. After this tested wheel with e brake engaged it was evenly hard to turn all around (My rear brakes are pretty nonexistent)My thought is either the e brake cable frayed and wont release all the way or the changed rear beam angle caused the brake proportioning valve not to work correctly. Almost feels like a bearing went out but I kinda find that hard to be caused by suspension work. Also camber is still out, havent gotten it aligned yet but I wouldnt think it would be due to that.

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Tdi Junkie said:

bigger front sway bar

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mistake #1, take it off and put the stock back on with prothane bushings, you will have MUCH MUCH better traction, stiffer sway in the front will impact cornering like braking a dogs front leg!

you can do your won DIY alignment with a few blocks, some string, tape measure and a level and a calculator, no seriously. Camper you can get really close, close enough to go for a test drive, you will be able to do your toe 100% though.
best price for alignment is $50 to $60, shop around, dont get ripped off.

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The rears sway is even bigger than the front though and theyre part of a kit so wouldnt they keep the front from being overly stiff compared to rear. Honestly I wouldnt mess with the front sway bar unless I hate the way it drives or it is going to cause an issue aside from the front being stiff(at least not for a while) because dropping the subframe suuuucked. Also I thought rear toe was nonadjustible but I have been wanting to learn how to manually align myself as thats literally the only thing Ive brought my car in for I'm just too excited to get it back on the road to take the time right now.

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Tdi Junkie said:

The rears sway is even bigger than the front though and theyre part of a kit so wouldnt they keep the front from being overly stiff compared to rear. Honestly I wouldnt mess with the front sway bar unless I hate the way it drives or it is going to cause an issue aside from the front being stiff(at least not for a while) because dropping the subframe suuuucked. Also I thought rear toe was nonadjustible but I have been wanting to learn how to manually align myself as thats literally the only thing Ive brought my car in for I'm just too excited to get it back on the road to take the time right now.

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I have an Eibach rear bar on my Mk3 and a Neuspeed bar on my B3V that was for a Mk3. I had to change the rear links to make it work.

Perhaps the reason that your brakes are acting funny is due to the change in height in the rear. There's a brake force regulator in the back that adjusts the force applied at the rear based on the height of the back end (position of rear axle), when you changed the height it probably affected that braking.

Otherwise I can't think of anything that you've done that would affect the braking performance in the way you've described.

One thing you should do though is loosen the rear beam axle bolts and then tighten them again. Those bolts and the tightening are done with the car on the ground at general ride height. When you changed the ride height you positioned those beam axle bushings differently and the torque (twisting) needs to be released.

Steve

When you go hard into a corner at say an autocross track or short stopping to hit a tight corner your rear tire should lift off the ground. This is why the front needs to be a bit soft and the stock front end sway bar is perfect. Better to put in a strut tower brace. You want as much weight put on the front tires as possible in the conditions that matter to the stiffness of the bar. Having a stiffer bar will cause that load to be distributed a bit more causing less pressure on the tires that need it more.
If you got a racing suspension, then go race, then swap out the bar and race again. You will change your mind.
Dropp ing the lower subframe is not difficult. The pita is the 2 bolts for the sway bar as you know.
Still my stock 944 has a better suspension that any koni Jetta or golf.