bokonan
Member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2008
- Location
- Baltimore, Md.
- TDI
- 2000 Jetta, RC2 & nozzles, EGR-ectomy, VR6 clutch, Bilstien HD, 17" wheels, 250K milesmiles
I found the first half of this thread interesting and useful. I learned a lot about the intent of the original designers of the Mk4 suspension and why they made the compromises they made. I was very interested in pursuing the GT concept and learning about which tweaks seem to work well and especially about any that do not. It seemed that a lot of valuable information was shared by Ceilidh and Peter Pyce and I'm wondering if they could be dragged back into this thread (kicking and screaming?) Basic handling was discussed along with geometry explanations and the pros and cons of most of the usual things that get done to cars because people think they will make them zoomier. Recently Air-Lift has introduced a "performance" kit for Mk4s which allows people to have their cars appear to lay on the ground (I'm too old to understand why unless it is considered funny) but this kit allows you to adjust both front and rear ride height and have adjustable damping too along with adjustable spring rates. This all sounds almost too good to be true so I'm hoping that a knowledgeable person (Ceilidh or Peter?) might know something about this in order to save me from spending my social security check on a useless product.
In my 2003 Jetta wagon I'm presently running about an inch of mechanical lift (I like fast dirt roads during hunting season) with Bilstein HDs and stock everything else and 225/45-17's. I can attest to what Ceilidh said previously about increasing the roll stiffness of the rear making the handling a bit "on edge" sometimes because I'm sometimes on Oliver's LeMons racing team and his 86 Golf can be a bit of a handful of oversteer at times (but it's OK because it's a race car). I grew up on air cooled rear engined cars and always thought oversteer was normal so it hasn't caught me out (yet).
In my 2003 Jetta wagon I'm presently running about an inch of mechanical lift (I like fast dirt roads during hunting season) with Bilstein HDs and stock everything else and 225/45-17's. I can attest to what Ceilidh said previously about increasing the roll stiffness of the rear making the handling a bit "on edge" sometimes because I'm sometimes on Oliver's LeMons racing team and his 86 Golf can be a bit of a handful of oversteer at times (but it's OK because it's a race car). I grew up on air cooled rear engined cars and always thought oversteer was normal so it hasn't caught me out (yet).
