All Things Mk5 > Members Rides
Very budget track build
pudding:
Welcome to the wonderful & annoying world of suspension tuning :grin:
The one thing I loved about the Ohlins was they were just fit and forget. All the preloads, damper travel, ride height etc was all worked out, and no buggering about with helper springs. They don't even use them at all, which is another great thing. It's literally just mounting the spring perch threads at the right position on the strut for the task at hand.
I'm guessing the Bilsteins are designed to ride a lot lower, so the threads are a lot further down the strut, which is why you're possibly struggling? Did you experiment with 8" front springs to ditch the helpers?
I would mount the stock battery in the boot personally. It's 20Kg in a better place for weight distribution and has none of the draw backs of a small battery. Don't forget the PAS eats a LOT of current.
Clarkj93:
--- Quote from: Pudding on April 06, 2023, 11:15:02 am ---Welcome to the wonderful & annoying world of suspension tuning :grin:
The one thing I loved about the Ohlins was they were just fit and forget. All the preloads, damper travel, ride height etc was all worked out, and no buggering about with helper springs. They don't even use them at all, which is another great thing. It's literally just mounting the spring perch threads at the right position on the strut for the task at hand.
I'm guessing the Bilsteins are designed to ride a lot lower, so the threads are a lot further down the strut, which is why you're possibly struggling? Did you experiment with 8" front springs to ditch the helpers?
I would mount the stock battery in the boot personally. It's 20Kg in a better place for weight distribution and has none of the draw backs of a small battery. Don't forget the PAS eats a LOT of current.
--- End quote ---
Yeah lesson learnt! Yeah it's definitely made me question more off the shelf stuff that's a bit more on the reasonable price side with no bump tuning available and poor set up guides from the manufacturer whether its actually quite limited setup in reality.
I think after learning what I know now for around the 1k/1.2k mark I'd either go for something custom so I can nag them into getting the right ride height and travel or something with travel adjustment built in so I can get it just right.
But yeah you do know you're in safe hands with the big boy names like Ohlins, AST, Nitron etc.
Yeah I tried 8 inches ones and it was just massively too high, like oem height at absolute best and still not great travel left either.
Battery is buggered I think, takes forever to charge, and lasts no time at all, I found some acid residue under neath it so I'm going to take that as a sign to replace . You are right but I'm just feeling fed up now :grin: so thinking of just replacing with a very cheap citroen c1 battery for now and re think the battery situation in a year or 2. Ahhh did not think about PAS... definitely need to give that some thought actually!
pudding:
It's all valuable experience you can't buy :happy2:
All this faffing about makes you realise why OEMs do the things the way they do with suspension :smiley: You wouldn't think simple springs and dampers could be so complicated, not to mention all the geometry and roll centre related stuff on top!
Yeah the more popular coilover kits tend to be a bit too generic and cover a lot of versions of the same car, where as the higher end stuff is model/spec specific. I thought it was strange when I got my Ohlins that the ride height adjustment was only +/- 15mm. Then I saw they literally only give you an inch of threads on the front struts :grin: They basically pre-configured it to lower the car 20mm. And sure enough, every corner was dropped exactly that. No helpers and only 2mm of spring preload. It was like fitting fixed strut suspension, it just went on and worked a treat :smiley: Shame the cost of entry to such convenience is so high.
I'm just not a fan of helpers, or having to wind in shed loads of spring preload to raise the car up, it just ruins the ride and reduces travel.
Shame the taller springs didn't work out. You would think that would be an obvious fix, but clearly not!
Custom can work out really well. I think I mentioned before, but years ago Gaz knocked up a set of Gold coilovers for me, based on gross vehicle and axle weights, desired height range, stiffness preferences, majority use (road or track) etc etc, and that worked out great. It just plopped on and worked like the Ohlins :happy2: The only downside was the quality. The piston rods started shedding it's chrome plating after about 12 months :doh: Couldn't fault the ride or handling though, because it was made that specific car :happy2:
Unfortunately, that or the big boy kits might be the only way achieve what you want, or just stick a B12 kit on there and be done with it :grin:
Oh well, don't give up. You're on the right track, pun intended :grin:
Did you try longer helpers and shorter mains?
Clarkj93:
Thanks for making me feel better about it :grin: Yeah Gaz have been on radar a while for that custom setup but think if I do take a punt on them need to be ready to get a rebuild at about 300 odd quid every couple of years... hopefully they last longer than 12 months these days! I do now have the top mounts they supply their dampers with so that is a bit of influence.
Yeah you're right in terms of oem design, the TT is an example of that, the amount it would cost to design and engineer a bunch of alloy hubs and wishbones wirh different geometry just to make it a little sportier on top of the various designs they alresdy make for other mk5 era cars, would have thought they'd just stick some tougher dampers on and be done with it.
Yeah think you're right there. May as well just wirh this setup now and only re think it once I either go big boy or custom via Gaz. Some light weight hubs is probably the only near future suspension upgrade I imagine for now!
I tried 5,6,7 and 8 inch springs just to be sure. Told you I did waste a good chunk there :grin:
pudding:
£300 is pretty good :happy2: Much better than the UK outfits that want £1000 to rebuild Ohlins coilovers :stupid: :grin: Needless to say, they are still rotting in my parts cupboard :grin: I might sneak them onto the MK6 TDI when the missus isn't looking :grin: Also got the MK7.5R front brakes to chuck on as well :grin:
Yeah I reckon they've addressed the quality issues by now. It was circa 2006 I got a set and they hadn't been in operation that long at that point. Yeah I used the Comp brake top mounts on my Corrado many moons ago. I would recommend switching out the spherical bearings for NMB or Aurora (Merlin Motorsport sell them) as the ones supplied in mine only lasted 1000 miles :grin:
Yeah exactly, those lengths are what it takes merely to run a car low whilst keeping the roll centre where it needs to be :happy2: It's a hell of a lot of changes over a Golf! The TT is easily the sportiest setup car of the Golf platform cars :happy2:
:grin: Oh well, I guess all that faff is what we pay someone else to figure out :grin:
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