simon's learning what to do with the polo thread

[simon k]

sorry man I just realised I'd said I'd measure the stock springs free length and forgot. I'll hunt them down tomorrow if you still need me to.

would be handy to know, but not a big deal... the FARB is higher up the list than springs

[simon k]

Had another day at the local track today and after spending a lot of time (and $$$) on tyres, tune and suspension I only went a smidge faster, I had fun, but I'm a bit disappointed.

I think I should put springs in the front, on stock springs it still rolls over onto the outside front wheel. There are a couple of sections where the car transitions from turning right to turning left and it feels awful. Everyone kept telling me how much air I was getting under the inside rear.

So, it's either find springs to replace the standard springs (Sam reckons Eibach in Sydney are good and will be able to tell me what options I have), or I've done a little bit of digging around the coilover sleeve conversion for the B8 dampers, and it looks straightforward - except most of what I've seen involves machining a circlip groove into the damper body which I'm not keen on the idea of. I have no idea how thick the damper body is and would be very cranky if the damper snapped in two.

I might also get some more camber out of the TT balljoints, I probably only have 1° there now - I didn't have any idea how much it'd have so just made them fit and put the car back together, saw that there was a bit of camber there and left it.

[sambb]

yeah with a tonne of rear anti roll it sounds like you are over powering the diagonally opposite front which goes into pos camber with that much roll angle on the car. That's why I did the FARB in mine when I had the B8's - stiffer springs were going to be hard to find so the bar was the next best thing. Still doesn't help front end dive resistance though
What rears were you running - the stiff cut ones or the H&R's? Its possible that you had excessive rear roll resistance and dialling it back a bit could have kept the front end a bit more in its window? 3 wheeling is good for front end grip but skimming the deck is what you want not half a foot in the air. Given what you have on hand I'd get as much camber from the BJ's as you can and try the H&R rears.
Is your rear track similar to the front track now that your stub spacers are in?

[MattSA9N3]

would be handy to know, but not a big deal... the FARB is higher up the list than springs

I have a H&R FARB sitting here if you're interested.

[simon k]

yeah with a tonne of rear anti roll it sounds like you are over powering the diagonally opposite front which goes into pos camber with that much roll angle on the car. That's why I did the FARB in mine when I had the B8's - stiffer springs were going to be hard to find so the bar was the next best thing. Still doesn't help front end dive resistance though
What rears were you running - the stiff cut ones or the H&R's? Its possible that you had excessive rear roll resistance and dialling it back a bit could have kept the front end a bit more in its window? 3 wheeling is good for front end grip but skimming the deck is what you want not half a foot in the air. Given what you have on hand I'd get as much camber from the BJ's as you can and try the H&R rears.
Is your rear track similar to the front track now that your stub spacers are in?

yes, still on the stiff cut springs with the huge rear bar - what you say about the rear overpowering the front is what it seems like. I was hoping the Bilsteins would tame it, but they're still only dampers, not springs. I could have taken the bar off yesterday, and even run home and grabbed the H&Rs. It was obvious from the first lap of the first session that it hadn't changed much and I had it set in my head that I just needed front springs and nothing I could do about it, softening the rear again didn't enter my head. I'll take a few different things to the track next time.

According to my alignment model, since doing the balljoints and caster bushes, the rear track is 15mm narrower than the front.

I have a H&R FARB sitting here if you're interested.

for sure! you have a PM Matt

[sambb]

That, or keep the stiffer rear springs but change to a softer rear bar like UR's 18mm rear bar. Either way if you take a bit out of the rear so it doesn't lean as hard on the fronts, it will tell you something. On B8's I had either stock or weitecs (both stock rates) fronts, rear H&R's. For bars I had whitelines- front 22mm set to soft and rear 20mm set to hard. I never really ran the front on hard. I always felt like I needed more rear bar.
The H&R front bar is only 20mm from memory up 1mm on stock. Would probably be great if you had a lot more spring in the front but since you don't (and may not find a spring with substantially more being locked into a strut) , something like Ultra racings 23mm FARB Volkswagen Polo (9n) 1.8t Ultra Racing Front Anti Roll Bar UR-AR23-316 Only £217.26 would probably get the front more in line with all that roll stiffness at the rear. Or the whiteline that has the benefit of being adjustable - you never know you might hit a sweet spot where the soft setting works with the H&R rears and the hard setting works with the stiffer rears. You could see how you go with sourcing stiffer fronts whether you go with a modified strut spring or change the strut to accept 60mm ID coils. If it looks like you might be able to get a stiffer spring in the front I'd hold off on a front bar until you've tried it out. If you feel though that you are locked into stock'ish spring rates at the front, then yeah a FARB will help things. In the short term its probably cheaper/easier to run the H&R rear springs, throw a front bar at it (a bit of work though), and bung some rear toe out into it.
If you do go to 60mm ID coils on the B8's I have a pair of 150mm long 7kg fronts you can try (MCA's) for minimal $erage. Those fronts with a stock front ARB might marry up well with your stiffer rears and mutant rear bar.

[sambb]

If you look up H&R (australia) it'll link you to their international catalogues. From memory you can see their weight over axle ratings for the different springs. I'll try to dig out the email address I got for one of their peeps in the fatherland who has told me the actual spring rates of their springs in the past. I wonder if a Golf had the same ODmm springs and seat dimensions as us but had longer free lengths. Maybe a tour though a wrecker could tell you if a Golf spring with a coil lopped off would fit.

[simon k]

I like the idea of converting the B8s to coilover, there are plenty of different adjuster sleeves out there. If springs are cheaper and easier to get once converted, then it's smarter in the long run...

I have options, I'll weigh them up, fail to make a decision and talk about it again in a couple of months

....bung some rear toe out into it.

talking of rear toe, you had success with them, but I reckon those Eibach shims are sh~t. For starters I reckon their measurement table thing is arse about left to right (or positive to negative toe), then by the time I'd cut out enough of the fingers to clear the top bolts and the ABS sensor there was only one finger each side, which crushed torqued it up - I took it back out and those top fingers snapped off - stupid thing...

I'll make up a mounting plate to hold my rear plates in the lathe and machine them

[sambb]

Yep they are turd - fragile and finicky and definitely a one fit only. I didnt trust that they'd stay put either so I've had the hubs off to check the torque I'd left them at and done lots of toe/ camber checks and they have been solid. Yeah you have to be really careful with them when you prep them for fitment. You really need a bench grinding wheel to take out the relief for the ABS sensor as cutting it is next to impossible as the cut just tracks into the next tear strip. And yep interpreting the quadrants and remembering to flip one of them to the right orientation before you cut out the abs relief is another trick. I've done it twice now and have it sussed but I ballsed up my first attempt too. Its enough to make you lucky if you get it right. Terminology like "to add - camber" has you thinking will that take camber on or off. I can take a photo of what quadrants to be in. Get some alignment numbers off a shop and we'll work out what to do
Definitely well worth it. Its the most noticeable thing I've done up there with the rear bar. You really do go WOW when it just rips through corners that would have had another 30 degrees of steering lock on before and I haven't found it to be hairy at all on the circuit in higher speeds stuff eg Griffins bend on cold tyres at Bathurst

[simon k]

Yep they are turd - fragile and finicky and definitely a one fit only. I didnt trust that they'd stay put either so I've had the hubs off to check the torque I'd left them at and done lots of toe/ camber checks and they have been solid. Yeah you have to be really careful with them when you prep them for fitment. You really need a bench grinding wheel to take out the relief for the ABS sensor as cutting it is next to impossible as the cut just tracks into the next tear strip. And yep interpreting the quadrants and remembering to flip one of them to the right orientation before you cut out the abs relief is another trick. I've done it twice now and have it sussed but I ballsed up my first attempt too. Its enough to make you lucky if you get it right. Terminology like "to add - camber" has you thinking will that take camber on or off. I can take a photo of what quadrants to be in. Get some alignment numbers off a shop and we'll work out what to do
Definitely well worth it. Its the most noticeable thing I've done up there with the rear bar. You really do go WOW when it just rips through corners that would have had another 30 degrees of steering lock on before and I haven't found it to be hairy at all on the circuit in higher speeds stuff eg Griffins bend on cold tyres at Bathurst

setting up the shims wasn't the issue, it's just the general ****tiness of the approach I don't like - I already had alignment figures from when I got tyres & alignment done, I confirmed they were still correct with a stringline and CAD alignment model of the geometry, worked out exactly what angles I wanted, then used trig to get the right shim thickness to make those settings... if the bastard thing hadn't fallen to bits it'd be in the car now... I guess where I went wrong the most was that I cut out the whole section to clear the ABS sensor (as per the diagram) instead of using my dremel and a sanding sleeve to take out only what it needed... so I have one disk shim thingy that is uncut, and one that is probably rooted. Not fussed, like I said, I'll set them up in my lathe and do it properly

I just found these articles linked by Greg - doesn't this one sound familiar!!! TDIClub Forums - View Single Post - What is Handling?

but a big rear bar will only reduce the initial amount of roll. At some point, the inside rear wheel will lift (it'll lift on even a well-driven stock car), and when that happens, it really doesn't matter whether there's a big anti-roll bar in the back or not: as far as the car is concerned, there is one wheel on the ground in the back, and two wheels on stock springs and stock bar in the front. Hence at the dry-road 3-wheel cornering limit, a big-rear-bar car will understeer about as much as will a completely stock car (note: there's actually a bit of a difference in that a big rear bar will, by lifting the inside wheel higher, cause more leaning of the outside wheel, but there's so much understeer built into the stock suspension that the overall result is still understeer). Now, this is a fairly horrible handling set up (understeer sets in rapidly the moment the rear wheel leaves the ground), but there's no oversteer at the limit.

this exactly describes what it's like driving my car - once it's up on 3 wheels it doesn't matter what I do to get it to rotate, it just keeps plowing on... it was probably better at Winton when I was there because at least some of the corners are properly cambered, the track up here is pretty flat. It's used for competition on the weekends, but it's primary reason for existence is to train truck drivers

On one of the first corners yesterday I had a smidge of oversteer and I thought "excellent, it's finally going to handle properly", but then the tyres warmed up and it was back to tricycle city. I have scrub marks on my tyres almost all the way down to the lettering