Bilsteins + H&Rs

[Brad Sheridan <brads@mindspring.com>]

  Up to this past weekend, my 87 16V had the stock suspension still on it.
And it had lots of body roll in the corners, and the car would squat and
dive alot on takeoffs, gearchanges, and starts. So I put in Bilstein sports
shocks/struts and H&R lowering springs this past weekend. This was my first
time replacing struts/shocks and springs, but most of it went pretty well.
I had access to air tools, and other machine shop tools, so that helped
alot. I dropped the car off to get it aligned today, and told the shop I
wanted 0.5 degrees negative camber, and 1/32" toe out on each side. The
shop did exactly that, and told me what I wound up with, which was pretty
close to exactly what I asked for. 

  I just got finished with a short test drive, and all I can say is WOW!
Zero dive/squat on braking/acceleration. The car is flat through corners it
used to have major body roll through. And yet it seemed to soak up the
bumps reasonably well. Unlike the ST springs I had on my last rocco, these
seem to be well matched. The fender to tire clearance is the same from side
to side. But it does seem as the rear sits a bit higher than the front, by
an inch or more. Is this normal? With the stock suspension, the rear sat
way too low, I think because it was in such bad shape.

 The first thing that came to mind was that now I need more power:).
Before, the power and suspension seemed well matched. But with this new
suspension, the car really feels like it could use another 100 hp at least.

  The only other problem I noticed was that the car wouldn't track quite
straight. Sometimes it seemed to drift(very slightly) towards the right,
other times towards the left. Is this a result of the toe out spec, or is
there something else to look at? If it was pulling just to one side, I
would assume it was the alignment. But this doesn't seem like that at all.

Thanks,
Brad


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