suspension update/tires

[abatzis2@hotmail.com (Michael Abatzis)]

me and william put on my new suspension last weekend (#3 in a year). put in 
h&r race springs, kept my bilstein sports, replaced tie rod ends, ball 
joints, steering rack bushing (autotech sent me the wrong size poly 
bushing--much dremeling to make it fit) and used newly assembled dasher 
mounts.  i have an autotech hollow front sway that's waiting on a bracket to 
go on.  the car handled better, but still not as responsive as i'd like.  
part due to mis-alignment, part would be fixed by swaybar, and maybe a bit 
because of the POS general tires i've had on there since i had the car i 
thought. today i took it to get aligned/new tires mounted and put on my old 
rims with yoko avs (nearly bald) rubber for the drive. damn! the car felt 
TOTALLY different. way more responsive; i couldn't believe the difference. 
more noticeably than everything else i'd changed thus far. anyway, put on 
new yoko evs100's and it's a bit less responsive than the avs's. i'm 
thinking it's because of the difference in tread wear. point being that the 
tires make a HUGE difference in the feel of the car, and not just at the 
limit.  both tires were the same size, btw. notes;

--my castor for some reason was 0.5' on both sides; specs are 1.83 +/-0.5.  
mechanic didn't know what to make of it. all i could think of was bent 
control arm/body, but i wouldn't think it would affect both sides 
equally--does the lower suspension affect castor?
--race springs/bilsteins lower the car a LOT; i now have maybe an inch of 
tire/fender clearance, whereas with the shine springs i had 2-3". i think 
the dasher mounts have something to do with this, but i'm not crazy about 
it. otoh, it doesn't bottom out like i thought it would. overall, the race 
springs are surprisingly drivable.  not nearly as harsh as i thought they'd 
be, and the car is more responsive with this setup.  i'm curious to see what 
the swaybar will do, once it's on.  i'm not driving it too hard now because 
of the new tires+fear of oversteer (big rear bar still on there).


-Michael Abatzis
Hotlanta! GA
1988 Scirocco 2L 16v RIP-->parting, finally taking orders: 
www.learnlink.emory.edu/~mabatzi/mikes_page1.html
1987 Scirocco 2L 16v...




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