My '86 GTI build

[walterclark]

Where did you get the parts? I have a hard time weeding through the "euro/street tuning" sites and fine VW racing sites where they talk about REAL suspensions instead of "slam it to the ground" where the handling goes out the window. I want to lower my Golf IV, but having a hard time find good information to do it right.

http://www.pmwltd.com/products.php No "tuning" info there, and not much for the A4 chassis. I found out about these thru the road racing forum on VWVortex. This was after I determined what I needed based on the modeling and went looking then asked on the forum. I havent seen anything similar for the A4, but I didnt see the set I bought until some helpful racers on "road racing" pointed them out.

The hardest thing I have had with this is determining what is the best starting setup. I have set the ride height so the control arm and tie rod are about an inch lower at the outside pivot than the inside so I have about an inch of bump where camber goes more negative. I have set the static toe to 0 and camber to -2.0. I ran about -3.0 last year with a bit of toe out but the car was more camber challenged (camber decreased on bump and increased on rebound). I have read the V710 doesnt like a lot of camber (-0.5 to -1.5). I believe I should expect a little toe in on bump (first inch or so anyway) and toe out on rebound based on the ride height and location of the tie rod. I didnt have time to remove the front springs and do a full bumpsteer measure, but I did jack the car a couple inches from static and didnt see much change. At this point I am not sure what the data would mean in terms of feel on the mountain anyway so it time to button it up, start Saturday like this and see how it feels.

[walterclark]

Well the ball joint lowering (and matching tie rod lowering) really seemed to make a difference.

Even with less toe out and camber than I have run in the past the car turned in quicker and tracked more predictably. That is once I lowered the rear tire pressure relative to the front and took some brake bias out of the rear. Both of those have been used by me to help loosen up the rear but I could tell on my Saturday fam run the rear was too loose in corners and when LFB.

I really had to learn to drive the car all over again, but I think it is going to be worth it. Sure could have used a few more runs to better sort out the corners entry speed/apex/exit gear.

The motor felt strong and was trouble free. Now I need to get it to Alex's dyno to dial in the timing and fuel.

The upgrades I made to to the shift linkage over the winter are a mixed blessing. It now feels precise and consistent, 2 attributes that still eluded me last year despite a lot of work. I had previously replaced all the OEM plastic ball/socket rod ends with Heim joints and nylon bushings on the front motion transfer levers with bronze so the engine end of the linkage was precise but I had a lot of lost motion from the shift lever and selector shaft (VW official terms) going forward. This year I made up a couple precision, self aligning slide bushings to replace the rubbery orange donuts VW used on the selector shaft. This shaft no longer has any lost motion. Last last year I had replaced the upper ball on the shift lever with a spherical bearing to eliminate the lost and variable motion there. It now feels like there is a lot less between the shift knob and tranny than there actually is. The much better precision means I can accurately get to the right gear, but the slightly notchy nature of the tranny shift input means I have to follow the pattern...e.g. back-left-back from 3-2, not back/left or I will end up in 4th. Last year, when I still had the 2 orange OEM bushings the back/left either got me to 2nd or nowhere (bind). The last problem is that it is entirely too easy to push down on the shift lever while pulling back to 2nd enough to permit the shifter to go past the reverse lockout gate. I have the solution to that now and just need to fabricate the new reverse lockout.

[KevinGale]

Yeah I love having a lock out for reverse.

One of the best things that John Reed helped me with was setting up a separate lever for reverse. So the I can only get reverse if I put the car in neutral and then pull up on the revese lever. I used to get caught in the reverse gate sometimes when downshifting. Of course my goal with the new motor is not to shift at all.

[walterclark]

I finally started what has always been a hateful project for me...cleaning heavily rusted parts.

In this case it is the front suspension and brake bits (hub carrier, caliper and bracket) from the '90 Passat, out of which I took the 2.0 16V engine I am running in the GTI. These particular parts will allow me to run larger rotors and bigger calipers (either these single pot OEM or 4 pot Willwood) should I decide I need to at some point, or sell them for a good price (if cleaned up) if I decide not to install them.

Somewhere recently I heard about using an electrolysis technique to remove rust. Basically a bucket with some baking soda and water, a 12VDC source capable of a couple amps like a cheap battery charger, a piece of iron or steel to act as an electrode for the positive lead of the charger and the rusty part. Combine, wait a few hours and voila, a rust free part. I have to tell you these bits were really really rusty - complete with the caked rust areas. I didnt so any preparation except to put a clean bolt into a cleaned up hole in each so I had something I could attach the battery charger negative lead clip to. After a few hours the rust is either dissolved away or loose on the surface so some clear water and a wire brush clean them up like new!...or at least rust free. Dry them off and put some paint on them so they dont rust up immediately and you cant tell them from new. Heck I didnt even have to buy the baking soda. The box in the fridge was due to be changed and it only takes about a tablespoon per gallon of water to work. And the water doesnt need to be changed or more soda added, just add back any water that is lost during the cleaning so the next part can stay submerged and you are ready to do the next part. It seems one trick is to use a fairly large surface area piece of metal for the positive electrode. I used a 1" square tube steel scrap the first time and switched to a 12"x5" size piece of 12ga sheet steel after that. It seems to work faster with the larger piece - I know the charger is putting out more current. I saw at least one online writeup where the guy made a pan from stainless steel sheet to use....combination water container and electrode. The problem I see is the metal anode is slowly sacrificed during this process so I wouldnt want to use anything that was very valuable to me or that I hoped to use for other things later.

This is so cool. It is actually kind of fun.

[sdwarf36]

How about a zinc annoid? They are made for boats outboard motors-should be cheap at any marine supply house.

[walterclark]

I dont remember seeing large flat zincs and that seems to be what works well (large flat surfaces).

I took the car to DSG today to dial in the fuel and ignition timing. I was pretty close. Retarded the timing 2 degrees and increased the fuel a couple tenths and found another 3-4HP. Nice folks at DSG. Thanks Alex and Matt. While it looks like most of their work seems to be for cars from the land of the rising sun, they have what appear to be 3 Teutonic long term projects an E30 M3, a 944 (turbo I think) and a 2002.

[walterclark]

Picked up a new VW intake manifold. PO had a thing for sanding and buffing.



Shiny.

[walterclark]

Hey? Whats up with the image being cut off?

See original here: http://home.comcast.net/~walterclark1/g ... 000464.JPG

[Rabbit Farmer]

Shiny....

Image is cut off if you have the default forum template ((gray/black banner with lines leaning to the right with logo on left)... other templates it looks fine. I find that for most forums an image size of 800 pixels wide works best.

Steve

[walterclark]

Shiny....

Image is cut off if you have the default forum template ((gray/black banner with lines leaning to the right with logo on left)... other templates it looks fine. I find that for most forums an image size of 800 pixels wide works best.

Steve

Yea, thats it. I picked another template and though larger than the screen I can move around and see the whole pic. So 800 wide is the normal width for a pic if I want to scale it to be seen on most forums, huh? I will try that.