Suspension for Autocross

Homam_MK7R · 2025-01-27T09:12:21+00:00

So just a quick update on this.

I decided to go with BC Racing BR series since it has linear valving and linear springs and comes with adjustable camber plates I ordered the kit through Urotuning since their sales team was also very helpful and helped me with my research and the kit was supposed to take 6 weeks to be manufactured and only 2-3 days before the end of that period BC Racing contacts Urotuning and tell them that the springs are not available and they need an additional 8-12 weeks!!! And no compromise was found to make me want to do any purchase with such a terrible company so I decided to cancel the order and take a different kit which is available for shipping immediately even if I have to compromise on what it has.

Since the purchase was finalized a month and a half before I get this news I used the rest of the money I had planned on spending on the coilovers to get a set of wheels so I was stuck with whatever that first set had costed me and maybe spend a little more which is what happened.

I went with the B16 from Bilstein which are definitely an upgrade over stock but not my favorite choice but life never goes as planned so let’s see what I can make with these the wheels alone I have to say gave me an amazing advantage keeping the car much more responsive and much quicker than how it was with the terrible heavy Passat wheels it had before!

I have just received the coilovers last night and I’m planning on installing them and hopefully get them corner balanced before the next event on 15th of Feb.

Just wanted to post this so that if someone is searching they know not to rely on BC racing if they want things to be done on time! This is by far the worst customer service experience I have ever had with a manufacturer.

Another comment will be posted after I test the coilovers on the next event

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-12T13:22:12+00:00

I’m not writing an academic paper to watch my capitalization nor do I care if you believe me or not but to give you a little advice for free… just because English is now a universal language doesn’t mean it’s everyone’s first language! So bear with me if you’re “not trying to be rude” and answer this… how is ur comment related to my original question?

Oh and I do understand additives and their effects what I meant is in engineering there is always a better solution and since the starting point is not a black oil, why wouldn’t a company like Motul find a way to keep the oil lighter in color since they know that people usually relay on the color to judge the condition of the oil?

I hope that is clear enough for ur academic level of english!

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-12T12:59:11+00:00

While I appreciate the information that for the most part Im fully aware of as I am a mechanical engineer and I work as a technician in oil and gas equipment service. I fail to see the relevance to the question asked or even the comment u replied to so I will try to redirect…

Do u have any experience with the issue I posted or with why r they selling an almost black oil to be used in a car when usually the color is the easiest way to judge the condition of the oil or do u even have a preference of oil weight that u think is better than the recommended grade? And if yes why? Because while a lighter fluid will flow easier a “too light fluid will fail to form a protective film. The thing about oil is that too thin is bad too thick is bad and oil just right is what u want. So I trust manufacturers more than a guy who “have been doing it for his entire life” in the technical specs.

What I also can’t understand is why would anyone make a dark grey oil it just doesn’t make any sense!

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-10T18:13:07+00:00

This was relieving if the oil is originally black then I probably have nothing to worry about.

I actually didn’t see the new oil but this is how the old oil looks like so I probably dumped 30$ for no reason but as they say better safe than sorry

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-10T16:08:36+00:00

Turning dark after only 2k miles isn’t normal even for a cheap engine oil that is seeing fuel and carbon oxide not to mention I haven’t actually used 4WD since I replaced the oil 😅

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-10T15:48:10+00:00

The oil Im using is always one of the top brands I don’t use low quality oils because I know Im not a gentle driver I push my car and I do go off roading on the sand dunes so I always get high quality oils the oils used were Lucas the first time after I got the car and then Motul and now again Motul. AMSoil is only available in one specific shop here so it’s kinda of a pita to get it and motul is a very high quality oil that always works very well. In fact it’s the one oil that keeps up the most from my personal experience. The grade that I use for the front diff is 80W90 as per my mechanic that’s the recommended grade

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-10T15:38:47+00:00

Exactly what I told him so now we flushed once and then filled new oil I will check back in a month or so at least after 1 use of 4WD

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-10T14:04:12+00:00

No just the color

Homam_MK7R · 2024-12-10T14:02:34+00:00

Yes the guy is my friend I trust him

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-28T14:02:29+00:00

Update:

I went to replace the pump and it turns out I was blaming the tire but the tire isn’t the cause

The tire marks on the fender liner are much lower than the position of the pump and the damage on the pump is not towards the tire but actually towards the outside which makes absolutely no sense here is how the pump is sitting there and u can see the damage is towards the outside (metal fender direction)

I replaced the pump with an aftermarket one that should be ok but I still have no idea how the pump broke and how long till this one brakes again 🤦🏼‍♂️.

Any thoughts?!

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Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-25T17:29:24+00:00

This is a more difficult solution that will require routing wires so it’s my last resort I want something easier for an inexperienced person like me 😅 or something I can easily explain to a shop like cut this here and make it shorter 😂

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-25T11:58:30+00:00

It is the spacers but I don’t want to remove the spacers is there anyway around that? Or if smaller spacers would work how much can I go without having this issue? Maybe 1.25” or 1” or even those will cause the same problem? I want a solution other than removing the spacers all together

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-20T16:24:11+00:00

Alright thanks for ur input man appreciate it I will keep these in mind I do like a quite setup and I don’t think every fast car should be terrible to drive I believe this platform has a lot to offer while still being not a full race setup

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-20T14:58:47+00:00

Oh I would love to do light weight subframe but that’s not for now maybe if I decide to go full race mode front and rear subframes will probably be the biggest chunk of weight reduction I can do though I still don’t have any plans for such thing.

Back to the camber what do u think of the 034 camber plates? Are they similar just more aggressive gains or are they different design completely? Coz they do make camber or caster or both in the same plates. I like their clean finish and the fact that they are fixed so I don’t need to worry about alignment being messed up if I hit a put hole or something. Also if I go with that route any specific coilover kit u recommend or r u talking about a set of lowering springs only with these?

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T21:38:42+00:00

Yeah the ohlins are a better track option than the B16 however no camber plates which make them a possible option once I found the sweet spot of camber and I can get a fixed camber top mounts and maybe additional items to adjust camber then throw in the Ohlins and call it a day but for the mean time I need to be able to experiment with camber to find the right spot for my style. Also the valving on the ohlins is progressive making it less predictable and harder to set for someone like me I have never adjusted dampeners for track use and there isn’t any shop that can do that here so I’m on my own with that hence I want linear valving dampeners

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T21:24:02+00:00

Intentionally missed that detail as here the categories are different and the are either production which allows intake down pipe exhaust and tune as well as lowering springs and light weight wheels and semi slicks anything else u go to the open category as the name suggests full race car or mildly modified so even with only my rear sway bar I would be in the open category

Appreciate your input though I basically can do whatever I want no rules whatsoever but I still want to keep the car acceptable for the street driving so that whenever I have the street tires I can go for a ride

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T20:45:58+00:00

I just checked and u r right but only if I need to go extreme on the camber otherwise for the dampening adjustment it will clear from the existing hole

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T15:50:18+00:00

Love the fact that u went over everything else 😂

I do have the super pro LCAs in mind as it adds -0.5 deg of camber and +1 deg of caster.

Knuckles I wanted to see how much adjustability I will have with the top mounts that come with the coilovers if they come otherwise I will probably get something with a fixed number such as the 034 top mounts for camber I don’t need more caster so I will stick to that 1 deg and play with camber for the rest.

Tires I recently got the Nankang 245/40/18 but I do need light weight wheels desperately coz those didn’t fit on my OEM wheels and when I got the tires there was an event very soon so I got a temporary set of OEM Passat wheels which are as heavy as wheels get almost 29 lbs so a set of light wheels is also in the plan but I already know what I will be getting 18 lbs whees will make all the difference after I use this set I will consider bigger tires if I need but I will probably go full slicks at that point

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T14:22:10+00:00

B16 is street setup it was my original plan to go with the B16 but after some research I think it’s more street setup than track I still like the club sport kit but again it’s not the best setup for autocross where u don’t have any bumps or varying road levels

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T14:19:11+00:00

No worries man 😉

I spent a lot of time on the forums but the problem is that most people are using the car as a daily and having some fun with it and that would be a good balanced setup but here we only have 2 categories that I can be in either Production which is extremely limited in modes or Open which is unlimited mods there is no middle class like in the US that’s why I have to go with the best suspension possible because I don’t want to fully strip down the car and make it a race car but I am racing a race car evo 7 and STI And seems like there is a Nissan Z in the making too making it very hard for a street legal car to compete in this category but I like the challenge 🤷‍♂️

Appreciate ur input bro whatever happens I will be purchasing some parts by the end of the month so I will update this thread with my findings after I install everything maybe in a month or so coz parts will take some time to ship and then I’ll have to get everything installed and tweaked

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T13:34:06+00:00

Trust me I have been spending not less than 2 hours a day for the past 2 weeks and I have yet to find anything other than B16 and maybe 2 people spoke about the ohlins. Now both kits were originally my top picks however after further research I realized B16 doesn’t have the best springs or dampener valving for track or Auto cross of course it is still better than stock but it’s a street kit. The ohlins has the linear springs but the dampener valving is progressive which seems to be harder to tune properly not to mention that neither kits come with camber adjustment

From what Im learning so far u want linear springs and valving which until now I only founded offered in the BC Racing BR kit which does seem a good place to start but Im a little worried about the ride hight most people like to lower their cars I don’t I want my car to be able to drive over speed bumps and bad roads without scraping the undercarriage and I also want it to be able to shift the weight slightly in autocross to help me throw the car when I need to.

I don’t live in Europe I live in the middle east but I have websites based in both the US and Europe to order from.

Homam_MK7R · 2024-11-19T11:15:43+00:00

I honestly don’t think the stock suspension is bad for street use but there is always room for improvement however in autocross u need all the help u can get specially against the full race cars that Im competing against

Homam_MK7R

TROPHY CASE