Jim

Sorry should have replied sooner but mine arrived as well :) Thanks for organising this!

Seems to be fixed. I jacked the car up again this morning and removed the driver side front strut (where the noise was coming from) - all seemed fine from what I could see however I could see a bit of plastic in part of the assembly (plastic shroud on the underside of the bump stop) looked slightly damaged - I think it might have, for some reason, being catching on a rung of the spring as the suspension changed going over bumps causing the noise. Anyway I dialled it down a little more, re-attached to the car and took it for a drive and it all all seems happy now :) Amazed at how much better the car goes round corners. I guess I'd gotten so used to my knackered Bilstein dampers that I just hadn't realised really how bad they were.. zipped round a few corners earlier and it felt like it was on rails! Will get an alignment done in the week hopefully.

The only weird thing about it all is that I did take it on a test run for a few miles on Wednesday, and all was well. All I did yesterday was raise the car some more and fit those bracket things at the bottom of the front struts.

Pretty sure the brackets are on the right sides as the brake line / ABS sensor wire were sitting in the right place ready to be clipped in. I will certainly try removing the brackets again though and seeing if the noise persists. Seriously having a motivation issue but thinking I should probably remove the whole strut again on that side and make sure everything is done up properly (specifically the nut that secures the top mount to the strut).

Reading around on an R32 Golf forum, they talk about it's possible one of the drop links could be loose? Just seemed weird given that it was fine when I drove it yesterday - then I jacked it up a little bit, fitted those brackets at the bottom of the struts, and now it's doing this? Thought it could be the drive shaft hitting the bottom of the damper but it looks like it's totally clear of it - and again can't see how changing the ride height would change this anyway as the drive shaft and position of the strut are a fixed distance. Guess I best get it over to a garage for a check over - see if they can work it out.

Hi all.. So I fitted new AP coilovers to my car this week. I took it for it's first test drive the other day and all seemed perfectly well. This evening I just did the last few bits - fitted brand new brackets to the bottom of the struts to hold the ABS sensor and brake line, and raised it up another 10mm or so as it was far too low! However upon dropping it back down and taking it for a drive something is now immediately wrong. On the driver side there's an awful metallic almost cracking noise when going over uneven ground (so if one side changes height but the other doesn't) - doesn't seem to be an issue if going over a bump evenly with both wheel. Seemingly is made worse if the steering is slightly off centre (like turning a corner or something). I thought initially it was just spring settling but I took it round the block and the noise persisted and sounded dangerous so I gingerly drove back and got it jacked back up expecting to see something obvious - but no. Everything looked fine! Checked all the bolts were up tight, put it back on the ground again - same problem when I drove it down the alley. I'm going to have to try and limp it to a garage to work out what's going on, but if anyone has any thoughts I'm certainly desperate to hear them. I've put hours into this suspension swap this week and genuinely am ready to start hitting the car with a breaker bar as I just feel so frustrated. Was hoping to get wheel alignment done tomorrow and take it to a show on Saturday but looks like that's not happening now. Cheers.

You can get great reproduction 'supercharged' badges from Trimsport I think?

Guess I want the car to be at about a 30-40mm drop at the absolute max. Have you got a pic of your car with its current ride height?

In the end the impact gun was ineffective (though it does seem pretty powerful, so I will keep it in my toolbox for future use!) - so resorted back to metal bars slipped over the allen key and a long as breaker bar for the top nut - which eventually worked. Front swap went mostly OK apart from the bolt which holds the little brackets at the base of the dampers (to secure the ABS sensor cable and brake line) shearing - but popped to VW and was surprised that they were still available to order, which I did - should be here tomorrow. So tomorrow evenings last bit of tinkering will be to raise the car some more (too low - ground out, whilst taking it out the garage on a small test drive!), fit these little brackets, and reinstall bits of trim and stuff removed from the rear during installation - and then see about getting it aligned. It seemed to drive pretty nice - steering seemed a good bit lighter (which I am happier about, as I felt it was too heavy), and it didn't seem as firm as I feared it might - clearly the suspension is actually working now though compared to my old dampers which I think were totally dead! Can't wait to take it on a proper drive on some familiar roads now.

If I had one I would gladly loan it to you. Love to see people tackling these kinds of projects. Good luck.

I'm off to pick up one from Machine Mart later: https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/cir13c-1-2in-impact-wrench-kit-12v/ As my lockup garage doesn't have electricity and I can't stomach spending £150+ for a decent cordless, I'm hoping this might just have enough grunt. God knows though! Reviews say it's handled wheel nuts that were over-tightened so fingers crossed.

Had half a day off today (and off tomorrow) so was determined to make more progress today and get the fronts swapped over. Had to throw in the towel after a few hours as I couldn't get that top nut on the strut to shift despite having a 22mm socket with a cut out in the side - just simply couldn't apply enough counter force with an allen key to release it, as it must have been air-gunned up :( Going to try and pick up a cheap impact driver this evening (connects to a car battery) and give it another go tomorrow. Frustrating. Will have ended up costing me more in tools than the labour would have cost for a garage to do the work now I think.

I did try another run of these with another 3D printing firm, and whilst they did come out a lot cheaper, the quality just didn't seem right. If I find some time in the coming weeks I may see about another test batch and see if I can find a winning material - and can take it from there.

900 quid isn't too bad I guess though certainly not cheap. Original wings are still available but cost more and will rust!

Tough one. Reproduction wings at a good price.. but then end up with a psychopath in the White House. Hmmm..

The ones to get I think are the spoonfed tuning ones in fiberglass - they look really good BUT they won't ship to the UK, probably because of size / cost. Perhaps if a large enough order was placed however, they might consider it.

How the hell should the 'insuree' (i.e. the motorist) be out of pocket if the underwriter goes bust? Surely that's Flux's problem?! The insurance industry is the biggest freaking scam, I swear to god.

A lot of effort and wrestling around under the car, and I got the rear suspension on yesterday afternoon. Few gremlins along the way. Firstly the new bolts I bought from VW Spares, which bolt the bottom of the damper to the rear beam, were much shorter than the ones currently on the car - probably because I have an uprated (Eibach) ARB fitted so I had to re-use the existing nuts and bolts which I didn't really want to do. Secondly the AP coilovers come with two nuts on the thread at the top, but you need three to fully re-assemble the whole washer/mount/plate type assembly from what I can tell, but the ones on the AP have an '04' stamped on them, and the nuts on my existing Bilstein dampers have '05' stamped on them - so they don't fit on. So I'm one short on either side. Going to have to try and find another nut from somewhere. But this is only for the last little metal plate that sits on top of the top mount, so can't see how it'd be important / needed. Hopefully going to do the fronts later this week.

Awesome!! I always remember Shaun Ryder's name coming up on forums as a 'celeb' Corrado owner so this is really cool. Can't wait to see it!

Have you driven it yet? How does it feel? Did you just tackle fitment of them yourself?

Welcome aboard :)

Prices on Corrado's are so hard to pin down really. So 11k is certainly strong money, but I think you should certainly give it a try at that price! :)

Didn't think this car could be improved any more but guess you live and learn. Awesome stuff.

Black leather recaro's?

Feel really sorry for you mate. I'd say "you need to persevere" but I know how draining this can all be :|