Renshaw project (probably going to sell / swap)

[job705 10]

lovely car it would be something like this i am looking for and yes i live in south wales , hopefully will have the cash for the car by sunday as i am selling my 2003 audi a3 tdi quattro sport

[24V Renshaw 0]

Yeah, car came from just south of Newtown.

Good luck with your hunt, it will be worth it, but expect some hard work :)

 

Jay

[24V Renshaw 0]

Following some very useful info from Kev (Fishwick) and 3corsameal, on the KW recommended settings and ride heights for their coilovers, I am going to have a little bit of a play with my "non height adjustable" Koni and H&R setup, as I am not 100% happy with the settings at the moment.

I am currently running 15mm lowered spring plates on the front and this puts the front at 308mm wheel centre to arch, 7mm lower than KW recommend. On the rear it's 310mm which is bang on KWs recommended height.

So having got the overall strut length for the front KWs from 3corsameal, I am now going to measure my front koni struts and see how they compare. Assuming they are the same length, I am going to make some 5mm spacers to fit between the spring seats and the bearings, to bring the height to exactly that of the KW recommendations. If it works and drives better I will then buy some 10mm drop spring plates.

 

I will also mount the dampers on the car but with no springs fitted and jack the hub up to the 315 height in the arch and see how much room is left for bump stops and tailor those to match. That will hopefully give the bet setup I can get and all with none height adjustable struts :)

 

Jay

[OSV 0]

That is dedication, are the top caps available in a range of sizes?

[24V Renshaw 0]

I am a little obsessed with the chassis Gareth :)

Yeah you can buy 15mm or 10mm drop spring seats easily off the shelf.

To be honest the spacer will be fine, but if it works I might aswell get the 10mm spring seats for simplicity and sell the 15mm ones.

 

Jay

[OSV 0]

Would you get the same benefits with cpilpvers using the caps ie increased strut movement

[24V Renshaw 0]

Nope, it actually works the wrong way, the lower spring caps reduce the movement of the strut, in exactly the same way as when you lower a coilover. This is why I want to compare the length of a "coilover" strut to a non adjustable one.

 

Jay

[Rams 0]

Loving what you are doing with the car James, the fact there's more fine tuning goes to show just how well these cars can drive and you just know where the improvements can be made\adjusted.

 

Have you considered a stronger front ARB? I am running the Eiback one and it does feel quite stable, especially on lift off over steer.

 

There is something special about owning a C thats been unloved and transforming them. You fully appreicate every little upgrade or improvement.

[Jim Bowen 1]

the reason i switched to KW coilovers was i tried two different types of lowering springs had weitec ones with weitec shocks then swapped the springs for Pi ones as they had the smaller top coil and fitted the late spring plates, both-40mm kit dropped the front of car way too much and the handling was horrible.

 

I was still not totally happy with it but never really spent the time setting up the ride height. With the ride height i was running on the KW's the small spring was totally compressed and the larger one was also very compressed meaning not much spring movement. I have considered removing the helper spring all together or getting some custom springs.

 

I just wanted slightly lower than standard and it means compressing the springs.

[24V Renshaw 0]

@Rams - my whole intention with the chassis is to retain the factory geometry and not have to compensate with thicker ARBs etc.. Thicker ARBs means the ride compliance suffers and they are only there to "correct" the roll caused by messing up the geometry when lowering.

 

 

@3corsameal. The smaller spring is supposed to compress fully under the weight of the car. They are only there to hold the main spring in place.

[Jim Bowen 1]

i did hear about that before, but its almost stopping my main spring from doing much springing

[24V Renshaw 0]

That can only be the weight of the car. There is no connection between the ride height and the amount of compression the spring sees when the car is static.

You will be surprised how little those sort of high poundage main springs compress actually.

 

Jay

[Mike Edwards 0]

You mean the scrapper. :(

 

H432 TVV was broken for bits within 2 years of selling it.

 

M437 CLC - who knows...

[24V Renshaw 0]

Eh?

[Redfox 10]

I had standard suspension on my former Golf 2, and never liked it, then Eibach arb set, and loved it, then I went for resonable coilovers (plus other stuff) and loved it, I could hammer it through turns. Now doing the same on my Corrado.

But I do agree that there are limits to lowering. And you have to use quality parts. Cheap parts always punish you sooner or later.

Comfort is not my thing ;) though.

Surely sounds interesting with the finetuning of KW's. I want a V3 next time, so I can increse return, slow and quick bumbs etc.

 

Cheers,

Redfox.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Redfox

[24V Renshaw 0]

Well the spring plates did not arrive in time for the weekend. So I have to wait... Ultimately once I have all of the ones I have bought in error or excess, I am going to have a few different sets of drop plates if anyone wants some, both small (90mm) and large diameters (110mm) and drop of 15 or 10mm....

 

Jay

[24V Renshaw 0]

This is getting silly! So I order some new "pre 93" top plates from FK. They turn up yesterday and are bl**dy small ones again!

So I now have 3 sets of 90mm lowering spring plates that are no good to me!

 

I have someone sorting me some others, so fingers crossed, but I will put all the ones I have on the parts for sale tonight I think!

 

Jay

[Portent 0]

If you order within the UK then you can return them within 7 days under the distance selling act regulations.

[24V Renshaw 0]

Direct from Germany, I am not fussed to be honest :)

[KipVR 1]

This is great work Jay, a great set of choice mods too. Your C couldn't have landed in better hands!

[24V Renshaw 0]

Cheers Kip. Its starting to come together now, but yours keeps tempting me to do another 24v and this time with 3.2L :)

 

Jay

[James. 9]

Thought it wouldn't be long before you started talking engine changes. What would something like that cost (all in) ?

[24V Renshaw 0]

I never really think about things like that too much. :). I would say around £2k as I would do it all myself and use OEM management etc.

 

To be completely honest though I have absolutely no reason to change the engine at the moment, so it would only be in the hopefully distant future if it imploded at some point.

 

Jay

[James. 9]

I never really think about things like that too much.

 

That's my problem as well. I only ask, as like you, I'd like to have a loose number floating about. Should the worst happen and the engine is fit only as a door stop.

 

I couldn't envisage changing the engine in the Campaign for anything less than OE. But I'm already spawning ideas for the next project.

[KipVR 1]

It is a nice conversion to do and in my opinion improves the car a fair amount, but like you I wouldn't bother to do it unless the original one broken.

 

 

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Edited May 1, 2012 by KipVR