Coilover Recommendation

Chat about your MKV (6N2) Polo GTi
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Trunkz
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Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

Budget: Ideally, £500, can push to £600 if I'm going to get legendary jag-comfort levels.

Not entirely sure how low my gti is atm, I'll attach some pictures and maybe that'll give you an idea. Its currently running on a set of TA-Technix, and I'm going to need to increase the height as it scrapes if I go round a corner fast, or if I have an additional passenger it just scrapes pretty much on anything and everything.

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neilGTI
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by neilGTI »

Whats wrong with the TA Technix ones ?

Are they seized ?

I have TA Technix on mine and they are fine apart from one of them being seized, i want to lower mine another inch
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Trunkz
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

My spine lodged a complaint, its telling me it feels that its is now the tyres of the car, and would politely like a more comfortable ride.
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neilGTI
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by neilGTI »

It could be that the coilovers are just too low, mine is relatively comfy to drive and i have stretched low profile tyres.

Your car looks really nice mate, i miss my lenso wheels just they were too high maintenance for me
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Trunkz
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

Maybe because you dont live in london, and have yet to witness first hand the state of the roads here :P What do you mean by maintaining the lensos? I just give the car a wash every week, and use some AG wheel cleaner and a wheel brush on them :)
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Trunkz
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

alex(perkins), any recommendations. I know you're somewhat clued up on these things :)
Monkey-Man
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Monkey-Man »

Tbh dude, looking at your tyres im guessing youve got 195 45 15, maybe even 50's.

For going particulalry low on a 7j width with the offset of these isnt really any good!! id personally go for a smaller width tyre to induce abit more stretch personally as the budget youve got to play with doesnt realy offer much in the way of coilovers that are a marked better than the ones you already have.

The two that you really could go for that are going to be slightly firmer rides that what you currently have and wont compress as due to the increased stiffness are Weitec Hicons and FK Highsports. Both of these are around 35% stiffer than your standard strut compression where as the hottuning also known as Ta Technix, Jamex, Jom etc etc are arounf 30% stiffer than standard strut compression.

If i were you id save a little more money go for something like d2 racing coilovers, Spax, Bilstein or KW. The d2 racing and spax you can pick up for around £680 - £800 and the kw variant ones (which are exceptionally good) youl get for about £850 - £1000. All prices are brand new and will varey from supplier to supplier.

If i were you save a little more matey. For what your planning on spending it realy isnt worth the difference over what you have now and ive owned Highsports, Weitecs and the hottuning and im currently riding on the hottuning coilies after my highsports gave up on me and leaked allover my wishbones and couldnt justify spending at least £450+ for a brand new set of higsports on weitecs, especially when i picked my ta technix up for £150 brand new including postage!

What you'll find aswell is the reason why your rubbing in the corners is mainly due to body roll and your suspension flexing!! Get a strut brace (upper and lower) to reduce that. Ride stiffness not going to make a great deal of difference to this!!
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neilGTI
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by neilGTI »

Trunkz wrote:Maybe because you dont live in london, and have yet to witness first hand the state of the roads here :P What do you mean by maintaining the lensos? I just give the car a wash every week, and use some AG wheel cleaner and a wheel brush on them :)
Maybe it was because i had them just as they came out, but the wheels rotted within 2 months, i complained and they gave me another set but those rotted within 2 months as well, i was constantly washing drying and rim waxing them to try and stop them corroding but nothing helped them.

Shame really as i loved the look of the car on the wheels.
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Trunkz
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

Monkey-Man wrote:Tbh dude, looking at your tyres im guessing youve got 195 45 15, maybe even 50's.

For going particulalry low on a 7j width with the offset of these isnt really any good!! id personally go for a smaller width tyre to induce abit more stretch personally as the budget youve got to play with doesnt realy offer much in the way of coilovers that are a marked better than the ones you already have.

The two that you really could go for that are going to be slightly firmer rides that what you currently have and wont compress as due to the increased stiffness are Weitec Hicons and FK Highsports. Both of these are around 35% stiffer than your standard strut compression where as the hottuning also known as Ta Technix, Jamex, Jom etc etc are arounf 30% stiffer than standard strut compression.

If i were you id save a little more money go for something like d2 racing coilovers, Spax, Bilstein or KW. The d2 racing and spax you can pick up for around £680 - £800 and the kw variant ones (which are exceptionally good) youl get for about £850 - £1000. All prices are brand new and will varey from supplier to supplier.

If i were you save a little more matey. For what your planning on spending it realy isnt worth the difference over what you have now and ive owned Highsports, Weitecs and the hottuning and im currently riding on the hottuning coilies after my highsports gave up on me and leaked allover my wishbones and couldnt justify spending at least £450+ for a brand new set of higsports on weitecs, especially when i picked my ta technix up for £150 brand new including postage!

What you'll find aswell is the reason why your rubbing in the corners is mainly due to body roll and your suspension flexing!! Get a strut brace (upper and lower) to reduce that. Ride stiffness not going to make a great deal of difference to this!!
Funny thing is, I've already have the front set all polybushed (front wishbone & anti-roll bar), and have a front lower OMP strut brace. You were spot on with the tyres, they are 195 45 15s. Toyos at the front, and Yokos at the back. In terms of coilies, I'm looking at either YSR or Gazz from PhilJ. YSR especially, as their top mounts are camber adjustable, and they are monotube in design. (Also allow full rebound adjustability etc..) I'm thinking that if I increased the right height by about 10mm front, and 15mm back, it should ease up on the scrapes by a good amount.
Monkey-Man
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Monkey-Man »

Just to make you aware matey that the YSR 6n and 6n2 coilies dont come with the adjustable camber top mounts as you cant adjust the camber via the top mount on 6n and 6n2 models! Why do you think you can by the mounts seperately. If your looking at the kits on clubpolo, then you'll find the kit with the adjustable top mounts is the 190e, but thats because the suspension setups is a little different!

Just to let you know aswell, you might have to get in touch with phil directly to confirm this but i believe the introductory offer he had these on which was £595 not including import tax of 20% has ended. He introduced these almost 5 months ago now, but dont quote me on that check with him directly. But for me personally there not worth investing £600+ into when i cant find out anything about the firm! Granted there a relatively new suspension supplier in the EU but YSR have been competing in US markets for Years and still cant find many comparible reviews on the net.

Think about it, anyone can sell you some junk with a load of cool sounding words and tell you a product does something that other products in its market dont!! But lets face it without doing abit of research on the company and knowing exactly what your buying then your abit of a mug if your willing to spend the kind of money you are, because a salesman (which is what phil effectively is, apart from the custom work he does of course) tells you a product is good.

Moving onto the coilies themselves, they look cool. Granted they do have 33 different adjustability settings which is a plus that you can adjust the dampening, but whats the maximal dampening as i sure as hell cant find it anywhere on the net. What if the maximal dampening is only 30 - 35%, which is no better than the coilies i mentioned in my last post. Just cause you can adjust dampening levels doesnt mean that dampening is going to be better. Electro platting is a big plus, but then its not going to stop chipping which will still lead to corrosion and seizure of the lock nuts and thread, it will just take longer to get there. And I like the way theyve incorporated a bearing between the lock nut and the spring. Again it is cool, but the spring shouldnt turn anyways!!! But what if that bearing goes?? Where you going to get a replacement from?? Not to mention due to the fact that they are an American company, whats your warranty on the product?? Cause bear in mind now, there not a European based country, nor do they have production lines in the EU supplying to the EU market so there not bound by our consumer rights or laws regarding returns and warranties etc!! These are all questions you should be asking yourself when spending the kind of money you are mate. Do abit of research into these companies first. Otherwise you could find you'll have a ball ache!! Dont get me wrong they could be absolutely awesome, but for £100 more you can get a Spax RDX kit and then you know exactly the kind of quality your buying ;)

But GAZZ, dont go there!! Never had them on my polo or any vw for that matter. But had a set on my clio williams. f*****g awful, dont get me wrong ride quality wasnt bad and they done the job. But had my first set 3 months and the seals went. Got in touch with gazz. they were full of apologies blah blah sent me another set. They went 11 months, again same problem. So ended up getting a refund and buying Billstein coilies!

But if i were you, if its just the tyre rubbing your concenrned about then get smaller width tyres or pull your arches.
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Trunkz
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

Phil is a good mate of mine, I'm gonna have to end up knocking on your door later on this afternoon.. :wink:

Granted he has mentioned that YSR is a new bunch, and told me to wait it up before getting a set. Never been to keen on Gazz either, just wanted to hear some opinions. But, I cant really justify spending £700 / £800 on a set of coilies. Might as well just pick up a set of kW v1 for £540, since the ride offer they'll bring will be miles better than pretty much anything south off £700.

Now on the tyres, what do you mean by the width? You talking the thickness of the wall? (i.e. the second part of the tyre reading, in my case 45s.)
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Monkey-Man »

KW v1's for £540!!! Bargain, is that brand new. I fancied a set of these going back a while ago, but every where i looked it was £850+.

Its always worth having a nose over on ebay.de Always sets of Bilstein's, Spax and Kw v1's coming up on there for south of £250, so plus postage on top of that your looking at £280 for a set of coilies that would usually fetch the better part of a grand. Obviously speaking german helps :P

Ah fair enough, if you know phil well, then im sure he'll sort you out, especially if anything did happen to any YSR's you bought. They may be an awesome set of coilovers, but just I fancied some about a month and half ago and couldnt dig up enough info on them to get a good comparisson against say the d2 racing coilies which you can pick up for a little over £650.

With regardes to tyres, nah i aint reffering to the sidewall measurement reffering to the actual width of the tyre. The 195 bit on yours. For instance if you were to get a 185 or even 175 tyre on yours, i think the lenso's are 16x7 aint they?? or are they the 15x6 versions?? either way if you were to go for a smaller width tyre eg 185, 175 or even 165 this would induce more of a stretch on the tyre, the tyres would be more like this \___/ (Obviously this is looking at the tyre face on at the bottom half that is in contact with the ground). Than this I___I. Basically because the tyre is narrower than what is required for the wheel, the sidewalls of the tyre flex to cause a decent seal between the tyre and beading and the wheel, causing the stretched look.

Take a look at this website mate http://www.tyrestretch.com/

That'll show you what I mean by stretch and it will give you an idea of what a narrower tyre will look like on your wheel spec. Its because of this, (combined with low offset wheels and camber sometimes) that people can fit rediculously wide wheels such as 8 or 9j under there 6n and 6n2 arches!
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Trunkz
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

My Lensos are 15x7J. Problem with anything less than 195, I cant seem to get ahold of a decent spec tyre. I swear by Toyo's day in and day out, especially in their rain capabilities. I'm set on getting those kW V1s (They're the basic variant off awesome-gti, same as the inox line but with galvanized bodies), just need to get ahold of a rear ARB and a front top strut brace :)
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Monkey-Man »

Theres a guy advertising a polo gti front upper strut brace on clubpolo and e38 mate, cant remember his username though, il keep an eye out. But as regards to tyres, i understand what you mean about the toyo's, the only tyres ive used better than them in the wet are yoko's which quite frankly is hard to beat!

But Nankang do some sweet tyres and contisport are awesome in the wet also mate, worth shopping around for a smaller width tyre thought just to keep the lows ;) and dont use roads as an excuse, we have to suffer with the country roads that are barely tarmaced up here in rainy old wales ;) often visitng london, once every fortnight aswell and i still manage to crawl around!! Did get stuck in the shell petrol station in palmers green though!! :P
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Trunkz
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Re: Coilover Recommendation

Post by Trunkz »

I've had a look through e38 and clubpolo, and I think you're smoking crack.. not a single mention of a polo strutbrace in sight :( Was looking at camskill & blackcircle for tyre prices, and guess I'll leave that till the end of the year when I guess I'll think about changing tyres. Gonna plan a trip to awesome's unit up in manchester next week to pick up my kWs, and get cruise control retrofitted in..

Seriously though, if it wasnt for my lower strut brace, my sump would be getting shagged constantly..
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