Hello everybody, i'm new to the forum. My name is Donavan.
So about a month ago, I was a very proud GTI owner. OEM bixenons, OEM roof rack, Interlagos wheels, coilovers, fenders rolled by the man Tony (Tonys18t) himself, and a few other mods. There was a few other things I wanted to do to it, but for the most part, I was pretty much done with the car. That thing was my baby.
Then one morning, on the way to work, I was reared by some stupid lady who wasn't paying attention, and I got sandwiched between her and the person in front of me. Here's a before and after pic. If you want to see more, here's the thread.
So with the settlement money, I said :finger: to another car payment, and bought this '91 318i off craigslist. Nice interior, some cracks here and there on the front seats, minty rear seats, even included the nardi steering wheel. He also put bigger motor mounts to raise the oil pan higher. Since he was so low, he was frequently cracking them before that. But now the engine rubs the hood lining, which bugs me.
One thing that jumps out at you is how freakin low it is. He slammed it on d2 coilovers. Me planning on making this my daily driver, I was not trying to drive on LA streets everyday 1.5" off the ground. BTW, there was an is lip on it, but it broke off just going into my driveway. As you can see, my driveway isn't even steep. I even had to put wood under the wheels to fit my LOW PROFILE floor jack. THATS how low the car is. But since its on coils, it should be easy to just raise it up to a decent height, right?
Or so it would seem....
Driving it back home (which was only like a 10 min drive) was the scariest and most violent ride i've ever driven. Turns out, not only were the shocks blown, but the previous owner did some kind of homemade Dr. Frankenstein hack job drop using the d2 parts. It wasn't even adjustable anymore. The "coilovers" were rendered useless.
As you can see, he cut the strut housing, put some kind of thread around it, and just used the locking ring, which was dialed all the way down against the cut strut housing, as the spring seat ring. The threading doesn't even fit flush around the strut housing. It's about half an inch wider. The ACTUAL spring seat ring (which happened to be in the trunk) doesn't even fit on the threading!
After considering my options (which included just getting the spring seat ring machined to fit onto that thread and keep rocking with that setup), I decided to completely re-do the suspension.
So here I am now, just waiting for parts to come in the mail.
I never made a build thread with my GTI, and I always regretted it. So I made sure to start one with this project, and I plan to keep this very updated. Stay tuned!
So about a month ago, I was a very proud GTI owner. OEM bixenons, OEM roof rack, Interlagos wheels, coilovers, fenders rolled by the man Tony (Tonys18t) himself, and a few other mods. There was a few other things I wanted to do to it, but for the most part, I was pretty much done with the car. That thing was my baby.
Then one morning, on the way to work, I was reared by some stupid lady who wasn't paying attention, and I got sandwiched between her and the person in front of me. Here's a before and after pic. If you want to see more, here's the thread.
So with the settlement money, I said :finger: to another car payment, and bought this '91 318i off craigslist. Nice interior, some cracks here and there on the front seats, minty rear seats, even included the nardi steering wheel. He also put bigger motor mounts to raise the oil pan higher. Since he was so low, he was frequently cracking them before that. But now the engine rubs the hood lining, which bugs me.
One thing that jumps out at you is how freakin low it is. He slammed it on d2 coilovers. Me planning on making this my daily driver, I was not trying to drive on LA streets everyday 1.5" off the ground. BTW, there was an is lip on it, but it broke off just going into my driveway. As you can see, my driveway isn't even steep. I even had to put wood under the wheels to fit my LOW PROFILE floor jack. THATS how low the car is. But since its on coils, it should be easy to just raise it up to a decent height, right?
Or so it would seem....
Driving it back home (which was only like a 10 min drive) was the scariest and most violent ride i've ever driven. Turns out, not only were the shocks blown, but the previous owner did some kind of homemade Dr. Frankenstein hack job drop using the d2 parts. It wasn't even adjustable anymore. The "coilovers" were rendered useless.
As you can see, he cut the strut housing, put some kind of thread around it, and just used the locking ring, which was dialed all the way down against the cut strut housing, as the spring seat ring. The threading doesn't even fit flush around the strut housing. It's about half an inch wider. The ACTUAL spring seat ring (which happened to be in the trunk) doesn't even fit on the threading!
After considering my options (which included just getting the spring seat ring machined to fit onto that thread and keep rocking with that setup), I decided to completely re-do the suspension.
So here I am now, just waiting for parts to come in the mail.
I never made a build thread with my GTI, and I always regretted it. So I made sure to start one with this project, and I plan to keep this very updated. Stay tuned!
Comment