So Bilstein stuff is back on, had a bit of a guts full for now. Forgot to post last time but did cut a hole in the wiper panel and insert a removable grommet, making camber changes a bit quicker, obviously its now just a standard top mount but thought it was still worth mentioning
I cleaned up the spare TT 8J hubs the other day, they look like they have some tiger pattern in this picture where I wire-wheeled them but they look good and polished in person. I was messing about with mocking up some kind of brake duct bracket, but the only way to get it to work to fit between the caliper and hub is some sort of reducer pipe that goes from about 2 to maybe 0.5 inches and weld it on. I don't think its really worth the effort and money frankly, so just going to point as closer as possibly to that gap between the caliper and hub as I can without causing issues.
I found this on an evo forum of the reducer pipe to bracket ducting solution
I did speak to Suspension Secrets the other day about my recent trial-and-errors not going so well. They basically said there is no issue with what I was trying, and the bump travel will be no less if the ride height is the same so I could actually persevere. So after all that, taking the front dampers off about 8 times I think all for nothing
I was actually close to getting a new spring setup! I've put it on hold now and will come back to it later in the year I think when I start to get itchy again to tinker.
I came across this picture on this forum, which was posted quite some years ago now
Its a droop strap on the rear of a Production GTI race car, I've heard of these being used in these series but no where else quite weirdly. Its an interesting idea though, shorten the droop to get the rear inside wheel off the ground easier and rotate the car easier. It is usually found on off-roaders, not much info on it being used for track/race cars though.
Trs sell these
https://www.trs-motorsport.com/suspension-limiting-strap.html, I think you could tie it down from the rear damper top mount bolt and the damper to hub bolt. It's adjustable as well so I was wondering if you could use it as a tuning tool. So.... if the damper is say 20 inches long fully extended and and 17 inches long when it hits the bump stop and 19 inches long when its on level ground, that means 1 inch is for droop. So you could tighten up the slack on the strap at full droop and then mark points on the strap at points that equal certain lengths of the damper, like mark a line at 1 inch of droop, half an inch of droop and 0 droop. So might stick it at full droop for the road and then quickly adjust to 0.5 inch at the track for example? Just a theory at the moment but again something to tinker with later in the year.
When I stuck the bilstein stuff back, I lowered the subframe a little to get it into position easier, I realised there is a fair bit of forward-rear movement of the subframe when its loose. So I moved it as far forward as possible and the front hubs are definitely more forward, I wish I measured it before and after but it was quite noticeable when under the car the difference in position. The more forward the hub is of the upper damper mounting location means the more positive caster we get, so maybe a wee freebie in terms of performance. Maybe they're meant to be that far forward though and mine was just way too far back for whatever reason so its now just "correct". You can see how much more forward the subframe has gone here, a good couple of mm:
