quattro20v

Well after 5 long days, its finally done. I have pretty much overhauled my entire suspension. For 3 of 5 days, I had a helper, I figure at least 60 man hours not including the preparation work I did of pressing in / out bearings / bushings and painting up the parts.

I pretty much changed everything;

Springs (euro-sport), Boge turbo gas shocks, wheel bearings, tie rod ends, bump stops, dust boots, strut bearings, strut mounts, control arms, front and rear stabilizer bushings, subframe bushings and mounts, trapezoidal arm bushings, rear toe bushings, rear upper track arms, V8 differential, diff mounts, diff seals, engine mounts, transmission mounts, 8 CV boots, transmission fluid, differential fluid, plus all associated hardware, nuts and bolts. All in all my list was over 200 pieces.

A few things that set me back was a broken brake hardline, I broke both rear outer CV joints trying to get the joint off and all 4 ABS sensors were rusted in the wheel housings and I broke all of them. I thought I saved 3, but the VAG says otherwise.

So after some frustrating times, I installed a new rear brakeline, picked up a set of used axles and have the ABS sensors on order.

After getting it all back together, I took it to the shop for alignment on Monday. Wheel alignment was perfectly within spec according to the shop, and they said it was one of the easiest to align. Which makes sense as everything was pretty much new.

The ride is nicely firm, actually a little more stiff than I expected. Gone is the floatiness of the old suspension and its nice and tight. I'm glad I went with a mild setup, I don't think I could live with a more aggressive one. I haven't done any real aggressive driving, I want to do a week or so of a shake down and put it up on a lift to double check everything.

The one thing that surprised me is that it did not lower the ride height very much. I measured before and after and it dropped approx 10 mm - that's it. I'm OK with this as clearance is an issue for me, but looking at my car, it does not look lowered. So its still the "rancho" look. Honestly, this doesn't bother me, but I'm sure others it would. EDIT - It has settled a little bit and is more like 15-20 mm.

Special thanks to Scott Mockry for all the new parts, Gabriel (Iskolnick) for lending me a bunch of parts and providing a pair of rear axles and Bob Pastore for the V8 differential.

All in all, I'm very happy with the setup, but I'm not sure if I would tackle a big job like this again, given some of the pitfalls I encountered. Also, my body is still aching!

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Emerald-UrS4

Would anoyone like me to stop by LLTEK and see if their "Exhaust Tips" posted on their web site will work for the UrS-Cars?

They are located about 5min away from my work...<ul><li><a href="http://www.lltek.com/PRS_bin/PRS_101_RX_a6_prefaclft_tips.htm">http://www.lltek.com/PRS_bin/PRS_101_RX_a6_prefaclft_tips.htm</a</li></ul>

The Crapple

:-P

cpt_proton

Hijack : James, do you have a price for the LLTEK bumper (the one in your sig)

jjm's quattro

the ride will probabally drop a bit more as things settle - mine did. Nice work.

VR_Life

into it.

I'm still on stock suspension and brakes
Allroad config :-(

spiralsmurf

and his car is a 97.

chefbob

inspiring work, makes me want to do the same

quattro20v

Then went to "what about the bushings?", then "the rear differential seal is leaking" - "oh well, I guess I'll just install a V8 Torsen differential".

Wait a minute, "what about the rubber do-hickys that hold the differential in..."

Emerald-UrS4

<ul><li><a href="http://www.lltek.com/S4_S6_C4_classic_frnt_valance.htm">http://www.lltek.com/S4_S6_C4_classic_frnt_valance.htm</a</li></ul>