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In terms of reliability: I’m ultra conservative in erring on the side of caution. Imo – anything more than about 15% power hike necessitates upgrading other areas of the motor vehicle such as tyres, wheels, suspension, and brakes. At the end of the day, it’s up to an engineering signatory to qualify what is acceptable and what is not.
As the goauto.com.au article states - the Golf R is designed to travel at very high speeds not encountered on roadways in Australia. Speeds from 140-240kph on the autobahn require some push understeer dialled into the chassis tune. I’m a big fan of tuning vehicles for speeds between 40kph-140kph to accommodate for local conditions
It doesn’t matter if you upgrade to Stage I, II or III in motor performance upgrades – with stock suspension tune the driver has to lift off the throttle as the Golf R has a tendency to push wide in corners under power. In other words, if you’re off the power momentarily when exiting a corner, the power upgrade is not fully utilised - regardless of how much the power is increased in the Golf R (unless you’re driving in a straight line – then handling is not so much an issue).
H&R sway bars a straightforward to fit and shouldn’t be a drama with Dynamic Chassis Control. There may be two types of H&R bar – Xenon and Non-Xenon. The rear takes 20 minutes and the front about 1.5 hours as the under-tray sub-frame has to be removed. About $300 labour for installation. I’ve expounded on the negatives of aftermarket sway bars in earlier posts and strongly encourage anyone looking to upgrade sway bars enrol in the an advanced driver training course to gain an appreciation of a chassis moving from understeer bias to more neutral bias
Forget about the large size H&R sways bars unless you’re a track-day semi-slick wearing regular or looking to win the Hot Tuner Challenge. Small H&R sway bars are more than enough for a daily driver in terms of handling and ride compliance. Compliance is very important for a street driven motor vehicle that has to deal with both cornering and mid corner bumps on real world roadways.
The damper/spring combo in the Golf R is great for everyday use in terms of ride compliance/handling mix. Aftermarket sway bars should sort out the understeer issue that fast autobahn driving requires, but local conditions do not require. As a potential buyer of a Golf R – Ray and I would factor in the cost of a set of small H&R solid adjustable sway bars into the cost of the Golf R. The adjustability is great as the front bar can be left on soft and rear hard. If you head to the track, it only takes 20min to change the rear sway bar from hard to soft for the faster speeds of the race track if a greater degree of push understeer is warranted. Not so sure I’d buy the H&R coil overs with past issues of tug’n’release and spring-bind on the Golf MKV/MKVI platforms.
Cheers
WJ
In terms of reliability: I’m ultra conservative in erring on the side of caution. Imo – anything more than about 15% power hike necessitates upgrading other areas of the motor vehicle such as tyres, wheels, suspension, and brakes. At the end of the day, it’s up to an engineering signatory to qualify what is acceptable and what is not.
As the goauto.com.au article states - the Golf R is designed to travel at very high speeds not encountered on roadways in Australia. Speeds from 140-240kph on the autobahn require some push understeer dialled into the chassis tune. I’m a big fan of tuning vehicles for speeds between 40kph-140kph to accommodate for local conditions
It doesn’t matter if you upgrade to Stage I, II or III in motor performance upgrades – with stock suspension tune the driver has to lift off the throttle as the Golf R has a tendency to push wide in corners under power. In other words, if you’re off the power momentarily when exiting a corner, the power upgrade is not fully utilised - regardless of how much the power is increased in the Golf R (unless you’re driving in a straight line – then handling is not so much an issue).
H&R sway bars a straightforward to fit and shouldn’t be a drama with Dynamic Chassis Control. There may be two types of H&R bar – Xenon and Non-Xenon. The rear takes 20 minutes and the front about 1.5 hours as the under-tray sub-frame has to be removed. About $300 labour for installation. I’ve expounded on the negatives of aftermarket sway bars in earlier posts and strongly encourage anyone looking to upgrade sway bars enrol in the an advanced driver training course to gain an appreciation of a chassis moving from understeer bias to more neutral bias
Forget about the large size H&R sways bars unless you’re a track-day semi-slick wearing regular or looking to win the Hot Tuner Challenge. Small H&R sway bars are more than enough for a daily driver in terms of handling and ride compliance. Compliance is very important for a street driven motor vehicle that has to deal with both cornering and mid corner bumps on real world roadways.
The damper/spring combo in the Golf R is great for everyday use in terms of ride compliance/handling mix. Aftermarket sway bars should sort out the understeer issue that fast autobahn driving requires, but local conditions do not require. As a potential buyer of a Golf R – Ray and I would factor in the cost of a set of small H&R solid adjustable sway bars into the cost of the Golf R. The adjustability is great as the front bar can be left on soft and rear hard. If you head to the track, it only takes 20min to change the rear sway bar from hard to soft for the faster speeds of the race track if a greater degree of push understeer is warranted. Not so sure I’d buy the H&R coil overs with past issues of tug’n’release and spring-bind on the Golf MKV/MKVI platforms.
Cheers
WJ
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