Sam's Mk4 Golf 1.6

[saMfish]

Made an account on here a fair while ago but never really got around to using it, and I've got some more free time now so I thought I'd put it to good use

I bought my Golf in 2010, around August. It had 80,000km (exactly) on the dial and was perfect mechanically.

Stock as a rock, back at my house the day I bought it.

First thing I did was wheels. I went for a set of 18" ANZ VRX's w/ Nexen 215/35's, as I was fairly strapped for cash at the time. Tires are a bit noisy but hey, that's what I get for going cheap.




Next I installed an Alpine CDE-121 head unit matched with a Rockford Fosgate 12" 250W RMS subwoofer and Rockford 300W amp. It's not amazingly pretty, but boy, does it go hard


My latest upgrade is a Magnaflow 2 1/4" cat back exhaust to dual 3" tips. Absolutely love the sound.




And this is probably my favourite photo of the car to date (I'm a photographer, so I have lots of photos of my car haha)

(I painted the silver stripes on the wheels to match the wheels, and I think it makes such a difference)

Anywho, hope you all like my car I look forward to being a part of the community!

[dylan8]

awesome! loving the colour combo. Any reason you went 215/35s on a 18? normally only done on fairly low mk4s

[saMfish]

Thanks, man! Absolutely love your Bora build, actually went through and looked at it all when I made this account but didn't comment. I guess the reason behind the 215/35s was because that matched the original wheel diameter (full rolling diameter), and I didn't want to a) go to 17" wheels, or b) mess around with the speedo. Thanks again

[Water Boy]

If you have the money get good coilovers. If youw ant to change wheels/get a defect etc it will take you 1/2 an hour and the car will be at what ever height you want.

Saying that though some good springs, shocks and a sway bars will make the car handle very well. Good work and love the pics!

[saMfish]

It's going to be a while before I can afford coilovers (let alone good coilovers!). I was looking at the FK Highsports, but $$
I don't really mind the defects, it's worth the few hours work and ~$90 to take it over the pits to get it back on the road.

Do you think the FK springs I mentioned in the first post would be low enough? I'm still really uncertain; I don't want much if any gap between fender and tires. I guess that leaves me with coilovers, does it not?

Thanks Water Boy

[dylan8]

yeah go coils. only spring/shock combo iv seen that looked any good on a mk4 was JLTs (cant remember what they are though...)
interesting on the tyre size. 215/40/18 is one of the closest sizes iv seen in 18s to the standard mk4 size of 205/55/16, what size did you have stock?

[saMfish]

Stock shoes were 175/80/14s. Wowsers.
If I go coils, it will probably be another 5 or so months away (the taxman loves me~), but if I were to go springs I could have them here probably in a week or two.

[dylan8]

problem with springs is the standard shocks should really have more then a 40mm drop on them i believe. so you would have to upgrade them and then the cost would most likely end up more then coils...
hmmm my calc says 225/40/18s or 215/40/18s for those sizes too, but oh well, better for lowering/looks, and better for acceleration down at lower speeds

[saMfish]

Yeah, I'm not hugely worried about performance for the time being, more the looks at the moment. I think I might bite the bullet and put $150 worth of springs in, then I can always sell those off later and buy coils

Today I went into the local Ian Diffen for a bit of a laugh because a mate works there, got them to do up a quote for springs. Only ones they could get were Eibach, 25-30mm drop iirc, $800. Quote for coils was $1900.. not sure what brand that was, though. What coils are you running in your Bora, Dylan?

[dylan8]

thats true.
I have Ta technix i think they are... lower budget coil, and can tell by the ride quality, but they have done the job for the last 60-70k km.
get some higher end FKs, KW, weitecs or H&R

[saMfish]

Do you rate ST coilovers? $1029 shipped, hurr. I'm a uni student, and my hours at work have just been cut back. Hate life.

[dylan8]

hmm dont know much about them, made by KW cant be too bad though?

[VWfresh]

Absolutely love that colour, will look dope a bit closer to the ground

[AusScare]

Do you rate ST coilovers? $1029 shipped, hurr. I'm a uni student, and my hours at work have just been cut back. Hate life.

Just over $1k, so add on $200 for customs.

[saMfish]

Thanks VWfresh I didn't like it at first but it's really grown on me, you don't see many around either which is a plus! Love that GST, AusScare I import most of my camera gear from the US, so I swear the Customs people know me by name.