theVrsMan

Hello Everyone, After a long time research and indeed hesitation, my current setup is: + Eibach Pro springs with a 15 mm drop in front and 5 mm drop in back (although after installation and a couple of hundred km's done, springs seem to have consolidated and the actual drop appears to be more) + KÖNİ FSD (Marketed as Special Active) + USP Motorsport 034 Billet Aluminum Upper Dogbone Mount Insert + USP Motorsport 034 Street Density Dogbone Mount Pair. The result is simply amazing. Of course, despite the FSD's, the ride is considerably firmer but perfectly acceptable for daily driving, especially given the improvement in turn-in, handling, grip and traction. I should remind that I have no other car, so my vRs is also my daily driver. A lot of petrolheads believe that cars actually talk to their owners. So, I can say that, with the stock setup, the car was saying "I am just a much - faster - in - the - straights version of a regular Skoda Octavia." Now, it cleary says "I am a vRs." I reckon that the OEM setup should have been like this. Of course, nothing comes free of drawbacks. Although in general the suspension provides a quite acceptable level of comfort in rough roads, I now have to be more careful while driving over the sharpest potholes and bumps. If a little excessive speed over them, the suspension virtually disables itself and bammm! No problem if I slow down a bit more than I did with stock setup. Remember that, this does not happen all the time, only passing over the sharpest potholes and bumps. The second drawback is related to the dogbones. They (as expected) caused an increase in interior vibration levels. The vibration itself is by no means at a disturbing level, instead, it contributes the car saying "I am a vRs." It's perfectly fine if it comes alone. However, it does not do so. it triggers an annoying buzzing sound in the interior plastics. This again does not happen all the time. It happens when the engine load (not necessarily RPM) exceeds a certain level. At the end of the day, I am very pleased with the setup.

Thank you for your reply. What does "a bit too low for 4 adults" mean? Hitting the bump stops too easily? How much lowering do you have?

A long time has passed with no action from me, apart from switching to 18'' Oz Racing rims and 225/40R18 ContiSportContact 5's. This was suprisingly a very radical improvement over the OEM 19'' rims and Pilot Sport 4S's. Still, there is need for some more. Now I am considering Eibach B12 Pro kit: Eibach Pro springs and Bilstein dampers, as seen in here: https://eibachshop.com/index.php?p2986,eibach-b12-pro-kit-suspension-kit-seat-leon-st-skoda-octavia-iii-octavia-iii-combi-vw-golf-golf-vii Since the car is lowered 20 mm from the factory, the resulting lowering will be 20 mm for the front and 15 mm for the rear. However, I fear that they may be too firm to drive around the town now. Any opinions?

I need to get the topic up, hopely to get an answer to my open question: Did anybody use Köni Special Active dampers in his / her Octavia vRs? But, in many shopping sites, Octavia vRS 220 is not among the vehicles for which the Special Active damper is offered (it is offered bor non - vRS models but not vRs). Is that damper unavailable for our car or I simply could not look at the right site?

To wrap things up, we basically want to go lighter for two reasons: To reduce the rotational inertia of the wheel + tyre combo and to reduce the unsprung mass. The former is not a really big deal, in my opinion. For fuel consumption, in constant - speed cruise, rotational inertia does not have any effect because the car is not accelerating. In variable speed driving, yes, the car would accelerate easier but also decelerate easier when you coast the car, two effects to cancel each other, in terms of fuel consumption. The main effect of reducing the rotational inertia is related to performance. In this respect, I don't really think that, it will matter for a car that is that powerful. If we were talking about a supermini with a 1.0 liter naturally aspirated engine, even a small reduction in rotational inertia would definitely be felt, but, this is hardly the case for a 2.0 TSI vRs. But the latter, unsprung mass...I think this is a completely different story and I guess my positive experience about downsizing the wheels is mainly related to this.

Hello all, I've got my 2015 vRs 2.0 TSI 220 PS remapped and for long term reliability, I want to improve its heat - handling capability. The tuner made me a couple of advices to achieve this (please note that the tuner himself is not selling those products nor he directed me towards a place that sells them, he just told me to find them somewhere and install, that's it). He advised to get a larger intercooler, which makes sense. But he also stated that, the upcoming air first passes through the aircon radiator, then the intercooler and then the coolant radiator. He advised to me to get a new OEM aircon radiator because he observed that it's somewhat clogged over the years in addition to getting some deformations. So, getting a new one could help a better airflow to the intercooler to keep the IAT down. Then, a (maybe not too bright!) idea came to my mind: Is it possible to get an upgraded aircon radiator, to achieve even better airflow than the OEM one? Also, for the same purpose, is it possible to replace the front grill(s) with upgraded one(s) to get an even better airflow? If the answer is yes to one of these, will this or these disturb the high speed stability of the vehicle? Thank you very much in advance.

I've just gone from 19'' to 18'' and the car behaves much, much, much better now. But my new rims are Oz Racing Omnia, which are some 3.5 kg's lighter than the geniune vRs 19'''s. Also, ContiSportContact 5's helped, too. Nevertheless, my general thought about this subject is: When a car is sold with more than one wheeling option, I presume that the chassis and suspension tunings are optimized for one of them. In the case of vRs, I reckon that this is 18''. In this regard, you would not be downsizing the wheels of, say, a Peugeot 308 GTI or a FK8 Civic Type - R, because they are sold with only one wheeling option and should have been optimized for that option.

With those wet-clutch DSG's, you are not likely to suffer any problems, unless you're quite unfortunate. Dry-clutch ones are more problematic, especially when fitted to such heavy cars. I heard a mechanic in an authorized VW dealer say that most of the DSG problems are on the Passat 1.6 TDI's. Supports my point. Dry - clutch, heavy car. When using it, I advice you to avoid kickdowns. Foot off the throttle, downshift using the paddle shifters and then floor it. By this means, you get a very good acceleration and save the tranny, too.

Thank you for the advice. By the way, noticing that coilovers would make the ride too hard, I started to consider a setup of H&R lowering springs + Köni FSD (Now being advertised a Special Active). But, in many shopping sites, Octavia vRS 220 was not among the vehicles for which the Special Active damper is offered. Is that damper unavailable for our car or I simply could not look at the right site? Thank you very much again.

Winter conditions are somewhat hard here and I have a separate set of winter tires. So, 4 season tires won't do good for me. Thank you.

Are these the Whiteline bars for this car? https://ukwhitelineperformance.com/collections/all/skoda-octavia-mk3--typ-5e--11-2012-on Also, can you provide a link for those strut braces? I have a feeling that strut braces can also help in straight line acceleration in 1st and 2nd, by counteracting the weight shift towards the rear. I may be mistaken, of course. Thank you very much for your past and future help.

Hello, Thank you for your interest but when I click on the picture links, I get an error message, such as "you don't have the permission to access this page". So I could not get the codes.

Wow, thank you for that. This website itself appears to be a treasure!

By the way, where can I purchase Genuine GTI Clubsport ARB's, can you help me with the source? Thank you once again.

Thank you very much for your efforts and the very valuable information you have given to me, guys. It would take me some studying first, to decide. The common opinion seems to be: 1) Tires (Because of the low quality asphalt the car experiences, I will most probably downsize to 18'') 2) Chassis tuning 3) Suspension 4) LSD (maybe years later) I still welcome and greatly appreciate alternative opinions.

Thank you for your reply. Let me clarify some points. Since I don't have much experience on forum posting about cars in English, I sometimes explain things wrong. When I say low quality tarmac, I don't mean the surface is full of bumps, potholes or ondullations. We do have a lot of such roads but I tend not to go fast in such roads to protect the car. I mean some shiny surface with a low grip. PS4S virtually HATES such shiny surfaces. I believe there must be some other tires that behave somewhat better then PS4S on such shiny surfaces. But I don't know which are they Also, as I said, I consider switching to 18'' rims. For the other advice, that's very good one. Where can I purchase them? Thank you very much. And I am looking forward to hearing other comments from you and other users.

Hello everybody, I am new here. I made a brief search, but if I missed very important content about this subject, please forgive me and let me know. My problem is: I recently had my 2015 MK3 2.0 TSI 220 PS vRS remapped. When I did so, already existing handling, grip and even straight line traction problems worsened. So, I am looking for ways to improve those. I will post my considerations and ask for your comments and recommendations. Tires: I had Pilot Sport 4S 235/35R19 tires, but worn out quite a bit, so I think now it's time for replacement. From the very beginning, they were a bit of disappointment for me. The problem is: They ask very very high quality tarmac. If they find this very very high quality tarmac, they are simply incredible, state - of - art tires. But, when the tarmac is not so high quality (vast majority of the cases for my country), their performance is rapidly degraded. What I need is a set of performance tires which can also do well on not very high quality tarmac. Having said that, I feel that 19'' rims are not the best option for this car. I run 17'' rims with winter tires and the result is quite better, much less tramlining and even better grip. So, another option will be switching to 18'' rims Suspension tuning: Huge variety of options, which can exhaust the newcomer easily. I am also for the comfort of this car, so, I guess, if I do not wish to lose this, I have to go with very expensive kits. I have 3 options in my mind: Bilstein B16's (excessively expensive and not so sure that they worth the money), H&R or Eibach lowering springs (I wonder that this option will deteriorate the ride quality noticably) and Köni Special Active dampers coupled with H&R or Eibach lowering springs (I will be glad to hear if there is anyone who tried this combination). Also, I will greatly appreciate any alternative recommendations with emphasis on value for money. Chassis bracing: OK, I am not a native English speaker and there are some technical terms here, the English of which I don't know. But, when I push the car hard in corners, I feel that the chassis itself needs some tuning because it flexes too much, compared to, say, a 308 GTI or a supermini segment hot hatch like Polo 6R GTI. I am thinking of front and rear sway bar,strut braces, or whatever falls in this category that I don't know their names. I will greatly appreciate recommendations of brands and products for this category. Torque - biasing differential: This would be Quaife, Wavetrac or Mfactory. I will appreciate recommendations. So, as you see, there are 4 categories and making mods in all of them at once will be beyond my budget. So, what would your order of priority be among those? Thank you very much in advance.