Hi all,

Now before I get the use the search button, I have. Trouble is that I think I've gone into information overload.

Let me start by explain what my goal is. Basically to make the car handle better, but still be able to be used for its main use, long distance cruiser. I've started to do more track days and would like to continue to do this. This however shown a few weaknesses in the car.

BRAKES: Now after a few track days they have shown once pushed a fair bit of fade. But there is so many choices ranging from Porsche bbk to full blown after market jobs like forge. Then there is size....let's not even start on the "bigger brake" thread that left me with severe headache.

What am I looking for? Firstly improve feel and performance, secondly weight I don't wish to add more unsprung weight and thirdly looks. Yes I'm a shallow creature, I want the brakes to look damn good! Asking too much? What options have I got with a budget of say £800

SUSPENSION: So I think I've got it down to 3 makes following help from Rob and my uncle. Choices are KW, H&R and Bilstein. But know comes the next issue, do I want fixed or changeable damping? For track use its useful to have the extra damping options but it's then limited by both my knowledge in set ups plus the spring rate. KW and Bilstein are close in price (once you search around) so in terms of value for money and quality I think KW is the best bet. But is the V2 worth the extra £300 over the V1?

Again what do I want, to improve the way it handles and looks the Octavia is almost a 4x4 in standard vRS trim.

ROLL BARS & MORE: So now what is left arbs, which ones. Eibach have been my favourite as the new ones have the mounts fitted which cuts down labour costs. H&R have an set as do a few others all similar price. But going with the whole weight saving theme what about VWRacing bars? These are hollow and a fair bit lighter than the solid bars. Light enough to hold up with two fingers, but these cost (without asking for discount) nearly £200 more. Worth the extra? Anyone run these?

Obviously cost is the factor, I've a budget to get the Octavia sorted so its weight, performance increase & looks vs cost.

So far I'd like to thank both Rob.e and Brimma for letting me bug them about various items as above. Any other comments or help would be great, personal experience of any of the above would be appreciated.

Mike

Rob.e did a really good write up on this just recently. I would love to have the money set aside to do what he did.

If you are only cruising and racing on decent tracks then big brakes will probably suit better as the unsprung weight will not penalise the laptime as much as being under par on the brakes and nor will they affect cruising much (except lower mpg, perhaps). I however have to factor country roads into account so my ideal set-up would be very focussed on unsprung weight reduction: NQSBBK, 2 piece disks, any stiffer ARB but I could get anal about it and insist on a lighter one, better suspension would be good but I will only splash out once the OEM ones give up the ghost and finally . . . get some forged alloys so as to get rid of the enormously heavy OEM ones. I would not want to go overboard because at the end of the day it is just a road-car.

OEM wheels have been replaced with TD pro 1.2.

Rob.e thread was brilliant as is he's blog its often bedtime reading.

I'd agree about the replace as they wear out but to be fair that could be another 3-4 years, it needs to be lower, much much lower.

My 02p worth..:

ARB's: I have hollow (autotech) and yes it's lighter but its very low down and its only a couple of kg and its not un-sprung weight is it really that much of a benefit? maybe not on a heavy road car. If you can afford a hollow bar then great but if I was doing this again i'd probably just save the money and get solid. H&R bar(s) would be my choice purely based on the bush design - it has a teflon (i think?) insert that means its going to squeak less. The autotech bar was terrible on its original bushes - much improved with superpro bush but frustrating to have to faff around to get this sorted.

Brakes; for that budget you could put S3 345mms on (heavy) or 986 nqsbbk calipers on the OE 312mm disc. Nqsbbk are great on the road and save unsprung weight but won't offer a massive improvement on track as the disc size is the same (its the disc that dissipates the heat) but with good pads and fluids you may still see improvements. If you're serous about track work then i'd suggest you monitor ebay/mk5 forum for second hand brakes; i recently missed out on some AP racing 330mm 4 pots for 700-ish - those are great; super light and very powerful. I had AP's on my esprit and they are simply fab. Obviously with second hand stuff you also need to factor in any refurb /seals etc. VWR did a 4 and 6 piston setup and these come up from time to time. Other than that you could just bite the bullet and fork out for a new kit? AKS 370mm brembo kit is very keenly priced (sub 1500) and is super quality. A new AP 330 kit is similar money.

Suspension: i don't think you can have a setup that is going to be great both on track and on road. What works well on track will be compromised on the road and vice versa. I was hoping that the B16 adjustables would be the ideal compromise and i would expect on the track they would be awesome but for me they were too stiffly sprung for the road. V3's are softer sprung (same spring rates as v1/v2/weitec) and also adjustable but you have to remove the rears to adust so still not an ideal setup. v3's though you need to know what you're doing as you adjust bump/rebound separately (where b16 its just a single adjuster wheel for the 10 pre-sets).

If you want your car great on track and are happy to have something prety hard on the road then go bilstein. If you want a great road setup, not too much money, better on track but still not an all-out track car then IMO the v1 or weitec kits are a great choice.

If i did a lot of track days I'd have: b16, h&r bars, AP brakes. If i was doing my car again (road use only) i'd have: weitecs, H&R, nqsbbk.

Probably.

Cheers Rob, the how fast events have shown that the brakes need some attention although the brakes are by no means bad or unsafe fade and feel is an issue, afteral the Octavia is a heavy car.

The porsche option would improve the feel but as you said they run the same discs. I've read up on the mk5 forum about a bigger option very much like Bryan is running. Again buy second hand could mean added a refurb cost would it be better or cheaper to buy new direct from porsche?

Also as much as I know the rears do less work is it worth upgrading them aswel? (My current rear pads have worn fairly quickly and need replacing).

I've a budget to complete all of what I want to do from performance to styling mods the less I spend in one area means I'm able to do more else where.

Of course the sensible option would be to sell the Octavia and get something quicker and RWD but I intend to run the octavia aslong as I did with the fabia so basically for another 5 to 7 years.

Honestly modding the fabia was never this hard!

The porsche option would improve the feel but as you said they run the same discs. I've read up on the mk5 forum about a bigger option very much like Bryan is running. Again buy second hand could mean added a refurb cost would it be better or cheaper to buy new direct from porsche?

Also as much as I know the rears do less work is it worth upgrading them aswel? (My current rear pads have worn fairly quickly and need replacing).

If you want a bigger setup than the 312mm/nqsbbk then yes you could get some 996TT calipers and run them with mercedes 350mm discs - more powerful than the smaller jobbies but those merc discs are ****** heavy! Bryan runs cayenne calpiers IIRC which are even bigger but again you're adding weight with the big discs (single piece). IIRC with the cayenne caliper you really need to also upgrade the master cylinder as the oe skoda/gti unit isn't ideally sized for the bigger pistons.

With my nqsbbk i've not felt the need to upgrade the rears. If you went for something bigger then you'd probably need to - either go with S3 rears or go with the gti rear discs with caddy calipers (bigger pistons).

Am I correct that these will not fit? See screen shot below.

you can *make* anything fit but its going to be difficult if you're the trailblazer - for those ceramics you'd need to make up mounting brackets to fit the vag hubs and source some ceramic discs with the right pcd/offset, plus you'd probably find the master cylinder size won't be suitable and the brake balance is unlikely to be right on a front engined fwd car where that setup is designed for rear engined+rwd and you' need to consider if/how the skoda handbrake would work on those porsche rears... but other than that, yeah no worries!

much easier to go with something that's been proven before; daveb has done the design work and testing already for 996tt and 986/nqsbbk so much easier to go with one of those options, or go OE vag, TTRS etc. which should just bolt on:

e.g. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Audi-TTRS-RS3-Brembo-Brakes-NO-RESERVE-/171068910017?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item27d48069c1

Cheers Rob, I've seen a full set up from a TTRS on ebay (discs, pads, capillers, hubs and bearing) maybe going for the whole TT version with light weight added parts might be worth looking into. 

http://www.mk5golfgti.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,69091.0

Cheers Rob, sadly I was too late as I didn't get time to go online yesterday.

Though after searching the forums brake options come up fairly often as I'll keep my eyes open.