Here's the little review I gave of the springs over a couple of posts, more or less still stand by these a truly great inexpensive mod that the car is crying out for.

Oh yes, they will do nicely.

Springs now on the car, Admiral policy updated for the princely sum of twenty groats.

First impressions are very good, having made a few trips in the car this afternoon with my 11 month old boy any fears of making the ride worse have been proved wrong. We have apalling roads in my area and although I can't say the crash is any less, it is most definitely no worse. The car even at slow speeds feels more poised, taut, weightier and I'm not sure if it could be possible but I might even say a touch quieter.

Now clearly with the little sprout in the car I wasn't going to be pushing any envelopes or even slightly nudging them in terms of giving the car a work out so I will update on this at a later date. My car previously rolled even in lighter day to day driving duties and this is clearly much reduced. It gives the feel of greater composure found in more expensive cars.

I have taken some pics which I will post shortly, and then some more tomorrow when I clean her up. Overall the look is bang on, not overly low but I feel I might have been dissapointed had I gone for a more modest drop.

All in all, first thoughts are that for the money (purchase, fit and insure for a fraction over £200) this is a no brainer.

One very happy camper.

OK, so this morning, I gave my car the acid test.  With the baby seat empty and a lovely route into work over the top edge of the Peak Districts between Yorskhire and Lancashire.  With moderate road surfacing, chopping and changing cambers, ascents and steep descents and a virtual selection box of corners this is a real treat to drive and a great work out to test the vRS.

 

So the first thing that you really note is stability at speed, the second thing that you note is stability at speed in corners.  I am still reeling at what a transformation such a small investment has made to the handling.  The car handles so much flatter in cornering, albeit with still some residual body roll but not much, I am wondering how much the RARB will add.  I kept having to check my speedo to see that I was taking the corners at my usual speed and on occasions I was 5mph or so up but it actually felt like I was going slower such was the way the little car shrugged them off compared to on the stock springs.

 

I will add a couple words of warning though, today it is very wet where I live and drive and through some over exuberance on my part having been egged on by my Furby's performance I took a couple of 90 degree turns more than a shade faster than I normally would in the dry (on this occasion didn't keep tabs on my speedo).  I had left plenty of room for the usual understeery shernanigans and the road was clear for miles, however what I was unprepared for was oversteer.  Oh yes Mean Green now oversteers.  The resulting hamster on a treadmill I performed on the steering wheel, whilst accidentally sounding the horn and soiling myself was as far from looking cool as is possible.  So a word to the wise, this upgrade is awesome in my book, but let's all remember that grip will always be finite, especially in the wet

 

And secondly, be cautious adding these to your car, they may make your current fave driving road seem a little tame.  Instigating the search for more challenging tarmac

Boom!

......should have arrived with my springs :(

But arrived nonetheless

A meaty 25mm Rear Anti Roll Bar from H&R, a purchase inspired by Sharkrider's write up http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/285422-rarb-installed/page-4?hl=%2Brarb+%2Binstalled#entry3438990

Furby go up! (reminiscent of my old arch gap

So that's what it looks like under there, hello my little H&R Springs

Uh oh Mean Green has parked on top of another mechanic

Surprisingly easy to fit - one RARB Installed :love: (sorry for poor quality pics, iphone didn't like the garage lighting)

Furby go back down

I really want to deal with my arch gap

Arch gap photos ('scuse the dirt)

Front

Front close up

Front again

One More

15mm Rear and 10mm Front spacers seem the only option apart from an expensive wheel upgrade which will take me away from the sleeper/OEM+ look that I am wanting to maintain.

Problem being that these spacers available as hubcentric's from FK, H&R and others are very subtle and only available as bolt through bolt-on. Go larger and you face issues with arch rubbing.

Arch gap looks OK to me, it's equal all the way round.

Aw nuts, I didn't mean arch gap did I

I guess there is a subconscious part of me that had promised I wouldn't get drawn in to talking about 'stance'. Am I going all boy racer?

I was considering spacing the wheels to widen the track and fill the arch rather than have them tucked under the car, my thoughts were to further reduce body roll by putting Mean Greens feet further apart helping weight transfer and to try and make him look less tall and skinny.

Interestingly or un interestingly depending how you look at it, the front definitely has a pronounced wider track.

You can get bolt through spacers pretty cheap, I just paid £50 for some 10mm hub centric bolt through ones with extended bolts.

Are these 5 x 100 or 5 x 112?

You can get bolt through spacers pretty cheap, I just paid £50 for some 10mm hub centric bolt through ones with extended bolts.

Are these 5 x 100 or 5 x 112?

5x100mm, but I really was only interested in the more solid bolt on ones. Less keen on bolt through.

Also I'm wary of cheap spacers, have seen a lot of spigot related issues reported involving cheap welding cracking etc, wheels going missing.

If I buy, I think I'll only go for some quality H&R, but then again, I might just try to achieve what I'm after with some new wheels, change of offset and the bonus of wider tread.

Expensive doesnt always mean better. I had eibach spacers and the spigot rings on them seperated in a number of days. Now got tpi and have lasted 8 months so far

Ah, Mr P1tt8ull

 

Has yorus progressed any further yet?  Your sig also needs updating!!

Had some bits and pieces through the post over the last week or so

Box a touch squashed by Royal Mail

Been a little frustrated with the shallowness of the DSG paddles lately so thought these might help, gone for all black in the hope they will be a little stealthy and not look too obvious or Halfords.

Have also had more of these through the post than you can shake a stick at. With an avg cost of about £2.00 per mini parcel you can experiment with all config and colours of bulbs, plus everyday feels like Christmas.

I can now proudly claim that I know that 'Festoon' isn't an insult used against the slow witted!

I will crack out the DSLR at some point and take some much better photos, but these give you an idea of the net result of my tinkering.

And with paddles

Night time paddles (moody)

I'm really happy with the LED's all around and the new paddle extenders which are surprisingly firm given that they are attached with some 3m sticky back

The number plate LED's are my favourite and drop a nice white puddle behind the car at night.

I am using my shifters much more now, the extenders make them much more accessible.

All looks good. That 3M adhesive is very good, they'll be unlikely to be going anywhere!

 

Where did you get your LEDs from?

All looks good. That 3M adhesive is very good, they'll be unlikely to be going anywhere!

 

Where did you get your LEDs from?

Yeah, I was being a bit facetious, I believe the particular model of 3M used on these is the stuff that they use to hold windows in place on skyscrapers, they ain't shifting

The W5W's and Festoons all came from eBay, there are tonnes on there, mostly copied what guys were doing on here http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/211733-the-led-lights-thread/, then once you have a set that works, tinker with colour and brightness etc, only real thing to watch is getting some nice heat shielded canbus error free Festoon's for doing the number plate bulbs. Mine were good uns but oddly if I switch on the lights without the car running I get a warning light, car running then on, no problem, lol.

It's silly easy to do the bulbs with all the info in the thread.

I had been getting restless with my own fannying around trying to decide which handling mods Mean Green was getting next so I took the car out for a daytrip which would end up taking things in a slightly different direction.

Where better to head than to the good folks at Awesome GTi in Manchester.

I have to say I was very impressed and felt very much looked after by Awesome John who initially helped me out and priced the work up on the phone, Awesome Al who I had chance to chat with too and made sure I was sorted for brews. You can see why they have a good name, their premises are nicely setup for the customer and all is very clean and professional.

Few snaps

What was this all about, well I had succumbed and decided I fancied beefing up the performance with some more power, after research my chosen option was to go to Awesome and go APR Stage 1. I agreed with John on the phone to come in for a remap and to have a before and after set of runs on their Dynojet rollers to get graphs from my stock+ setup with the ITG running Vpower Nitro 99RON and then after with Stage 1.

I wasn't sure what my car was producing with my stock+ setup, 3 year old car at 40k but felt it went well enough.

My only real ambition was to crack 200bhp, aslong as I got that I would be happy, most cars I have seen stage 1 hit around 205bhp, haven't seen any that hit the full claimed bhp of either TMC, APR or Revo.

Mean Green went off to get setup on the rollers and I had a coffee

Si who was working on my car agreed to come and grab me once all was setup and I could watch the runs

I know it well

 

Sparkly's facing the wrong way for the rollers though - they're over that way

I know it well

Sparkly's facing the wrong way for the rollers though - they're over that way

Mid-manoeuvre : )

Also, I'm Sparkly, sometimes even go by just Mark.

Car is "Mean Green"

All set up for a first run

and this is how it went roughly (iPhone sound pick up not great)

 

No going back now

That my friends is one currently lobotomised Furby

The rest of the Dynojet setup for anyone interested.

Apart from the big fans you can here in the video that keep everything nice and cool whilst doing back to back runs.