More Clowning Around: R32

[clownish]

After Wookies in the Woods I can say that I like these Firehawks a lot. Nice sidewall, good for summer daily driving. Well worth the ~$400 for the tires.

After coming back from the event I double checked a rotational noise; rebalanced one wheel that is a bit off and inspected the underside of the car. Apparently now both my front and rear diffs are leaking slowly. Time to reseal them when I service again in... 40k mi? I don't know. It bothers me but its a slow leak so there's no harm to it for now.

Guess I should have someone check the chains and tensioner soon and do all the maintenance at once.

 

[xSabretoothx]

How did you like Wookies? I couldn't go this year because of car issues (1 year anniversary of my fireball), but hopefully I can make the fall run (a lot less people).

 

[Das Gespenst]

Really interested in your rear brake setup on the GTI. How is pedal feel, bias, etc. My R brakes are fine for now but once I'm north of 400whp come next season I know I'll need a better brake solution. Also would like to shed some more weight and going that route is definitely lighter.

Any chance you have links to the rear brackets and other associated parts?

 

[gti2slow]

Curious on your thoughts on brakes as well. I am in the stages of getting 17z's on the front and .:R rear brakes installed. Went ahead and got a RS3/TT-RS master cylinder after looking at things pretty hard.

 

[clownish]

How did you like Wookies? I couldn't go this year because of car issues (1 year anniversary of my fireball), but hopefully I can make the fall run (a lot less people).

It was pretty fun. I stayed @ a cabin w/ 4-5 other people just off US-128 or 9... can't remember which. It was a few miles from Fontana Village Resort. I have to say that after a few runs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday I was pretty tired of having to really focus on driving just to get back to the cabin - we did some sight seeing and touring around the area but to get anywhere we had to drive that 10-20 mi of insane roads. Fun at first but a bit annoying after a few days.

RBQ was great, chatting with people was awesome and the main point besides driving around. I was sad I didn't win any SuperPro stuff - they had great raffle prizes and I did put in 10 tickets but some people defiantly put a lot of $$! Into the raffle.

Well worth going to the weekend - fun to be around like-minded people and we had some awesome night runs as well. 5-6 cars at night; leader always had the disadvantage but it was a lot of fun. Have some good GoPro footage but it's stuff I wouldn't put online personally.


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[g60_corrado_91]

Hahaha I miss doing it. Night runs though; you guys are brave.

 

[clownish]

Curious on your thoughts on brakes as well. I am in the stages of getting 17z's on the front and .:R rear brakes installed. Went ahead and got a RS3/TT-RS master cylinder after looking at things pretty hard.

Really interested in your rear brake setup on the GTI. How is pedal feel, bias, etc. My R brakes are fine for now but once I'm north of 400whp come next season I know I'll need a better brake solution. Also would like to shed some more weight and going that route is definitely lighter.



Any chance you have links to the rear brackets and other associated parts?

Brake bias is probably 50/50 or skewed slightly toward fronts still but it is certainly very different from stock. The braking is pretty immediate and it's almost like my DSG doesn't recognize it's braking as quickly and doesn't quite disengage properly. It's an odd hard to describe feeling. Can brake hard enough to slow significantly before abs is even aware of it which is crazy. The upsized brake mic helped pedal feel a lot.

Am considering a brake differential or something but my kit is mostly because I was bored and I like brakes not because I was concerned about stopped from high hp. So for me I think it was an excellent cost effective path.

Fabless Manufacturing - google or fb or instagram. Nice guy, pretty responsive. he sent me one of his first sets and I had to do a little shaving. Right now I am still tracking down the reason why my Wilwood spot caliper is making some rotational noises; the loose pad is rubbing or vibrating or something and it's kind of annoying. Might shim it out or glue the pad to the backing pad or something. Also considering countersinking the two main bolts into the caliper to gain more thread - between the bracket and the caliper there's just barely any thread left. It's just a parking brake so I don't really care but it's not ideal.

I would say that I am a little disappointed in the finish of the brackets but the design is well thought out and works as intended. A little wary of the parking brake set up because they're very light weight and line up together with the 6mm dust shield holes which are not structural or weight bearing in any way. Probably fine but I could be reassured...

Above picture is counter sunk vs. how I currently have it.

In terms of parts it's just common sense I think? Off the top of my head:
- Fabless Manufacturing brackets (came with hardware)
- 17z rear calipers - I got mine used for $70 ish a side from a 09 Q7 off eBay
- Rebuild seal kit from Brembo (didn't need pistons)
- Wilwood spot caliper @ $100 ish a side (summit had the best MSRP pricing and I had a coupon)
- Mk4 r32 brake cables - around $100
- Mk5/6 r32/Golf R rotors from Stoptech ( if I used true 2 piece rotors the weight savings / costs go up a lot)
- Hawk pads in 5.0 - went with a more street compound to hopefully avoid upsetting brake bias even more - maybe $200 with rotors? A bit less I think.
- A cheap Amazon paint gun and 2 G2 paint kit was about $60; only used one of the paint kits

20-30 labor hours to refinish the calipers properly, paint them and rebuild them. Then install on the car which was longer because of the replacing brake cables and removing bearings.

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[clownish]

Hahaha I miss doing it. Night runs though; you guys are brave.

I would say that was probably the best part. When you aren't leading the road is all lit up and you're able to predict a little bit. We did some fast runs and never passed another car which was pretty awesome.

Did have some close encounters when we ventured off US129 and the Tail because there were local cops out - probably attached by loud exhausts! This big turbo rx7 was loud and aggressively driven.


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[g60_corrado_91]

I would say that was probably the best part. When you aren't leading the road is all lit up and you're able to predict a little bit. We did some fast runs and never passed another car which was pretty awesome.

Did have some close encounters when we ventured off US129 and the Tail because there were local cops out - probably attached by loud exhausts! This big turbo rx7 was loud and aggressively driven.


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Yeah, my buddy got pulled over back in 2009 when we went in his MkIV R32 and I damn near did too lol.

 

[clownish]

Yeah, my buddy got pulled over back in 2009 when we went in his MkIV R32 and I damn near did too lol.

I was glad to have my V1, that's all I'm gunna say.

 

[SuperSkyline89]

I really like the look of that rear brake setup. My HPA parking brake has proven to be utterly useless so I need to figure out another solution. Was thinking hydraulic but this looks like it would be far cheaper and easier.

Are the Wilwood calipers strong? Did you have to modify the Mk4 cables at all to make them work with them?

 

[g60_corrado_91]

I was glad to have my V1, that's all I'm gunna say.

I had one at the time as well, but the biker cop shot my buddy between the curves and he got me too, but my buddy told the cop, "I think you proved your point with me" and he didn't ticket me. Course not 5 minutes later my car had fuel cuts. Ended up limping it back 750 miles to get the HPFP replaced, get a type b intake cam, and everything else. 46k...sucker was having fuel cuts with APR Stg 2 back when I first got it at 20k. Thought those boost fluctuations were normal back then hahaha.

Do you run the latest V1? If you do, I highly recommend you get a prepaid Android phone and run the YaV1 app. Really helps out and basically makes it like the Escort Max2/Max360. Plus you can have it run in concealed display and use the phone for the various signals.


Tons of info here, and if you search his other stuff, you'll find the YouTube video of the exact programming for YaV1.

http://www.vortexradar.com/2015/12/valentine-one-vs-escort-max360-head-to-head-comparison/


You will need the V1 Connection for Android Bluetooth module, and that's obviously one required per car that you're using the V1 in. I guess that's the one fault over an Escort, but my first V1 was over 10 years old and rock solid for most of those 10 years. It started getting bad with all the blind spot warning systems on new cars. My previous Escort 8500 X50 lasted a bit over a year where then it would randomly go full alert K band for no reason and this was back in 2005/2006 way before those blind spot systems lol.


Anyhow, sorry for going off topic.

 

[clownish]

I really like the look of that rear brake setup. My HPA parking brake has proven to be utterly useless so I need to figure out another solution. Was thinking hydraulic but this looks like it would be far cheaper and easier.

Are the Wilwood calipers strong? Did you have to modify the Mk4 cables at all to make them work with them?

These calipers are simple billet spot caliper. They're just a floating pad and backing plate on one side with a fixed pad on the other side. Held together by two main bolts and actuated by a cable. People use them on gokarts and other simple applications.

For our cars, as a parking brake it'll grab and hold but I would NOT use these as emergency brakes because the bracket (at least for me) is just aluminum and the bolts fixing everything together don't seem to be too sturdy.

No pad, pin actuated by cable exposed.

you do have to cut off a rubber holder on each cable but it's pretty self explanatory - takes about ten seconds.

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[clownish]

I had one at the time as well, but the biker cop shot my buddy between the curves and he got me too, but my buddy told the cop, "I think you proved your point with me" and he didn't ticket me. Course not 5 minutes later my car had fuel cuts. Ended up limping it back 750 miles to get the HPFP replaced, get a type b intake cam, and everything else. 46k...sucker was having fuel cuts with APR Stg 2 back when I first got it at 20k. Thought those boost fluctuations were normal back then hahaha.

Do you run the latest V1? If you do, I highly recommend you get a prepaid Android phone and run the YaV1 app. Really helps out and basically makes it like the Escort Max2/Max360. Plus you can have it run in concealed display and use the phone for the various signals.


Tons of info here, and if you search his other stuff, you'll find the YouTube video of the exact programming for YaV1.

http://www.vortexradar.com/2015/12/valentine-one-vs-escort-max360-head-to-head-comparison/


You will need the V1 Connection for Android Bluetooth module, and that's obviously one required per car that you're using the V1 in. I guess that's the one fault over an Escort, but my first V1 was over 10 years old and rock solid for most of those 10 years. It started getting bad with all the blind spot warning systems on new cars. My previous Escort 8500 X50 lasted a bit over a year where then it would randomly go full alert K band for no reason and this was back in 2005/2006 way before those blind spot systems lol.


Anyhow, sorry for going off topic.

Mine is two years old now - not too many false positives but definitely some, especially locally.

I just spent an hour looking through all that!

I do have a VEI remote display w/ a mute button in one car but I just have the hard wired mute button in the other.

What I am also interested in is k40 laser jammers but they're a huge pain to install and they're expensive - that's Gtx or efr money!


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[ByatisNox]

What I am also interested in is k40 laser jammers but they're a huge pain to install and they're expensive - that's Gtx or efr money!

Caution: I thought, when I was researching them, that the K40 was one of the worse performers out of the laser jamming bunch.