Audi TT – Pizzaz
We have lots of customers w the Audi TT….and almost all of them truly love their cars, BUT….the car in stock form does not cause a lot of heads to turn, nor does it excite you. Our customer wanted to spice it up a little bit….tires, wheels, suspension, handling, alignment.
To appreciate the transformation of this project…you have to see the base car we started with:
Does the above car get your blood running? Nope…we didn’t think so. But the finished project….yep, a winner.
WHEELS / TIRES
When it comes to wheels…there are thousand of options. The brands that we trust / know / use / offer the biggest benefits are BBS, HRE, Vorsteiner for Audi cars. We reviwed all the options, and choose BBS CH in 18″ diameter as the best option for price / value / strength / look.
When it comes to tires…the answer is always easy if the question is this: “what is the best street tire”? Answer = Michelin SuperSport.
SUSPENSION
This is always a hard choice….as we want to keep costs down, but at the same time, ensure we have the right solution for each customer. What one customer thinks is the right ride and look, will be different for the next customer. If you go the route of just sport springs, and / or combine them with sport shocks, you have a high probability of missing the mark. If you miss the mark, and your budget is spent, you are stuck. Instead of looking forward to driving your car every chance you can get, you now dread the task. We never want that to be the case. Customers are often short sighted as well when selecting brands…and they think that the low price brand is just as good as the next brand…and this is not the case. You select wrong, have an issue, and not only will you have additional expenses and headaches, but when you add in the additional labor to fix whatever failed, now the cost is more than if you had made the right decision at the beginning. Luckily for us, the customer understood the long term view, and also agreed the “adjustability” in the suspenion was key…..both in ride height, and spring / shock valving. That led us to pick our “go to” suspension choice, Bilstein PSS9. Quality, fitment, great ride, huge range of adjustment, and the single adjustment is adjusting both compression AND rebound, rare in a coil-over at this price point. The kit includes all that you need: front struts w adjustable spring perches, front springs, rear shocks, rear springs, and rear adjustable spring perches.
As we have mentioned many times in our other projects…having an adjustable suspension, that you can’t adjust due to where the shock adjustment knob is hidden is just silly, wrong! One of the big benefits of the Bilstein PSS9 is the ease of adjustment, both front and rear. Want to make a change? Want to go carve the mountains this weekend? Adjust the suspension and off you go. When home again, dial it back to the normal commute setting, and your car is transformed in a matter of minute.
On Audi’s, when doing a coil-over install, one piece that many overlook, is the resulting alignmemt. With the new suspension and ride height, the rear stock camber adjustment is not sufficient to dial in the proper alignment. To solve this, and to provide some strength to the rear suspension, we added adjustable rear control arms. This allows us to get the right camber / toe settings we need with the lower ride height, and provides the range of adjustment in alignment should we want an aggressive track set up, or a performance street solution.
BRAKES
To get real braking improvement…the only way to achieve that is to do a “big brake kit” (BBK). Changing pads, rotors, or stainless steel brake lines will add little increments, but nothing significant. A BBK changes the fundamental dynamics of the brakes, and how they work. Its not just that there is a bigger rotor, but that the center of pressure has been moved out…thereby increasing the braking force. Add to that the increase surface area of the bigger rotor, and different brake pads, and now you have real change.
And there you have it….and Audi TT w personality and pizzaz….ready for the weekend trip, ready to carve the mountain roads, or ready for the daily freeway commute.
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