Rear suspension questions

mrpaulrich

mrpaulrich

What's the performance different between having a rear tower brace as with the GTIs or having a aftermarket rear tower strut brace?

Is there any gains to having both? Or which one is better to have?

Doing some rear suspension work but i'm not so clear on the difference between the two.

Thanks
 
The rear suspension turret is re enforced by the big metal plates that bolt to your boot floor. Along with the upper brace, they keep the rear suspension nice and square.
I've binned my floor plates and replaced them with a single bar that joins the 2 rear suspension tops together.

It's all down to weight really. The standard rear brace and floor plates do the job but weight about 8kg. The bar i've used to replace the plates weighs about 1kg and the triangulated brace weighs about 2.5kg
 
Rob-Gti said:
The rear suspension turret is re enforced by the big metal plates that bolt to your boot floor. Along with the upper brace, they keep the rear suspension nice and square.
I've binned my floor plates and replaced them with a single bar that joins the 2 rear suspension tops together.

It's all down to weight really. The standard rear brace and floor plates do the job but weight about 8kg. The bar i've used to replace the plates weighs about 1kg and the triangulated brace weighs about 2.5kg
Click to expand...
Ok i see, i also removed those plates sometime ago and yea they are heavy as lead, but now i'm thinking of getting that upper bar and prolly a aftermarket strut brace. Do you think that could work out?
 
Yeah that'd work, that's what i've done. The standard strut brace is heavy but it does the job. The only thing an aftermarket brace will do is reduce weight, it won't be any less stiff.
If you've removed the plates, personally i'd replace them with somthing that does the same job or the car will be less rigid. I suppose it's down to personal preferance this one as quite a few people have removed the plates and said it feels fine.

IMO having a solid straight bar connecting the rear suspension tops is gonna be beneficial.
 
Theres a few cheap rear strut tower braces on the net that are very flimsy and are more decorative than anything else..

You want a man rear brace like mine.. custom made by 'Spook' on here

Ive had mine welded onto the strut tower plates.. N15's that are pushed hard the top of the strut tower plates can crack.. my strut brace being welded on gives the benefit similar if not better than that of having strut towers plated with steel sheet like some do as well as a shitload of torsional rigidiy in the bottom area. Tighter than a nuns **** springs to mind

dsc0156tp.jpg
 
5Zigen_Eddie said:
Theres a few cheap rear strut tower braces on the net that are very flimsy and are more decorative than anything else..

You want a man rear brace like mine.. custom made by 'Spook' on here

Ive had mine welded onto the strut tower plates.. N15's that are pushed hard the top of the strut tower plates can crack.. my strut brace being welded on gives the benefit similar if not better than that of having strut towers plated with steel sheet like some do as well as a shitload of torsional rigidiy in the bottom area. Tighter than a nuns **** springs to mind
Click to expand...
Yo dade thats the ish!! Good work
 
Gonna ask my fabricator to make a similar strut brace like the below and hopefully this with the stock tower brace should provide me with a rigidly stable rear...Tho i would love to i don't think i can attack Eddie's "ironbridge gorge" :D
 
PM spook and ask if he could make you the mk1 version which is just the bottom tower brace without the added top section and tie bars..
 
Is any of this going to make a noticable difference unless you're trying to shave 1/4 of a second off Silverstone times?

Gti is already so stiff it understeers badly on hard acceleration into corners if the road is even remotely moist.
 
Nope. Understeer.

Both of mine want to go in a straight line when I hit the juice coming off a roundabout in the damp.

Because they are GTis a bit of throttle feathering makes it mundane rather than terrifying (Vectra VXR, I'm looking at you) but it's the best known GTi handling irritant well documented in every road-test from '96 on.

The stiffness can, I have read, lead to lift-off oversteer but I've never got there.

Have got into an interesting four-wheel drift through a double s-bend on a tight, greasy road, though. I put my survival down to the GTi rather than my limited skills. It just slid round the lot and laughed it off like nothing happened.
 
In my current setup I observed on the entry of the corner some understeer but as I reach the apex it balances, then becomes oversteer. And I have those custom made dual braces on the rear.
 
I havnt experienced undrsteer since I fitted coilovers braces, good tyres and polybushes.
I get over steer at decent speeds in the wet but putting it down to the rear tyre brand being a lot cheaper than the front and after that maybe a rear arb and more braces might improve it more.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
 
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