What do I need to do to make a heavy car handle better?

"Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion" (spydermonkeywrench) 10/28/2015 at 20:33 • Filed to: Suspension

0

33

I just picked up my Passat from inspection. Apparently my dad has been talking to the owner of the shop, and mentioned I planned on modifying it.

Long story short, I told the mechanic I want to put on Adjustable Coilovers*. He told me I’d have a rougher ride, lower safety, and It’d impact the transmission (there was a couple other things but the transmission stuck out). and it’d be better to sell it and just get a WRX. Except Im to dumb love it to much to sell it.

I don’t mind a rougher ride, part of the reason I want a lower car is a stiffer/rougher ride. And while there are speed bumps and the such in my area, I don’t plan on slamming it. Just an 1in-1.5in. (Partially because I read that if I lowered it beyond that I’d compromise the Suspension geometry).

I was told he’d heard stories of guys understeering because they thought they’re cars would handle. Which leads me to my question, what do I need to make my Passat handle better? I thought I could slap adjustable Coilovers on there and be fine. Im thinking I’d also need beefier sway bars or something**.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

*I know Adjustable Coilovers are expensive, I want them because I live in the Northeast, and I’d like to have a stiff ride in Summer and Fall, and a softer ride in Winter and early spring. And I want to buy preformancne parts because I know I’m not impressing anyone with my Passat.

**Yes I’m a complete dumbass when it comes to suspensions. I really thought I had it figured out, but now I don’t know what to think.

jkm7680 > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:37

0

Don’t buy Racelands.

Jkm away

Nobi > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:39

4

Tires, tires, tires. All the suspension in the world won't do a thing if it won't stick to the road.

yitznewton > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:40

1

One of the favored mods on the contemporaneous A4 Golf platform is a rear sway bar, to help move the steering balance away from understeer... Not sure if that applies to the B5 as well. Maybe Koni Yellows on stock springs as an alternative to coilovers.

bob and john > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:40

4

“, lower safety, “

HOW. if anything, your going to make it a bit safer by improving handling a bit.

Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion > jkm7680 10/28/2015 at 20:41

2

I was thinking KW Variant 1.

Expensive, but I know they'll fit, and KW seems to make high quality products.

jkm7680 > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:46

1

Usually, more money means better product.

I say go for it.

RallyWrench > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:47

0

Don’t bother with coilovers. Just get a good set of shocks and struts and a set of Eibach or H&R springs and swaybars.

Tohru > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:47

2

I recommend Racelands, a flatbrimmed Monster snapback, and to take up vaping.

Textured Soy Protein > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:53

5

Coilovers are not magic wands for better handling. They’re just shocks that come with springs and let you adjust the ride height.

I wouldn’t mess with coilovers. The good ones are way more money than you should invest in an old Passat and the cheap ones aren’t any good. They often come with springs that are too stiff for street use and crappy shocks.

You would be much better off with quality lowering springs and performance shocks.

As for under- or over-steer, that depends on the ratio of roll stiffness from front to rear. To over simplify what that means, both your springs and sway bars work against your car’s natural tendency to lean in corners. If you have a lot more roll stiffness in front than in the rear, you’ll have more understeer, and if you have more rear roll stiffness you’ll tend towards oversteer.

So if you chose some random aftermarket suspension setup that is firmer all around, but increases the front roll stiffness more in relation to the rear, you could end up with understeer.

So if you do the shocks and springs and find that you still want less body roll, the next step would be sway bars. A sway bar is effectively a spring that connects one side of your suspension to the other, and makes the car resist leaning in turns.

There’s nothing that says a car on coilovers will automatically handle better than a car with the right shocks, springs and sway bars. The opposite could very well be the case.

1111111111111111111111 > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:56

0

The worst car I ever had was a passat. Fuck that car. Hope yours is better than mine was.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 20:59

1

all you need to do is test ddrive a WRX, Passat what Passat, I have a Passat, sell me this WRX

Kit 'Haddy' Iwamatsu > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:01

0

Swaybar upgrades, suspension bushings, install premium struts and shocks, and MAYBE some lowering spring. Braces on the frame, and strip the car of uneeded mass. Some lightweight seats will probably shave 100-ish lbs off. Toss the spare, etc. Get premium tires, and the car will out-handle what it’s engine can put out. Dlotted (not drilled) rotors and some premium, STREET pads. Sporty handling is probably what you want, not race handling.

Coilovers that are ‘good’ are in the 2-3k range, and really useless on the street.

Baeromez > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:06

5

Wheels and tires first, then shocks and springs, then swaybars, then brakes, then chassis bracing, then remove rear seats, then roll cage, then slicks.

Übel > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:14

0

Something to keep in mind is that over-lowering a car will harm handling rather than hurt it, since it can put the roll center below the center of gravity, which is not good. In fact, the Shine Racing suspension setup for the MkIV Golf/GTI, which is generally regarded as the be-all-end-all of handling kits for those cars, actually LIFTS the nose half an inch as such:

So do your research and see what you can find out about true handling mods, not just bros saying “oh man this 3” drop made it handle real good” Find out what the autocross/track guys use for the Passat.

And don’t buy fucking Racelands.

Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion > Baeromez 10/28/2015 at 21:25

0

I understand tires but what do you mean by Wheels? Do you mean increasing the rim size?

Rico > Baeromez 10/28/2015 at 21:30

2

Rico > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:33

0

What tires do you have? That will be the first step.

Bigger wheels can definitely offer your car better turn in if it’s designed that way. For example stock wheels on my car are 17” but putting 18” wheels offers better cornering at the expense of more unsprung weight but the difference is negligible. Not every car benefits from larger wheels.

Alex from Toronto > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:35

0

A good set of shocks + sway bars and mabye tires might do the trick.

Get to keep stock springs so the ride isn’t as rough as on coilovers.

Baeromez > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:39

1

Yeah. You want to increase the width as much as possible to allow for wider tires. Wider tires = bigger contact patch = more grip.

You may also want to increase the rim diameter in order to accommodate future brake upgrades; larger diameter rotors, bigger calipers, etc.

Also, aftermarket rims can be a lot lighter than stock rims, which helps enormously with handling. Unsprung weight (anything not supported by the car’s suspension) and rotating mass ( the weight of anything spinning in the driveline from the crankshaft to the wheels) both have a huge effect on handling.

Speed > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:55

0

I can’t echo sentiments of bigger/wder wheels enough. Meat lets it eat. Get some tires under that thing and you’ll notice an incredible difference. I don’t know what fits the Vdubz (Audi???), but dig around online and see what works. A proper performance oriented wheel and tire set up will work wonders, followed by a spring and shock combination that capitalizes upon that.

Read up on a similar chassis. Is there an Audi that’s similar? If so, follow the formula! There’s always a tried and true formula for a popular chassis.

JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder! > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 21:57

0

I’ve heard anti sway bars do crazy things to handling.

Also put a wider rim and tire on it

I can’t see how lowering your car will be worse and unsafe.

I just dropped my C30 an inch and. A half. Handling is much tighter. Speed bumps just have to be taken a lot slower. But I didn’t lose any daily drivability.

BJ > Baeromez 10/28/2015 at 22:02

0

But be careful - bigger wheels means more un-sprung weight and more rotational inertia to overcome. Rubber is lighter than steel and superlight wheels are expensive and fragile.

For street performance, you’ll find lighter wheels and tires will be better.

If you want to upgrade your brakes, you may have to get bigger wheels. If you just want to increase your contact patch, you’ll need to get wider wheels.

BJ > bob and john 10/28/2015 at 22:04

2

I was told he’d heard stories of guys understeering because they thought they’re cars would handle.

Just because you’ve got new coilovers, doesn’t mean your car is now a race car. The “lower safety” comes from unrealistic expectations of the performance and handling of the vehicle - sounds like user error more than anything else.

Baeromez > BJ 10/28/2015 at 22:06

0

Yeah, but any reasonable, performance wheel is probably going to be lighter than stock even at a larger size.

iSureWilll > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 22:10

0

Find the best coilovers you can buy. Ohlins, Bilstein, whatever. Ones with nicely valved shocks. The shock valving is just as, if not more, important than spring rates in handling and ride comfort. If you can find adjustable dampers that will work with stock springs, or VW DriverGear springs, do that instead of coilovers.

Under steer in a Passat wagon is pretty inherent of the car. I would recommend getting a larger rear sway bar and leaving the stock front bar to get it to rotate a little more. The good thing is that if the back end comes around, turn the direction you want to go and apply a good amount of throttle. Since its fwd, the rear will follow where the front goes.

As far as the transmission goes, it will be just fine no matter the height. If you're not changing the wheel/tire diameter the trans should not be affected since all you're changing is the springs/dampers. You're right about not lowering too much. Once you go too low, the tires will wear much faster, you'll have all kinds of weird geometry in corners that will most definitely affect your available traction negatively.

iSureWilll > Textured Soy Protein 10/28/2015 at 22:12

0

This guy knows.

Opposite Locksmith > bob and john 10/28/2015 at 22:18

0

Crash tests are designed for a specific ride height

BJ > Baeromez 10/28/2015 at 22:58

1

Maybe. You just have to take the time to get the information.

bob and john > Opposite Locksmith 10/28/2015 at 23:16

0

and an INCH in ride hight is going to make that big of a difference?

911e46z06 > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 23:18

0

Fat tires, light wheels, and coilovers

Needmoargarage > Textured Soy Protein 10/28/2015 at 23:55

0

Came here to explain this. Glad you already did!

promoted by the color red > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/28/2015 at 23:59

0

Other than suspension, consider upgrading to Recaro seats out of another VAG product. You can have all the face-melting grip in the world, but it ain’t shit if you’re too busy trying to stay in your seat.

Like Baeromez said, start at the tires and work your way up so you’re not trying to sort out six different adjustable components at once. You’ll also want to get an alignment after installing coil-overs.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 10/29/2015 at 08:13

0

Lower it, add really tough swaybars, get less sidewall/higher weight rated tires..