4 door golf chassis build - experiment

Hi everyone. Im Thruxton. Im 22 and reside in the USA.

I bought a golf because its FWD and slow and would keep me out of trouble. Sad thing is I cannot leave anything alone. So I made some pieces to lower the car.

Well the bug has gotten me good so Im going to be doing a full suspension - chassis build to make things right.

I plan on keeping it slow. Its staying an 8v, it will just have these following simple things done.

Header, cam, ported and polished head, Individual carbs, and a lightened flywheel. It will still be very slow in a straight line, but I could care less about straight lines.


The kicker is Ill be keeping the car low. Very very low. None of the stock pick up points will be used.

 

so now its picture time.

When I bought it. pretty standard and sorry looking. with around 700K miles on it. Odoneter broke at 600k miles.

 

the car was over compressing the CV's so I made these as a temp fix So i could daily drive the car.

They move the ball joints out slightly.

 

started on some adjustable strut tops









and an exploded view of the bearing setup.

 

and without



full lock.

 

painted something else that needed painting



how it sits now, no noticible bumpsteer. Rim does graze arm at full lock, but ill fix that.

 

That brings us up to date on the front suspension. Here is the rear.



BEFORE, notice how forward the wheel is in the arch.



and after. Im in the rear most adjustment setting. Perfect.




then made these from aluminum with 2 degrees camber

 

got the stiffest style rear beam I could find



made these to weld in instead of a sway bar.

 

here is the only motor work I have done

made an extra cam sprocket adjustable






started on my new intake manifold



Got the first runner mocked up. Its the easiest one. the others will be much curvier.

 

So now that we are up to date Ill share my future plans.


Im be building a tubular front subframe with adjustable control arm mounts.

Ill be building 2 piece chromoly control arms which will have a castor adjstment built in.

Modifying my spindles or a set of mk III spindles for 11" rotors and some 4 piston calipers.

bracing and general stiffining of the chassis.


I have a few questions i would like you more experienced guys to weigh on with your opinion.

First of all I know the slammed car is not the way of clup GTI and its counter productive to try to make it handle well. I already know this, but I plan on modifying that to an extent.

 

First question.

For my new control arms, should I go with the stock style ball joints or spherical bearings? I think the only downside to the spherical bearings is keepint them clean. Tey are used mostly on race cars that wont see the elements a daily driven car would. This may make it necessary to change them more often.

Opinions? what would you do?

 

Hi there, welcome to CGTI.

I have been watching you add each post with interest. Looks like some lovely fabrication work you have carried out.
On the subject of spherical bearings, you can get protective rubber boots that keep most of the dirt and dust out. If these boots were packed with grease it would protect the spherical bearing and should prolong the life of the unit before wear gets to excessive. Plus if you can use a common size then they will be cheap to replace as and when required.

 

I don't like what you've done with the car (but that's just me), but am absolutely astounded by the level of workmanship. Awesome stuff!

 

Some amazing fabrication work you have done here

For the lower arms, since you have made the hubs and the ball joint spacers, why not stick with OE balljoints?

On a regularly used street car, it would be lost on the car to fit spherical bearings im my opinion - even though it's clear that fabrication here is not the limiting factor!!

 

Lovely work so far, just looking at the top mounts you will be better of with a spherical bearing here, the strut angle moves as the suspension is compressed and with a fixed bearing it well wear badly and strain other parts (any nocthy steering yet?). VAG OEM top mounts are rubber so they flex allowing the OEM bearing to stay perpemdicular to the strut. Yours by the look will not, although I am trying to tell if that is a piece of rubber to allow some flex? I would imagine its a bit small to flex sufficently but a spherical bearing would.

 

Out of interest what material did you select to make the ball joint extenders as im in the process of deciding on a suitable material myself. Something like EN24T or maybe ill use an old rear stub axle.

 

Yes, exactly. The units I am looking at are around 40 USD each and are teflon lined.

I have planned on running .750" bolt size.

 

Ya I realized most people here wouldnt like the car overall, but thats just preference. Dont forget im just a young dumb kid. Thank you though I love fabricating parts.

Well there are a few reasons I would run Spherical bearings. Here ill list them.

they simplify the control arm design alot, the less bolt on parts the less room for play - errors - bolts failing.

I have to start over with the hubs anyway. These hubs have the 9.4 inch brakes and crummy caliper mounts. I want to run 11" rotors and my own calipers so Ill need to start over with MkIII hubs.

I completly agree with you. I only realized that once I had cut the stock strut mounts out. I would have run spherical bearing up there had I had access to them at the time.

For the time being I am running a piece of rubber above and below the mount which flex enough for the amount of angle the strut sees. Ive put about 5000 miles on it like that with no issues so far, but I do plan on changing them fairly soon.

To be honest I dont remember. The requirements are different depending on if there will be strictly bolt in or weld in. For instance you dont want to heat treat them if you will be welding them in.

I would use, and I plan on using, 4130 Chromoly on my next set.

 

I guess I should post an overall picture of the car.

Forgot to mention. This car has around 720,000 MILES on it. Stock orig. motor thats never had the head off. Never had any motor work other than routine Maint. stuff.



I also forgot to mention Ill be building a tubular subframe - engine cradle. I need a cable shifter as Ill be moving the engine upwards slightly. I still have to figure out how the steering linkage is going to work.