11-12-13
I like how my photo quality got worse over time, since I've been spending all my time behind video cameras for work, and well, that whole Instagram thing got invented since I started this thread. Work has a way of sapping your free time; plus, she's kinda camera shy right now after the whole accident thing. (see the P.S. towards the bottom)
Anyway...
So in my never-ending quest to ruin this car, about a month ago my friends and I installed an AirLift/AccuAir suspension system to replace my aging Racelands. Simply got tired of driving through the horrible downtown LA roads and rubbing like crazy, so I figured the logical conclusion would be to go air. Every VW enthusiast is drawn to it at some point.
Found a good deal on an AccuAir SwitchSpeed system on the VWvortex, paired with AirLift Slam Series struts in the front and AirLift Performance Series (with adjustable damping) in the rear.
Mocked up the trunk setup...
But after a few ingenious decisions and measuring the trunk space about a million times, our final setup came out much, much cleaner:
The donut spare had to go to make room for the management, but atop that sits a custom-shaped sub box, sized for proper air volume to the spec of the 12-inch Rockford Fosgate P1. Inverted the sub for looks and to get more airspace in a smaller box. Goddamn it sounds good; got my system tuned with a calibrated microphone and my buddy was rather surprised at how accurate and balanced my friends and I had gotten the bass by just building a proper box & tuning it with our ears and some test tones. Deep, extended bass, punchy midbass so you can feel the tightness of every kick in your chest, all the while still retaining its definition. Bass lines are tight, detailed, and musical, with no notes being louder than the others. Turns out, that $50 sub I picked up was just being choked by that off-the-shelf box I put it in!
The 5-gallon air tank sits fore of the sub box, with the majority of it underneath the false floor. The venerable Kenwood 4-channel amplifier that I've literally been using since I bought the car is propped up on the passenger side on a false wood panel attached to the strut tower.
The result is decently usable trunk space, with room for my small suitcase, and retaining the ability to drop down the rear seats and
really have some cargo room. Case in point: I've been able to fit multiple tripods, light stands, sliders, a crane, a quadrocopter, and a couple pelican film gear cases in my car. That, and preventing tire rub with all the extra load weight is just a tap of the switches away.
There's always that joke; "bags are for groceries"-
Of course, the question is: how do they handle?
And of course, the answer is: better than the Racelands, but for upwards of $2000 they damn well better. Unfortunately, my old ride height on the coilovers leaves the air springs with not enough pressure in them to prevent rubbing on fast-rebound-type bumps, but the dampers in the AirLift kit are top notch for handling the medium- and slow-rebound-type bumps. The car lands on all fours and instantly feels planted, with very fast "recovery" and minimal bounce—noticeably less bounce than the Racelands. The car hits the bump, lands back to ride height and just sticks there.
When riding at optimal pressure (about a finger of wheel gap) the ride is smooth, controlled, yet still transmits a lot of road feel to the driver (though much of that is likely due to my 205/40/17's than anything else).
Riding at higher than normal heights gives a very solid feeling suspension while still being controlled and not bouncy, perfect for spirited driving, but opposite of what you'd expect (higher ride height doesn't mean softer suspension, like it does with springs) due to the nature of air springs.
0-115psi in the front, and 0-60psi in the rear, the extent of the suspension travel. Actually, I'm sure the fronts will go higher, but the manual says "don't exceed 125psi" and I don't exactly want to test that any time soon, lol.
Likely one of the best things I've done to the car. There's not much else left on my to-do list besides wheels at this point, but I literally still have yet to find a deal on a set I really like...yup, for 6 years I haven't found any wheels yet. Guess I'm a bit picky, but I'm out of stuff to do now so I think it's time to find her some new shoes...
Till next time!
P.S. Around December 2012, I checked my passenger side blind spot for too long while attempting to do a lane change, and returned to looking forward only to find that my lane of traffic had completely stopped. Despite the best efforts of my tires, I rear-ended someone, my first accident, ever. Luckily, the damage was rather superficial; about $300, a couple favors for a grille, hood, radiator & support, and 8 hours of my time on a weekend later, she was back up and running.
I did upgrade her lighting while I was at it; went with European-spec smoked Jetta headlights along with H4 4300K HID's with a cutoff shield (but looking to go back to halogen as despite the cutoff shield, the beam pattern still disappoints me) but since been too busy to paint the grille, hood, & find a new fender to match.
I think painting all that shit will be my christmas gift to myself; driving around like a ricer with mismatched body panels for a year is the purgatory I had to spend after crashing my own car into someone's BMW