2017 GTi PP at VIR

[Mini7]

Worked my ass off on the car this weekend. Verkline RTA’s and front LCA’s are on. I will do a detailed write up later when I catch my breath. The string alignment took forever as a newbie. I didn’t corner balance the car with me in it. Just ran out of time. The cross-weights came out at 50% with a full tank of gas. So I left it as is. Car weighs 2972lbs which is a 100lbs lighter than I expected. I DO need a larger garage to do a string alignment.

So for Barber which has long sweeping horseshoe corners, I figured that I need to loosen the car up. Either go full stiff on my rear 034 swaybar or get a little aggressive with my rear toe.
Front: -3.1/-3.0 Zero toe.
Rear: -2.2/-2.2 Zero toe.
I didn’t bother measuring caster as I didn’t have time to adjust it and I didn’t want to mess up my string box. Took me long enough to get it perfect.

The car is super responsive. The front end is what I have been looking for. NVH is UP. Not bad on smooth roads but transitions are harsh. Stuff in door pockets are now vibrating where they hadn’t before. You can feel the tires load up when turning in. Really happy about that. I will do a bolt check tomorrow night.
I need to add my Verkline bearings to the rear LCA and I’ll be all metal on the rear suspension.

The car is quick to change direction. Not sure if that’s a result of the zero toe or the new Verkline goodies. Hopefully the zero rear toe doesn’t bite me in the brake zones or high speed sweepers.

 

[scrllock]

Worked my ass off on the car this weekend. Verkline RTA’s and front LCA’s are on. I will do a detailed write up later when I catch my breath. The string alignment took forever as a newbie. I didn’t corner balance the car with me in it. Just ran out of time. The cross-weights came out at 50% with a full tank of gas. So I left it as is. Car weighs 2972lbs which is a 100lbs lighter than I expected. I DO need a larger garage to do a string alignment.

So for Barber which has long sweeping horseshoe corners, I figured that I need to loosen the car up. Either go full stiff on my rear 034 swaybar or get a little aggressive with my rear toe.
Front: -3.1/-3.0 Zero toe.
Rear: -2.2/-2.2 Zero toe.
I didn’t bother measuring caster as I didn’t have time to adjust it and I didn’t want to mess up my string box. Took me long enough to get it perfect.

The car is super responsive. The front end is what I have been looking for. NVH is UP. Not bad on smooth roads but transitions are harsh. Stuff in door pockets are now vibrating where they hadn’t before. You can feel the tires load up when turning in. Really happy about that. I will do a bolt check tomorrow night.
I need to add my Verkline bearings to the rear LCA and I’ll be all metal on the rear suspension.

The car is quick to change direction. Not sure if that’s a result of the zero toe or the new Verkline goodies. Hopefully the zero rear toe doesn’t bite me in the brake zones or high speed sweepers.

View attachment 244211

Are you going solid on just the inner rear wishbone bushing, or are you doing the outer ones too?

 

[q74]

I run zero toe (well, almost, +0.01) front and back and find it perfect.

 

[Mini7]

I plan on doing both. I currently have SuperPro bushings in both. And I have movement/play in the outer bushing. If I remember correctly the inner one is SuperPro’s stiffer spec Polly. I had a fair amount of trouble getting bolt holes to line up putting everything together and that’s with joints that can pivot. There is some inherent bind in the rear suspension pickup points running polly bushes while with stock the bushes flex more.

Trying to find two good used rear LCA’s to put the Verkline bearings into. So if anyone has gone to the ECS rear LCA’s let me know and I will purchase your stock units.

 

[Mini7]

I run zero toe (well, almost, +0.01) front and back and find it perfect.

Hey good to know. I was down to 0.08 toe in on both sides for a total of 0.16 toe in

What is your straight line threshold braking like? Stable? My car already gets squirrely going into turn 1 at VIR and to a lesser extent T13 at the end of the back straight. So I may go back to slight toe in.

What rear bar do you run and on what setting?
When you lift off, does the front end just tuck in tighter
Or
Do you get lift-off oversteer?

Just trying to anticipate the handling balance on track. I like how responsive the car feels on the road. There is definitely more front end bite, with no hesitation before changing direction. Front toe out helped with this before, but did not eliminate the slight hesitation at turn in. I don’t like the feathering toe out causes on my street and track tires. Hence going back to zero toe.

 

[Mini7]

New plugs are in.

Just need to change the oil tomorrow. Swop my track pads in and do a 2nd brake bleed. The pack up the car for a road trip to Barber.

5-6k on these Densos. I need to check my maintenance log. Definitely over 5,000miles.

 

[scrllock]

I plan on doing both. I currently have SuperPro bushings in both. And I have movement/play in the outer bushing. If I remember correctly the inner one is SuperPro’s stiffer spec Polly. I had a fair amount of trouble getting bolt holes to line up putting everything together and that’s with joints that can pivot. There is some inherent bind in the rear suspension pickup points running polly bushes while with stock the bushes flex more.

Trying to find two good used rear LCA’s to put the Verkline bearings into. So if anyone has gone to the ECS rear LCA’s let me know and I will purchase your stock units.

The FWD/4WD rear wishbones are the same right? I picked up a couple here, best deal I found: https://www.ebay.com/itm/154685550605

 

[q74]

What is your straight line threshold braking like? Stable? My car already gets squirrely going into turn 1 at VIR and to a lesser extent T13 at the end of the back straight. So I may go back to slight toe in.

I should preface it I'm not sure how my set-up and how the car feels will reflect yours as I have made different handling choices than you. I should maybe start my own build/track thread, but I mostly keep to myself .

Specifically one thing I have that I feel makes a diffrence and affects straight line breaking performance a bit is the verus diffuser. Before adding the diffuser, it was definitely a bit unsettling but fully controllable. After adding the verus diffuser, braking on smooth surface is perfectly fine, but it can still get a bit squirrely (but completely controllable) on a bumpy surface - mind you I'm not sure this is due to static toe, I suspect/feel that there might be some un-mitigated bump steer occurring at front (I also run tts arms which may be messing with the geometry a bit due to pushing the front width out. Also worth noting I am sitting at -3 camber).

What rear bar do you run and on what setting?
When you lift off, does the front end just tuck in tighter
Or
Do you get lift-off oversteer?

I run stock bars front and rear. Right now the car is very neutral feeling, generally it just tucks in more.

Just trying to anticipate the handling balance on track. I like how responsive the car feels on the road. There is definitely more front end bite, with no hesitation before changing direction. Front toe out helped with this before, but did not eliminate the slight hesitation at turn in. I don’t like the feathering toe out causes on my street and track tires. Hence going back to zero toe.

FWIW I have no feathering on my tires, both street and track, and been running roughly this same spec (kept toe same +0.01 front and back, but played a bit with camber) for going on 3 years now.

 

[Mini7]

Interesting. Thank you for the feedback @q74.
Didn’t think the diffuser would make that much of a difference for me as I am still at stockish ride height. Zero toe front and rear worked well around the sweeping corners at Barber Motorsports Park this weekend. Braking was somewhat tricky with the zero rear toe but not terrible. Barber is a super technical track but super fun at the same time. Videos do not do the elevation change justice.

Im running -3 in the front and -2.2 in the rear. I like that you are running stock sways.

I’m interested in what your front track is with the TTS control arms? I will be increasing my front track with the Verkline arms. But I need to make some camber adjustments on the Vorshlag plates before doing that.

Barber is an awesome facility. The grounds are beautifully manicured. Really impressive. It looked more like a Country Club than a race track.

My fun was cut short by a failed wheel bearing on the second day, which resulted in my Verkline LBJ making contact with my brake rotor. My handling under braking had transitioned to evil. With the car fighting me under braking, which I thought was down to the zero rear toe. I made a toe correction at the rear. Dialing in some toe in. But my second session was plagued by the same evil handling where I was making big steering correction under braking. I came in after 10-minutes. It wasn’t until I swopped back to my street wheels did I notice the play in the passenger side wheel bearing. I was getting significant toe change.

 

[Mini7]

Alternate Tow Straps/Tow Hooks for the track? What are other track rats running?

 

[3rdOne]

I use a Raceseng tow hook

 

[Mini7]

I use a Raceseng tow hook

Thanks!

 

[Mini7]

So injectors are out. Going to replace those.
Carbon build up is not bad considering I have 100k on the motor. Catch can and WOT on track is the only thing I can think that may have helped towards reducing the gunky carbon buildup.

 

[Mini7]

Verkline Suspension Install
As most of you who follow my thread, I have installed various Verkline suspension parts to improve the handling of my car on track over the last two years. Been working on this “Install“ doc for a while.

Rear Camber upper link - November 2021
Rear Trailing Arms - March 2022
Front LCA - March 2022
Rear LCA Bearings - Still to do

Having had the rear suspension apart a couple times, I have noticed bind in the standard geometry with stock and aftermarket superpro bushings that the spherical bearings help minimize/eliminate.

These mods will not be for everyone, I get that. But for track focused builds these have made improvements in my laptimes at VIR. The recent addition of the front Verkline LCA’s have improved steering feel and front end bite at turn-in. Which for me is important and something I look for in a car. If this gives me the confidence to push a little harder, I know that i can extract more speed from my car. Attached is my install of the Verkline components.

I have invested in scales and a string alignment kit to develop the suspension setup further. I am still learning, but my goal to get the setup dialed in for VIR and my aim is to go sub 2:10 on R888R’s. If i decide to pony up for a set of Hoosier R7 slicks, I’d be shooting for a 2:07-2:08, which is seriously fast for an econobox FWD GTi. An R has a huge advantage of getting the power down with AWD Vs. FWD only. Early to the throttle makes a HUGE difference at VIR with the 3 long straights. VIR is definitely a power circuit. Its a technical track, but power is king at VIR as much as I hate to admit that.

Let me know if you have any questions. I will be back at VIR at the end of April. The only thing that has changed since my last outing is the addition of the Verkline RTA’s and the front LCA’s. As it is a 3-day event I’m likely to go with the R888R’s instead of the RR’s. I’m not a huge fan of the 888R’s but I want to work on getting the best from these tires.

These are quality pieces of engineering and legit track worthy.

 

[scrllock]

Holy rotor clearance. Are those the powerbrake rotors?

Great writeup, super informative!