FTAO ESS THREE

[Lord Vader]

Would you mind telling me what you had done to your S3 to make it handle the way it did, as you seam to have put a lot of effort into itand it worked from what you have said in previous posts.
Many thanks.

 

[C_Audiboy]

Look here: http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/showthread.php?t=4595

and here: http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/showthread.php?t=24824

.....for some useful Ess_Three action

 

[Lord Vader]

I like the sound of that excellent stuff, does anyone know what shocks and springs were used?
I'm thinking off koni fsd's or koni adjustables!
What do you think?

 

[Aky]

I'm thinking there is a lot of money involved! Shocks, Springs, Arbs, tie bars and bigger brakes to stop you! Nearly as cheap to buy a new car!

 

[Ess_Three]

Sorry...I missed this:

I had:
Bilstein B8 Spring dampers
H&R springs
Forge adjustable tie bars
Neuspeed ARBs F & R
8" x 18" BBS lightweight wheels
Modified front arms and lots of negative camber, -1.55 degrees per side
4 minutes of toe out at the front
Parallel to at the rear
-1.0 degrees of negative camber (I think) at the rear (it was years ago...I may have forgotten!)
Different tyre pressures to standard

Overall...about 2 years worth of playing with camber, toe, springs, dampers, ARBs, tyre pressures etc...

Then there was the Brembo GT front brakes...

It handled superbly...and braked impeccably.

 

[Rich-xstS3]

I like the sound of that excellent stuff, does anyone know what shocks and springs were used?
I'm thinking off koni fsd's or koni adjustables!
What do you think?

Ive got a set of Koni FSD's and Eibach springs sitting at home waiting to go on. Il let you know what I think by the end of the week hopefully.

 

[Lord Vader]

That would be great if could let me know, I have made a note of the toe and camber settings that you had originally posted (1.3 at the front, standard at the rear) I don't want to go too mad but will follow the path ESS Three took quite closely.
Cheers.
At the moment i'm not sure on the wheel choice, OZ Superleggeras as there very light, or Comomotive mo's for looks and strenght

 

[vanilla_ice]

Sorry...I missed this:

I had:
Bilstein B8 Spring dampers
H&R springs
Forge adjustable tie bars
Neuspeed ARBs F & R
8" x 18" BBS lightweight wheels
Modified front arms and lots of negative camber, -1.55 degrees per side
4 minutes of toe out at the front
Parallel to at the rear
-1.0 degrees of negative camber (I think) at the rear (it was years ago...I may have forgotten!)
Different tyre pressures to standard

Overall...about 2 years worth of playing with camber, toe, springs, dampers, ARBs, tyre pressures etc...

Then there was the Brembo GT front brakes...

It handled superbly...and braked impeccably.

Got any pics?

ICE

 

[Ess_Three]

Got any pics?

ICE

Sadly not. My previous online image album was on ClubPhoto who have now gone belly up...so I've lost them all.

I'll need to rake out all the old photos from my PC and upload them...

I'll bet someone somewhere has some pics of my old S3 though?

 

[Stewart]

I've used Glen's settings also and can confirm that this is probably the optimum setup for the S3 (without re-engineering the whole suspension setup).
After around 18mths of using and tweaking these Geo settings I have a superb handling car, very neutral in it's behaviour. Awesome car for the money.

I have reduced front toe out to 2minutes and increased negative camber to -1.7 degrees.

Remember guys that tyre pressures can and will have a significant impact on handling. 3 weeks ago at the Ring, I did some extensive monitoring of tyre temps/pressure and was finding that after only a single lap (14miles though), tyre pressures had gone up by 10psi!
So, running a cold pressure of 34/38 meant i was effectively running 44/48 when hot.
This has the real world effect of feeling like the tyres are 'going off' and you will lose grip and feel like they're going out of fashion.

Gaining 10psi won't be the norm as the Parada's are quite sticky anyway so I would say around 6psi gain would be the average for harder compound road tyres.

 

[Lord Vader]

I don't do any track day driving in the car, what I want is an improvement over the standard set up as it is rubbish to say the least. I will be running standard recomended tyre pressures as it's used daily for the commute to work.
It just needs to be a lot better than it is now!
Thanks for your replys guys!!!

 

[Stewart]

Most people don't do track work but this is where the Geo settings and different suspension setups get their most comprehensive testing, after all a track is nothing more than a combination of different roads/bends with the benefit of smoother tarmac and nothing coming the opposite way!
This obviously allows you to fully explore the limitations of whatever modifications you have done.
For those that don't do track work, you can benefit from others prototyping.

Most advancements in road cars came/come from F1 and rallying.

Glens settings give a very neutral (i.e neither prone to excessive understeer or un-predictable oversteer) handling car with excellent turn-in and great all round feel.

Also, standard tyre pressures are intended as a compromise for various conditions, roads and weight loadings.

Don't be afraid to experiment a little with tyre pressures, it wont do any harm at all (unless you massively under or overinflate them!).

The experimentation will, at the very least, noticeably demonstrate how you can adversely or positively affect your cars handling, for free.

 

[Ess_Three]

I'm please to hear you found the settings I used to run, a good starting point Stewart. :thumbsup:

I've always maintained they were about optimum for road use...and although they were good for Knockhill, I would have been looking down the route you took for the circuits with longer, faster corners. Did you find -1.7 gives better tyre temperatures accross the fronts?

I run -1.65 on my Golf GTI or road and track and find it good...a shade twitchier in the wet, but better in the dry when pushing on.