The suspension makes the car feel so much more enjoyable to drive and makes you feel like you are driving a car from a couple of segments above.
BHPian Reesnat recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
The Octavia vRS 5E is based on the MQB platform which is extremely popular the world over and has massive aftermarket potential. With the vRS (230/245) in India we get the full fat EA888 2L engines that are capable of handling a lot more power than they come with from the factory, and adding power is probably the first mod that most of us do, but the handling side is a must if you want to extract and control all that power.
My goal was to make this fast, family sedan a lot more fun to drive and a lot more controllable. I am sharing my experiences and documenting it here, to encourage others to look beyond straight-line speed (which this car can easily do). Power is certainly an important component and needed, but a car that handles beautifully can be enjoyed at slower speeds in the city too, you don’t need to only drive a fun car really fast to enjoy it.
Pros:
- Comfort as good as stock and even better than stock if you set the rebound to the softer side of the range. Even with it set towards the stiffer end of the adjustment range it’s not too stiff and perfectly comfortable.
- Low speed comfort is as good as stock.
- High speed comfort is fantastic and far superior to stock, it handles road undulations and imperfections far more ‘classily’ than stock does and doesn’t unsettle the car.
- Much less body roll and more control in corners.
- Much better braking performance, even very high-speed braking is handled in a straight line.
- Gives you so much more confidence to push the car.
- Helps you put the power down! Lesser wheel spin/hop.
- Adjustability! Being able to tailor the corner heights and customize rebound allows you to dial in the car exactly to your taste and use case.
Cons:
- Ride height drop means you need to be a bit careful with large speed breakers.
- Potentially less durable than stock? We need to see how it plays out in the long run and will come down to driving style. I’ve heard people who have used them for years without issue and also a couple who have damaged their struts. But yes, advisable to go slow over pot holes etc to not just care for your suspension but also the wheels and tyres. I always advise to buy from authorized dealer/distributor channels in India in case you have any issues, in this case its RaceTech, and Manik and team are always helpful when needed.
Summary:
As you can see from the Pros and Cons above, it’s largely positive. The suspension makes the car feel so much more enjoyable to drive and makes you feel like you are driving a car from a couple of segments above. Better handling and looks with even better comfort and handling? Yes, it’s possible. Only factor being the drop of 20-25mm from stock, if this is a real deal breaker for you, then you should reconsider. I’ve detailed my thoughts on the ride height below in another post.
Credits and thanks to the following people who helped a great deal along the way with supply, installation, adjustments, tips etc:
- RaceTech Bangalore (official KW India Distributors)
- N1 Racing Mumbai (Anant)
- Team Performance Racing Chennai (Mani)
- ICD Tuning Chennai (Ashwin)
Some pictures of what the car looks like now post the install:
If I could drop another 10-15mm, the stance would look incredible, but practicality would be very compromised (more on this in another post below)
Why KW Street Comfort?
Some background:
Owned a vRS230 for two years until an unfortunate accident led to losing the car to an insurance write off. I then went out a purchased a 245 to replace it (yeah, call me crazy), but for my needs of a spacious, practical and fast family sedan under 50L, the vRS was hard to beat. Did consider the 330i closely but settled again on the vRS (topic for another day).
Just before I lost the 230 I had planned the following mods on the handling front and even placed orders:
- Wheels – 18inch Light Weight Flow Formed Neuspeed RSE10
- Tyres – Michelin PS4s (235/18/40)
- Suspension – KW Street Comfort
- Rear Sway Bar – APR
After I got the 245 and because it was a new car, I debated for a few weeks of whether to go ahead with my original mod plans or use the car as is for a while. After a few weeks of debate, I decided to go ahead because I put in a lot of work to research and arrive at this list, so the bug to see it materialise eventually won.
The first part of the mods were the lighter wheels, tyres and suspension. Since the suspension is the title product of the thread, let’s start there:
Why change the suspension on a brand new car?
- That damn wheel gap! A sporty car like this is ruined by the massive wheel gap that drove me absolutely nuts. The wheel gap and ride height on the 245 is a great deal higher than the 230 (so much for CBU and Euro Spec suspension).
- A lot more body roll than I would like.
- Stock suspension was unstable on less than ideal roads at mid-high speeds and generally felt like the car could do with a more stable platform on which we could build and manage more power.
Now that I’ve lived with the suspension for a few thousand KMs, I can safely say the KW SC has delivered on all fronts that I had hoped for so far!
Height adjustments:
The big advantage of coilovers is being able to adjust the height and handling to taste, and be prepared to give this aspect a lot of time, as you’ll want to try out a few settings and find one that works for you.
A vernier caliper comes in handy to check the measurements exactly. Below is how you measure the exact heights.
Front:
Rear:
The above measurements as shown are the max possible heights for front and rear. However, KW clearly provide measurements specific to each model:
Following the height measurements from the manual and setting it to the max height gets you a minimum height drop of about 30mm from factory 245 height. At this height, the stance looked amazing and the car finally looks the part it was meant to play! But practicality with 4 people and some luggage became a concern so I exchanged some emails with KW with my measurements and they advised I could go another 10mm higher for my setup with the key measurement being the wheel center to fender top not exceeding 365mm in front and rear.
The car needs to be practical enough for me to be able to take family with this kind of luggage too:
On the rear, we ran out of threads to raise comfortably so a spacer was needed. I got a spacer made in aluminium from Anant at N1 Racing Mumbai and that helped raise the rear height. KW themselves make a spacer which I would have preferred to use but RaceTech didn’t have it in stock, will swap to this at some point when they get stock.
Rear with the spacer installed:
With the added spacer and gaining 10mm the current height is proving to be practical enough for my use. Did a couple of outstation trips for the family with 4 people and plenty of luggage in the boot, and didnt have any rubbing or scraping across most speed breakers (still need to take them slow).
While playing around with the different heights and seeing what works I realised that even a small 3mm drop in the front can make a significant difference to how the car handles. The more you load the front on a FWD car seems to impact how the car steers, with a bit more rake in front making for a much sharper handling car. But be careful here as car balance is something you need to factor if you want balanced handling in all situations, so cant go full crazy with a drag setup. From the factory these cars come with the front end a bit higher than rear (reverse rake) and this promotes more understeer which is widely regarded as a safer trait to have vs oversteer, for the wider public, and this is something I did feel.
On the 245 with the differential in front, it seems even more sensitive to weight changes and grip load. Was fun to see how much the front end changes with small tweaks. Driving the car around and paying close attention to how it behaves is something you will need to do and is a great exercise to learn how your car behaves.
Rebound adjustments:
You can adjust the rebound rate on both front and rear to be softer or stiffer. The adjustment range is 16 clicks, so this is done by turning the knob clockwise fully till you cant anymore and then open the knob while feeling the clicks with the setting getting softer as you open more. We started by going really soft on the rebound settings front and rear – front was set at 9 clicks open and rear set at 11 clicks open. Drove this setup for about 2000 kms in different conditions and learnt it. Car was very comfortable (more than stock) and provided a lot of grip, however, it did still have some roll and felt like we had gone a bit too far on the soft side.
Next, we went aggressive and set the front and rear both to 6 clicks open – I expected this to be too stiff and would probably go back a couple clicks, but still wanted to see what this felt like. To my surprise, it was actually very liveable and improved mid-high speed handling a great deal. Car felt more dynamic to drive while still not being too stiff for family duties. This is exactly why a coilover like the KW Street Comfort works, because even in its stiffer setting, its not setup like a full on track coilover, it always retains that comfort and pliance.
I am currently still running on the same setting and have been doing so for the past 3000 odd kms and happy so far!
Some other tips that are worth sharing:
Read the manual:
Before you do the install, it is highly recommended that you read the manual yourself and make sure your mechanic reads the manual as well! Example: in the KW manual they say there is no need for the OE rubber dust cover for the front strut as the KW one has an integrated dust cover. On the first install we chose to leave the dust cover thinking its better for Indian conditions. But what ended up happening is the rubber dust cover kept hitting against the top of the strut and causing a noise every time it went over a bump. Another important point mentioned in the manual is that the springs in the front strut needs to always end facing outwards of the car, so we have to make sure of this after any height change. And so on.
Alignment/Camber change:
Getting a full thorough alignment done right after suspension install is a must.
Front endlinks:
I changed the front end links after a few thousand kms post suspension install and found it to make a noticeable difference to how the front end feels. It became a lot more supple and less ‘crashy’. The stock endlinks are fixed length and these are designed for stock height, when you lower the car significantly (more than 15mm) the downward pressure/preload on the sway bar/suspension adds unnecessary load and makes the front end heavier, you notice this most over potholes.
With the ECS Adjustable Endlinks, we set the pre-load with the car on the ground (suspension loaded) such that there is no pressure on the bar when wheels are straight. This length ended up being about 20mm lower than stock endlinks which is approx the height we dropped in front.
Wheels:
This is obviously a very personal choice on how your wheels should look. But for me a wheel upgrade only made sense if it added to the looks and performance.
Lighter wheels add to a car’s performance significantly! It makes the car feel much lighter on its feet especially as the speed increases. The general rule of thumb is that for every 1kg of unsprung mass you save (wheels/brakes) it translates to feeling like you have shaved off about 5Kg of weight from the car. The Neuspeed RSE10 Flow Formed Wheels that I chose are about 2.8kgs lighter than stock per wheel, so that’s like almost 15kg of weight saved per corner.
In terms of how it looks, here are a couple more pics, you can make up your own mind:
With regards to fitment: In addition to checking for the obvious fitment for your car (bolt pattern), you need to think about wheel size, offset and hub centric rings. I was going to a wider tyre size than stock (235 vs 225) so wanted to increase a size in wheel width, stock wheel is 7.5J, so 8J would be ideal for 235. Hub-centric rings seem like a controversial subject and while most have had no issues with them, some found it to be a nuisance.
This is where my choice for the Neuspeed came into play, they make wheels specific to the platform. Their RS wheels are designed for VW/Audi and require no hubcentric rings, plus because its made for the platform, the offsets are designed keeping clearance in mind, so the 8J wheel with the +45 offset fit absolutely perfectly! I was very worried about the wheel protruding out and causing rubbing issues when lowered, but thankfully it tucks in well and fills the wheel arch perfectly. The Michelin PS4s with these wheels really add to the dynamics of the car!
Keyword: Suspension & other upgrades on my Skoda Octavia RS245