Suspension help?

Thanks for that dude, I'm leaning towards a Koni Yellow kit, I'll have to have a poke around for pics of how much it lowers them by!

Hard and underdamped, or just hard? I'd be looking at changing to a softer spring before (possibly) unnecessarily blowing £600 on new bits.

Are they full coilovers, i.e. Raceland, TA Technix et al, or those stupid 'coilover sleeves' that slide onto your stock shocks?

If the former, I found that 'retuning' the TA Technix on my Civic using Rally Design Springs [£14 each] gave a much improved ride. So much so that it rode much, much better than the Civic Shuttle on Koni shocks and springs that the guy I sold it to had.

ta technix, raceland etc really are great for the money (and id say significantly better than the £600 FKs on our lupo, which are too soft are a tad underdamped too).

itll probably be a spring rate issue as said above. the cheapies only have one spring rate for all VWs that use the mk2/3 golf/6n polo/lupo/b3 and b4 passat front struts, which are taken from the A2 platform.
for example- thats one spring rate for all engine and body permutations from a 1.0 lupo through to a 1.9TDi B4 passat! the spring part number, wire thickness, number of coils and coil diameter are all the same. I think they do now offer slightly stiffer ones for v6 models now though, but they never used to.
but thats one spring for a range of cars with a nose weight that must differ by nigh on 200kg through the range, and I think the rate is about right for 1.8-2.0 8v and 1.9td golfs and passats, and is too hard for all the smaller stuff (and too soft for v6, etc.) so a 30-40 quid change of springs should see you right, rather than a lot of money on a different brand of coilovers that are probably no better, cos they wont be tuned to the car either.

that, and youve got to remember you car is something that never existed from the factory, so is harder to spec spring rates for.

I expect the car's riding on the bump stops, and maybe a tad stiff depending on your taste.

My Scirocco was on TA Technix coilovers, it rode badly when they were fitted, a little crashy and harsh, so I removed the helper springs after realising the rears weren't actually properly compressed when the back was empty, so they'd be used as actual springs rather than just to take the slack, and then you'd regularly 'crash' into the full rate springs. After that it was better, but still a little harsh, another check over things relieved that the bump-stops supplied with the coilovers were really long, much longer than needed, and the car would sit on them even when not all that low, so they were cut down to ~20mm thick, after that I was left with a car that handled damn well and rode fine, firm, but not at all harsh or crashy, similar to the feel of the 'sports' suspension option on a lot of modern cars.

As proof it was no rock hard uncontrolled set-up, here's a shot of me competing in a local grass surface auto-cross series, it was consistently the 2nd fastest 2wd car there on a field that was far from flat:



So yeah, my advice would be to remove the helper springs from all four corners and trim the front bump stops down to ~20mm thick, I think I cut my rear ones down to ~50mm too. It's got to be worth a shot for £0, the bump-stops can always be put back on anyway if you cut them neatly.

Admitedly a Scirocco's around 100kg heavier than a mk1 golf, but I'd expect the helper spring issue to be worse, I found you need to remove the front ones to run wideish wheels anyway. It may still be a bit firm though because of the weight difference, but until your suspension's actually working unimpaired by silly assembly issues, you'll never know the set-ups real potential. That said though, I expect a mk1 with a 1z probably weighs about the same up front as my Scirocco when it had the 1.8 petrol in it anyway, but your rears end will always be a little lighter.