MY last project was my k10 micra ( retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=readersrides&thread=96774&page=1#1247100 ) which i have since sold to an old friend. the micra went up for sale to make room for this audi 80 as i fancied something a bit more grown up. My Mexico is my money pit and the micra was a cheap runaround, the new audi isnt quite so cheap to run but as it sits only owes about 1200 quid. the car itself was a steal on ebay at £500, it had 37000 miles on it and is 98% immaculate!
I've been playing with it for a couple of months now and have finally got the stance sorted to how I want it.
This is how it was when i bought it...
Theres loads more pics on this thread if you want to see the interior and stuff.
www.classic-audi.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=18924
So first thing to sort was ride height and i ended up buying a 60mm lowering spring set and some spax adjustable gas shocks second hand.
Turned out to be a bit of a weird one, heres a pic after fitting. looks pretty much the same to me so didnt really know what to do, if I tried some different 60mm springs it could be exactly the same and a waste of money or if I bought mk2 golf 80mm they could have dropped it too much.
Also in the middle of trying to get the height right I'd been researching and looking for the right wheels, I was going to go for banded 14" steels with the hubcaps i had but thought I'd go an inch bigger and get some 15" alloys. As we all know, BBS are the choice wheels for a lot of VAG stuff but as the car only cost me £500 i couldn't really justify spending double that on wheels.
I found these brand new BBS RS style wheels on ebay for a mere £360.
The rears are 8's and the fronts 7's.
When I picked them up the guy did a deal with me to cancel the ebay purchase and knock 30 quid off. Result! The tyres I ordered separately from mytyres.co.uk , this was the only place that stocked the size I needed. nankang ns2 165/50/15 front and 185/45/15 rear.
My main issue with the wheels was the horrid fake one piece plastic nut centre caps.
So next job was to custom make some new centre caps. First i put the whole centre cap on the lathe and machined out the fake nut.
Then I machined some ally discs to replace the nuts. At first I was worried as they were quite heavy so I put them back on the lathe and machined the backs out making them hollow and half the weight.
I gave them a good coat of 2pac lacquer to keep them looking sweet.
The I popped the audi badges out of my original steel wheel trims and drilled holes in my discs so I could glue the badges in.
.
Heres one on the car.
And heres a pic where I was playing around trying some little stickers that I made on the vinyl cutter for the black back sprayed look. I ended up taking them off in the end as they wouldn't stick too well and I was worried I'd lose them when washing the car.
I also had to put 6mm spacers on the back wheels as the nuts went straight through the wheel and hit the inside of the drum. I put some 20mm spacers on the front just to get a bit of a wider stance, after all I've got plenty of stretch on the tyres so had more room to push them out.
I now needed to roll the arches on the rear so decided to buy my own arch roller as i figured I'd probably use it again plus I've got loads of mates that might need it.
It was pretty easy and worked well.
This is the inside of the arch before...
And after, it's quite hard to see and theres like black anti rust stuff all round it...
So back to lowering it, I decided that the angle grinder was the most accurate and cheapest way to achieve right height.
I took about 1 1/4 coils from the front, I reckon it was about 30mm lower once the car was back on its wheels. The back was a bit different as the coils at the top and bottom of the spring stack up touching each other and the spring is 10mm thick it meant all i had to do was chop 1 coil for every 10mm lower.
I took 2 coils from the back to start with resulting in this...
I still wasnt happy with back so took off one more coil making it 30mm off front and back on top of the 60mm lowering kit.
Heres how it sits now...
Thats it for the time being, I'm pretty chuffed with how it sits now, it still really usuable and doesnt touch speed bumps. I think with more than 2 in the back I'd be getting a bit of tyre rub but it's fine for my daily commute. Stereo is the next thing to sort so I'll keep this thread updated as I go.
thanks for looking, Joe.
I've been playing with it for a couple of months now and have finally got the stance sorted to how I want it.
This is how it was when i bought it...
Theres loads more pics on this thread if you want to see the interior and stuff.
www.classic-audi.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=18924
So first thing to sort was ride height and i ended up buying a 60mm lowering spring set and some spax adjustable gas shocks second hand.
Turned out to be a bit of a weird one, heres a pic after fitting. looks pretty much the same to me so didnt really know what to do, if I tried some different 60mm springs it could be exactly the same and a waste of money or if I bought mk2 golf 80mm they could have dropped it too much.
Also in the middle of trying to get the height right I'd been researching and looking for the right wheels, I was going to go for banded 14" steels with the hubcaps i had but thought I'd go an inch bigger and get some 15" alloys. As we all know, BBS are the choice wheels for a lot of VAG stuff but as the car only cost me £500 i couldn't really justify spending double that on wheels.
I found these brand new BBS RS style wheels on ebay for a mere £360.
The rears are 8's and the fronts 7's.
When I picked them up the guy did a deal with me to cancel the ebay purchase and knock 30 quid off. Result! The tyres I ordered separately from mytyres.co.uk , this was the only place that stocked the size I needed. nankang ns2 165/50/15 front and 185/45/15 rear.
My main issue with the wheels was the horrid fake one piece plastic nut centre caps.
So next job was to custom make some new centre caps. First i put the whole centre cap on the lathe and machined out the fake nut.
Then I machined some ally discs to replace the nuts. At first I was worried as they were quite heavy so I put them back on the lathe and machined the backs out making them hollow and half the weight.
I gave them a good coat of 2pac lacquer to keep them looking sweet.
The I popped the audi badges out of my original steel wheel trims and drilled holes in my discs so I could glue the badges in.
.
Heres one on the car.
And heres a pic where I was playing around trying some little stickers that I made on the vinyl cutter for the black back sprayed look. I ended up taking them off in the end as they wouldn't stick too well and I was worried I'd lose them when washing the car.
I also had to put 6mm spacers on the back wheels as the nuts went straight through the wheel and hit the inside of the drum. I put some 20mm spacers on the front just to get a bit of a wider stance, after all I've got plenty of stretch on the tyres so had more room to push them out.
I now needed to roll the arches on the rear so decided to buy my own arch roller as i figured I'd probably use it again plus I've got loads of mates that might need it.
It was pretty easy and worked well.
This is the inside of the arch before...
And after, it's quite hard to see and theres like black anti rust stuff all round it...
So back to lowering it, I decided that the angle grinder was the most accurate and cheapest way to achieve right height.
I took about 1 1/4 coils from the front, I reckon it was about 30mm lower once the car was back on its wheels. The back was a bit different as the coils at the top and bottom of the spring stack up touching each other and the spring is 10mm thick it meant all i had to do was chop 1 coil for every 10mm lower.
I took 2 coils from the back to start with resulting in this...
I still wasnt happy with back so took off one more coil making it 30mm off front and back on top of the 60mm lowering kit.
Heres how it sits now...
Thats it for the time being, I'm pretty chuffed with how it sits now, it still really usuable and doesnt touch speed bumps. I think with more than 2 in the back I'd be getting a bit of tyre rub but it's fine for my daily commute. Stereo is the next thing to sort so I'll keep this thread updated as I go.
thanks for looking, Joe.