handling upgrade question which parts are the most worth it?

[dancal]

hi guys

i want to upgrade my handling a little. already got h&r springs.

The rear sway seems like a no brainer and that its the weak link. do i need to do the same to the front sway bar also? from what i see the weak link is the rear.
also is it worth it to change the trailing arm? how much of a difference does that make comparing to a rear sway upgrade?

lastly what about camber mounts? i hear it upgrades handling but makes the car slower ?

i want to change what makes the biggest difference dont want to spend on parts that do very minor difference.

im looking at everything 034 motorsports.. If any of these parts make the car wayyy rougher let me know

thanks

[Potshot]

I did the h&r front and rear sways at the same time. Can't compare to just rear alone but it really transformed the suspension. Also tires. You'll get a lot of bang for the buck out of good tires. Hopefully you already replaced the pirellis.

Camber plates are reported to increase nvh. I don't think you need that unless you are going to track it.

[bucolic]

Planning on doing 034 springs, RSB, and camber plates myself.

Hoping to make chassis/handling more neutral & improve steering turn-in.

I have no first hand experience with these improvements however, just sharing my mod path...

[Rs3three]

1. Rear sway bar, 2. tyres, 3. More neg camber up front.

You can increase neg camber without using nvh inducing tops, there are other options.

[Jekyll]

I'm on factory mag ride and am looking at doing just the rear sway. Anyone have experience with that? Just looking to see if I can make it a little more tail happy.

[sakn]

I'm on factory mag ride and am looking at doing just the rear sway. Anyone have experience with that? Just looking to see if I can make it a little more tail happy.

Not “just” RSB. But close. I did rear end links and MSS springs same time. I enjoy the buttoned down feeling in turns. Only negative is clunks over driveways. More than I expected but worth it IMO.


2019 RS3: Uni ECU Stage 1+ 93, TCU Stage 2, 4” Inlet; Eventuri Stage 3 Intake; MSS Sport Springs; 034 Rear Sway Bar, End Links, Upper/Lower Dogbone, Midpipe; VMR 19x8.5; Michelin A/S 3+ 245/35/19.

[cheeba]

If you want to discover the endless rabbit hole that is handling and vehicle dynamics, start looking at racing forums. That said, here is a list that (generally) goes in order from most efficacious to least efficacious:

- Tires
- Geometry (this includes whatever you need to do to get good geometry for your goals. -2.6°F/-2.1°R and zero toe all around is a good all purpose alignment for this platform. Turn-in and rotation will be vastly superior to stock, will be capable on a track (though not ideal obviously), but won't have any strong negative effects, e.g., tire wear, tramlining, etc.
- Rear Anti-sway
- Front Anti-sway
- Linear springs, or high-end coilovers - Penske, Online, etc.
- Control arm, trailing arm, and suspension link bushings
- Subframe bushings, dogbone mount, and motor mounts

[Chaoscreature]

I would recommend leaving your car stock(ish) for now.
The fact that you are asking to “make it better” without pointing out any specific handling traits that you would like to change implies that you don’t understand your vehicle.
Attend a couple AX events or attend a DE track day. Hire or ask for an instructor. You will probably find that your car handles just fine, it’s the driver that needs tuning.

[weebles]

I would recommend leaving your car stock(ish) for now.
The fact that you are asking to “make it better” without pointing out any specific handling traits that you would like to change implies that you don’t understand your vehicle.
Attend a couple AX events or attend a DE track day. Hire or ask for an instructor. You will probably find that your car handles just fine, it’s the driver that needs tuning.

Pretty easy to tell the rs3 likes to understeer when pushed hard through corners.

[bucolic]

I would recommend leaving your car stock(ish) for now.
The fact that you are asking to “make it better” without pointing out any specific handling traits that you would like to change implies that you don’t understand your vehicle.
Attend a couple AX events or attend a DE track day. Hire or ask for an instructor. You will probably find that your car handles just fine, it’s the driver that needs tuning.

^^^This is a good point.

I do plan on driving stock for several months. Evos I drove always had front inner tire wear leading me to believe they came with much more negative camber from the factory than RS3. I'm searching for that same feeling of fast steering response & immediate turn in when turning the wheel...

[cheeba]

I do plan on driving stock for several months. Evos I drove always had front inner tire wear leading me to believe they came with much more negative camber from the factory than RS3. I'm searching for that same feeling of fast steering response & immediate turn in when turning the wheel...

No vehicle comes from the factory with enough negative camber to have abnormal wear, and Evo certainly doesn't - it was likely a combination of camber and toe, moreso the toe.

While I agree that it is good to get a feel for a car's dynamics before messing around with something as complex as handling, if you do linear springs and the first three mods on my list above, I guarantee that you'll be impressed at how this platform handles (as compared to the Evo). You also won't have an uneven tire wear with street driving. If you really want sharpness in the steering, get spherical bearings in the front control arms and a subframe centering kit.

[S3DUDE]

If you are not actively doing auto X or road course I wouldn't even think is worth spending money. For the most part the stock RS3 handles decently. Call 034motorsports and talk to them for suggestions. I am personally not touching my car, I don't want to deal with hitting speed bumps, garage ramps, parking lot entrances and my priorities are more into the comfort although the sway bars do help and wouldn't affect the comfort.

What about tires? are you running stock tires? I went from OEM wheels to Neuspeed RSE10 with wider, and softer tires, I think it improved my handling, acceleration and comfort.

[Rs3three]

^^^This is a good point.

I do plan on driving stock for several months. Evos I drove always had front inner tire wear leading me to believe they came with much more negative camber from the factory than RS3. I'm searching for that same feeling of fast steering response & immediate turn in when turning the wheel...

It's not necessarily the neg camber that wears the in edge, it's the TOE setting combined with camber. Keep your toe near zero. I also had an Evo x which was set up with -2.5 camber and tyre wear was perfectly even.

[Chaoscreature]

Weebles,

The OP never mentioned understeer, you are making the assumption that Handling = Oversteer.
What a lot of people are looking for when they say Handling is better steering response, or less body roll. While steering response and body roll mean nothing for lap times, they do make a huge difference in the enjoyment of driving.

Adjusting the toe in a little bit can greatly increase the turn-in and make the car feel more nimble. I would start with bringing in the toe in the front first.
Adding additional Camber if you aren't already utilizing the entire contact patch of the tire will do very little for a driver and can hurt straight line performance.

Rs3three,
It also depends a lot on your driving style. If you are taking hard corners frequently you absolutely need that extra camber to avoid wearing your outer shoulders. I expect that if you drove very modestly with -2.5deg Camber you would be seeing some inner tire wear. I have never seen a toe correction that could account for excessive or insufficient camber but I have definitely seen toe settings that made things a whole lot worse!

[mbar]

If you are looking for better turn in, less understeer and happier tail do rear sway bar and alignment. Do Not do the front sway bar as it will cancel out the rear bar upgrade. If you have other handling goals , that’s a different story.
In my opinion. The best upgrade this car need is rear sway and tires.

[bucolic]

Great discussion in here, thanks to everyone for contributing & sharing great info/knowledge!

Down the rabbit hole is right!

So this -

https://www.urotuning.com/products/s...12510121394231

and this -

https://www.urotuning.com/products/t...13607561822263

- in addition to 034 springs, camber plates, RSB (& endlinks?), and locking collar kit?

Plan on running Neuspeed RSe11R 18x9.5 with 265/35 MPS4S.

[TheContrarian]

If you are looking for better turn in, less understeer and happier tail do rear sway bar and alignment. Do Not do the front sway bar as it will cancel out the rear bar upgrade. If you have other handling goals , that’s a different story.
In my opinion. The best upgrade this car need is rear sway and tires.

I think a front bar can help because it help keep the tires from rolling onto their sidewall during hard cornering.

[UNFUXWITHABLE]

Has anybody successfully installed a front strut bar with an aftermarket intake, an IE intake specifically or maybe a Uni . I think that a front strut bar and rear sway bar would make the world of a difference in terms of handling .

Sent from my SM-G950U using Audizine mobile app

[Chaoscreature]

Contrarian and Unfuxwithable,
You two have the funniest handles. Those are great!

A front sway bar will make your car feel a lot better on the street. If you are a modest driver and don't go to the track, then you will never know what you have increased the cars propensity towards understeer... which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would very much prefer that someone reaches the limits of adhesion for the first time in a vehicle that wants to plow and not one that wants to go backwards.

For me, my favorite handling mod has been spherical control arm bearings in the front control arms. I did this in conjunction with a few different mods, but the lack of steering feedback (ie: numb) just made driving less enjoyable for me. The secondary benefit is when cornering hard the toe angle changes because of all that rubber in the rear bushing. RS3 owners are lucky because the RS3 comes with much better bushings from the factory, the spherical bearings just step that up another notch.

I haven't read about too many strut bar owners. I read some reviews on the GolfR forums and they were all positive, so they should also make a difference on our cars. Some said it got rid of the windshield/sunroof squeaking. I would love to hear some real world feedback specific to the 8V if anyone on here has one.

[cheeba]

. . . For me, my favorite handling mod has been spherical control arm bearings in the front control arms. I did this in conjunction with a few different mods, but the lack of steering feedback (ie: numb) just made driving less enjoyable for me. . .

Do you have link for what you used for this? It's one of my favourite mods (that I've done on several vehicles) because it makes steering feel so sharp and responsive, but I live in Canada and sphercial bearings only last a year because of Winter and dirty roads, and wanted to avoid the hassle on my RS3. I was hoping there was a fully sealed (i.e., not just dust caps) version available for this platform!

[Ross_T_Boss]

For me, my favorite handling mod has been spherical control arm bearings in the front control arms. I did this in conjunction with a few different mods, but the lack of steering feedback (ie: numb) just made driving less enjoyable for me.

Which other mods? I was going to say, I'm early in the journey (MSS Track springs only) and recently fitted spherical rear trailing arms. What a transformation to turn-in, especially fast sweepers, I'm driving with less steering input on corner entry and better able to place the car. I think these are very underrated and NVH increase is minimal at worst. For the most part I wouldn't have any clue, very poor surface or rumble strips you feel it a bit more.

Personally I'm not one to stiffen ARBs too much, I like a more compliance than most, maybe will come to that when I put R-comps on I'll do other things. I appreciate most people disagree.

It seems pretty unanimous that camber is a big game-changer but I'm still stock. I am going to fit front spherical bearings first, I anticipate the need to run camber to be 100% but expect this to reduce the need and maybe 2deg will be sufficient.

Do you have link for what you used for this? It's one of my favourite mods (that I've done on several vehicles) because it makes steering feel so sharp and responsive, but I live in Canada and sphercial bearings only last a year because of Winter and dirty roads, and wanted to avoid the hassle on my RS3. I was hoping there was a fully sealed (i.e., not just dust caps) version available for this platform!

I think this is what you want to consider, sealed dust boots too, I believe the RS3 ones are now available and other MQB soon to follow:
JXB Performance Front LCA Spherical Bearings

[Chaoscreature]

I actually designed and made these for my MK6 Jetta TDI, along with some other chassis mods. Turns out the bushings in the MQB chassis are the same as the Jettas, so lucky me I got to use them again.
If they fit the MQB chassis in general, they should fit the RS3. The bushing diameter is the same AFAIK.

I tried to get 034 and a couple of other manufacturers to take my design and make them FOR FREE, because I think they are fantastic. For some reason no one was interested?
The steering feels night/day better and NVH increase was very slight, not nearly as bad as the NVH caused by the upgraded strut mounts I installed. The bearings are teflon lined stainless steel, and I had the races anodized, but rough salty roads would definitely shorten their lifespan.

RossTBoss,
I'm trying to keep the car stock(ish) so I focused on a couple of easy mods to tighten things up. Most of them won't do much to make my car faster, but they make the car handle better IMO and please keep in mind I drive an A3 Quattro. I just like this forum thread better because it has more grown-up conversations for the most part. As you already alluded to, as you step up to a stickier tire you will definitely need more camber to keep from wearing out your shoulders. Tire pressure can make HUGE impacts in the over/understeer dynamic of the car. Just taking out 2psi from the front (or adding 2 psi to the rear) can make a big difference. Just watch those shoulders :)

My "handling" mods:
Powerflex Black trailing arm bushings
034 dogbone mount insert
ECS "upgraded" strut mounts
CTS Density Line Motor and Transmission Mounts
CTS rear subframe bushing inserts
H&R Sport Springs
Set toe to 0 front and +.10 deg in the rear
Some additional ho'made subframe and underbody bracing.

Those bushings from JXB look really nice! The boots are a nice touch, but unnecessary here in SoCal and they hold water leading to increased corrosion in some instances. Not too different from what I designed 8 years ago!
If anyone has access to a machine shop I could post dimensions. The only thing you would want to double check is the OD press-fit. These were tight in the MK6 control arms and just BARELY pressed in on the A3. Fortunately they are also held in place by the 6 screws, so I am not worried about them coming loose.