Sway bar, sway links, control arms, coilovers, braces, exhaust and tuner all installed over the weekend! We (every time I use "we" means mostly my mechanically inclined friend and my assistance) got it all done in roughly 12 hours (including a trip to rotate a pork roast and pick up a spring compressor from AutoZone). I was missing hardware for the front strut tie rod, I called NM and they sent the missing items out, but they didn't arrive before I left town so I did that myself when I returned, that only taking maybe a half hour.
Dropped the frame around 1.5", she will rub her nose coming off speed bumps too fast and entering/exiting parking lots, etc., so I definitely have to be more cautious now. The V3s are adjustable, but definitely not something you want to monkey with often. I want to let her settle in for a week or so before I start considering any alteration at this point.
The only silly mistake made during install was putting the new sway arm in upside down, it only caused 10-15 minutes of re-work, but the installation instructions could've had one sentence in there to keep us from stepping in that shit!
After all the rear suspension and brace upgrades she's so stout that having the front driver side jacked up, it lifted the rear tire a quarter inch or so:
BIG shout out to Tyler, one of my best friends and funniest mo-fo I know in that shot!
Once we had everything bolted on and rolling we took her for a pre-alignment spin... That car will
allegedly hit over 135 mph and feel like your going 90 now, with pedal left over, just a logical concern for jail time and other's well being stopping any other
alleged testing.
NO pitching on accel/decel, no roll on corners, you feel the road more, but it's in no way a back breaker. She absorbes cattle guard bumps and general rough roads at normal speeds, no rubbing (keep in mind I'm still stock wheels/tires) and generally just as smooth as the stock JCW w/DDC & sport mode - a little stiffer, but that's what I wanted (we set the V3s at around 75% stiffness rebound and bump, also adjustable, but also not something you want to monkey with often).
NM exhaust is the real deal. Keep in mind it's not technically road legal, but when not ragging on her, she's not obnoxious, but in sport mode and tuned up and giving her hell, she's LOUD and full of those lovely pops and bangs we all know and love (again... LOUDER).
TDI Tuner: haven't messed with it too much (haven't even put it to level 7 yet). My general feeling is that it definitely upped the performance and I have anecdotal evidence of a gain of 15% fuel mileage on my 660 mile return trip home. I started the trip at setting 2 (7 being max), hit the ECO mode and very shortly got a check engine light. Logged into my OBD and checked the fault code to find it was running too lean, so I got out of ECO mode, into standard and reset the fault code at my next gas stop with no further dummy lights.
I have some pictures of the entire process, but really wanted to turn wrenches as much as possible without being in the way. Definitely an awesome learning experience, with really nothing too amazingly hard, but having someone with strong mechanical knowledge made the process MUCH less scary than if I was rolling solo (and likely eight times faster). Again, big ups to Tyler! Seating the front struts was likely the biggest ass-kicker, but that was at the end of a long day (we were both sore as hell after crawling around and stooping for 10 hors already).
Yadda, yadda, yadda... Here's some damned pictures!
If you read this far and have questions, please hit me up. It's a lot of time and money we put into our rides and I will do anything I can to help a fellow F56 owner!
Oh, still haven't installed the gauges... I have the housing installed, but nothing beyond that... it was a long holiday weekend! Cheers everyone!
