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mk4 track cars. . lets see what you got.

181K views 242 replies 64 participants last post by  3L3M3NT 
#1 ·
i'm converting my 2002 vr 24v 6spd jetta gli into a track car, and i need some inspiration. post up any pics or videos of what you got. pointers as far as what to install legally for events like time attack and other track days. i hate autox so thats not in my schedule. i'm not very great at it. anyway. lets see what u have
 
#32 · (Edited)
@chois
haha, thank you for your concern. I knew caring Mothers would care for safety, so I designed it accordingly. Eventually it will be a dedicated track car and I will finish routing bars to the front. For now it is designed strictly for safety.

Safety was my first priority.
Suspension and Turning second.
Power third.

Details of the cage:
1. It's a half-cage. There are no bars up front to hit my head on (Cage is behind the seats ONLY).
2. My head is a full 9" from the nearest bar (Top), and even that is ~4" behind the headrest.
3. I'm strapped into a 6-Point harness that only allows my head to move side to side and front to back. As such there is not a single bar within head striking distance.

The seats are mounted a full 2" lower than stock on a custom frame that is welded to the chassis.

Thank you for your concern.

@WOB-SH573
RAD! Very cool. Any interior shots? Motor shots?
 
#33 ·
@chois
@WOB-SH573
RAD! Very cool. Any interior shots? Motor shots?
Yes, but on the computer at home.
The car had the following basic specs:
1.8t stroked to 2.0, 3071r 450 whp
245/45/17 V710's
Weight caged and ready to go with a full tank of gas 2400lbs
Cage was done by Tom Kelly at Precision Motorsports in Mass.
The Carbon work was done by me: hood & front splitter

I hope to bring it back someday, my crank trigger wheel came loose & exploded at Monticello.
Finished of the motor...:banghead:
When I come back it will be with a stroker 1.8t again but I'll go for less power, 350-375. To be honest 450 was WAY to much for the car & this aplication.

Most current shot...:(
 
#34 ·
that poor car. holy shiiiiiiight. thats crazy. love the custom carbon work. how much can u feel the front splitter and rear wing? any videos? im thinking of putting large over fenders and running 9 inch wheels with 255/45 series tire 17 or 18 and mayb a small splitter and double cannards on both sides. and for the rear i think im just gonna try an adjustable larger wicker bill spoiler.

some classes only allow certain width tires correct? or is that normally not an issue?

what kind of suspension is on ur gti? WOB-SH573. rear sway bar specs? any custom suspenion mods?
 
#35 ·
For suspension I ran:
Ground Control coilovers
Ground Control front camber plates
Ground Control reach articulating perches
850 front springs, 500 rear
Shine Racing Service rear sway bar
Front Sway bar removed
H2 Sport front spindles & control arms

Yes, the areo seemed to help, but I was only able to drive it twice before the motor damage.
there's no video of my car in this final state, altough there is some on youtube from Limerock a few years earlier.
My only advice to you is not to get to carried away (I did!!) if you're not carefull you end up with a car that's just to fragile, expensive & time consuming to keep running.
 
#47 ·
The KAAZ as purchased from KAAZ is a 1.5 way unit. You can change the friction plates and the cone spring to alter the lockup rate and the total amount that it locks up. You can also purchase a 2 way cam for it, allowing for 100% lock in both directions. KAAZ recommends changing the fluid after each full track day. If you are running the car in a DD/autox situation, you can extend the intervals to every 5,000 miles, but it is preferable that you change even sooner than that to fully extend the life of the differential. When used with larger tires, ie more than a 225 the plates do a decent job of holding each other and will lock pretty well. When used with a 245 on up, the plates will slip under the factory build, this isn't to say that it doesn't lock, just that they won't pop in and out of place.

I was one of the early adopters for the MKIV platform and put roughly 50k miles on the unit before rebuilding it. I was quite a bit past the service life of the plates and probably should have rebuilt it around 30-35k miles for maximum performance. However I have always used the plates with at least a 245 width tire and as an autox DD setup. In a road racing situation, I would expect to rebuild the differential once per season, especially so if the car is a track only car.

Between a Peloquin and a Wavetrac I would go w/ a Wavetrac unit simply becuase it nearly removes lag time before the differential operates. For a full out setup however, the spool as recommended earlier would likely be the best option. Each setup has its own characteristics and very specific setup and driving style, as well as ability to forgive the driver for clumsy driving.
 
#54 ·
A Quaife is built relatively the same as the Peloquin, although some have claimed that the Peloquin biases more torque to the loaded wheel. I have not seen any quantifiable data or testing to prove this, other than peoples opinions from driving various cars with both TBDs. Most would rate the Peloquin higher than the Quaife as warranty support seems to be better and they tend to come with ARP ring bolts, which is necessary hardware for installing the ring gear to the differential.
 
#55 ·
As far as Diffs go I cannot say enough good things about the Wavetrac. Tech support was awesome. The warranty is great. I ran mine on DOT slicks and never had a wheel spin problem. Even when a tire was unloaded. I did have the upgraded frictions. They updated mine for free.

I Also Used a Kaaz. Loved it at first. Then it wore out. No tech support and parts were impossible. After less than a season it needed rebuilt and it took two months to get parts. Rebuilt lasted a while longer with some upgraded steels they sent. I decided that when I took it out again I was going to switch to the Wavetrac. Never looked back.

Drove cars with Quaifes/Peloquins and like them but there a few track we run on that if you touch the curbs it creates a problem.
 
#57 ·
I don't know if anyone has. I've thought about it (I'm an engineer, so I think about stuff like that). It doesn't seem either easy to do, or really worth it. There's not sufficient structure under the car to attach arms and links to. You'd have to add a whole lot of braces and things that would just add weight. And really, what would you hope to gain? You can buy shims to change the camber and/or toe. You still have sway bars, springs and shocks available to tune the handling. On a track/race car, you're certainly not worried about ride comfort.
 
#58 ·
If you're downright crazy you could do what 034 motorsports did. They went IRS in their mid-engine 2.7T based GTI-RS with a Porsche 996 rear suspension from Porsche Dismantlers in LA.

When I talked to them at Wustefest last year they said that it needed a lot of dialing in. The front of the car handled like a Golf and the rear like a Porsche. At the time they were messing around with different springs on the front.

It just doesn't seem feasible.
 
#60 ·
i was just curious as to whether anyone had done it. i know id never do it unless i had the awd to go with it shipped to my door for free. and thats the only way hahaha.

034 is preeettty insane. and that car is crazy. idk how they manage to pull it off 75% of the time without more things breaking. i heard they have destroyed 20 different rear diffs. its amazing what you can do with cars.

i just want a low, wide, light, fun to drive jetta. and reason i didnt put another car make and model there is because i own it, and i'm lovin' being stuck with her cause she amazes me with what we've been through. never would have thought i'd like the jetta.

my gf and i are building her a 69 bug and that makes me want to make my own. she has been learning everything about tracking my car through me, and wants to expand it towards her bug. it makes me happy that just taking a under dog type of car and doing a few small things can make them surprise a lot of people at the track. its rewarding

next for the jetta is to get suspension and brakes.
i really want a good set of coils with camber plates, i want upper and lower strusses, i want spherical joints in the control arms and transmission dogbone mount.
for brakes, i want the r32 or equivalent front brakes, and i want to swap my oe fronts to the rear.

then from there i want to work on some aero. whats your opinions
 
#65 ·
next for the jetta is to get suspension and brakes.
i really want a good set of coils with camber plates, i want upper and lower strusses, i want spherical joints in the control arms and transmission dogbone mount.
for brakes, i want the r32 or equivalent front brakes, and i want to swap my oe fronts to the rear.

then from there i want to work on some aero. whats your opinions
If I were to do my suspension over again, it would be Koni yellows and GC coilovers. I have the lower tie bar and it gave a small, but noticeable steering improvement. I'm still not convinced upper strut bars do much, so I say save your money. Spherical bushings for the lower control arms are a good idea, but I don't think there would be much benefit in the dogbone.

For brakes, swapping the OE fronts to the rear will be too big and heavy and not easy to do. Get the 337/20th rears (vented 10" very similar to TT and R32's, but made for FWD cars) and some aggressive pads.

I say again - put some money aside for safety gear. Race seats and harnesses are great investments.
 
#69 · (Edited)
I'm subscribing. Lots of great info here guys!! I have been running my 1.8t reliably for years and have put probably 15k track miles on it since I got it in 03. I'm really loving all the suspension and aero talk. I just added a Water/Meth setup to my car to deal with heat issues at the track with my K04 and the car is quite a bit quicker now running in the APR 100octane tune. I'm concerned about down force at full throttle going through the kinks on some tracks. The car already felt kinda light...but now I think I'll be doing 8-10mph faster!!!! I'm looking at cages and seats. My butt and knee are sore after every track day :-(. I'm also thinking about what to do to the suspension next. I'm only running H&R sport springs and bilstein struts and shocks. I have ground control camber plates but not the cut versions and the maintenance sucks on them. I also have a bildon rear bar in the axle beam. Honestly the car is amazingly balanced as is running nitto NT-01's. I have all poly bushings in the front other then the subframe mounts which are fresh OE. I do have the stock front sway bar. I also have a nuespeed strut tower brace. I have poly spring perches in the rear.

Adding to this that I do have a harness bar and 4 points installed. Not sure how to mount the 5th with the stock Wolfsburg seats.

Can you guys recommend some cost effective suspension changes? I'm afraid to make it worse but I know I can make it stick more in the corners.
 
#74 ·
I added to the above post that I do have a harness bar and 4 point belts installed. Not sure where to anchor the submarine belt.
Underneath the seat. To use a 5 or 6 point harness, your seat needs to have a hole in the bottom, between your legs. When I had my seats/harnesses installed, they welded a mounting point to the floor underneath the seats.

Cheers,
FLi
 
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