Springs and Exhaust

["M. Hansen" <hansen@ionsys.com>]

Want to share a few recent experiences.  After getting no response on
the merits of Apex springs, I went ahead and yanked a set of Apex
springs and Boge Progas strut/shocks off of a wrecked 'rocco in the
junkyard.  Even if they turned out to be crap, the asking price was so
low I couldn't say no and there was no way my current suspension could
get any worse.  Put them on in about 2 hours and holy !!!! what a
difference!  The car looks better now because it dropped about 1 1/4"
and the handling is amazing.  The ride is slightly harsh but virtually
all body roll is gone and in corners where I used to brake beforehand, I
now accelerate right through.  The car is much more confidence inspiring
and now I can't wait to take it autocrossing.  Still don't know much
about the Apex springs but I definitely recommend them over stock.  The
Progas, OTOH, are not the best choice here.  They can't dampen the
shocks quite enough  especially on the highway.  Bilsteins would be much
better.

The other project I tackled was replacing the 4-1 crap exhaust manifold
with the earlier style 4-2 dual downpipe manifold.  For comparison
purposes I installed the stock 4-2 manifold, stock downpipe, stock
flexpipe and attached this to the stock cat.  I'm also running stock
pipe and muffler.  I did this to discover the real difference between
the two systems without other variables influencing the result like TT
downpipe, larger exhaust, no cat, or free-flow muffler.  (That will all
be installed in the near future)  So for anyone who wanted to know what
the manifold and stock pipe do for power, here are the seat of the pants
observations:  I felt like I was driving a completely different car
above 4000 rpm.  I could easily pull redline in 1-2-3 and get close in
4.  Useable power for the first time right up to 6000 rpm.  It felt like
someone pulled the cork out of the exhaust ports.  It sounded better. 
The larger throttle body seemed to make a difference now.    Fuel
economy rose slightly.  Definitely more torque and there seemed to be
more than one torque peak.  The engine seemed to come alive and
accelerate faster around 3700 rpm.  A guess at hp increase would be 5-7
hp mostly above 4000 rpm.
  I don't know why VW ever put that POS 4-1 manifold on their engines. 
It chokes them right out.  Maybe the engineers were on drugs.  It
doesn't matter, if anyone out there still has the 4-1 on their car get
rid of it now!  Even if you swap in stock like I did (temporarily)  it
makes so much of difference you won't believe it's the same engine. 
It's also waste of time to put larger TB's or cams in before doing
this.  I'm sure many of the list members know this already but I'm sure
they agree this point can't be repeated enough.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough.  Hope this info is useful to some of
you.

Mike Hansen
83 Scirocco GT 

P.S.  When swapping manifolds, I found the old O2 sensor had
disintegrated and put in a new one.  Now I get another 100 km/60 miles
per tank of gas.  Big increase.  Someone was complaining of low mileage,
maybe Michael Friesen?, could this be your problem as well?

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