suspension question - raising ride height

[drew at scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca (Drew MacPherson)]

All this talk about suspensions and lowering reminded me of a question I 
was going to put to the list.

Currently I have Neuspeed soft-sports (or something like that) on my 
Scirocco - the overall drop is nice - works on the crappy roads that I 
drive on, but takes care of that ugly gap between the top of the tire and 
the fender lip.

There is a (slim) chance that I may be driving my Scirocco through the 
winter, when lowered is bad, and raised is good.  If I end up having to go 
this route, I need to get the car back up to stock ride height (or higher, 
preferably) with as little effort (and no cost) as possible.

Raising the rear is not an issue - I can either reinstall the stock
springs, or shim the lower spring perch up (inner races from rear wheel
bearings work well for this)  without too much effort.

The front, however poses an issue - reinstalling the stock springs means
the potential for messing up the alignment, plus having to muck with 
spring compressors etc.

The only thing I can thing of that doesn't involve mucking with replacing 
of the front springs would be to install a shim between the strut bearing 
and the body of the car.  In order to be effective, it would probably have 
to be around an inch thick, which would mean longer strut bearing bolts 
would be required (not an issue as long as knocking the old ones out isn't 
that hard to do.)

Does this sound doable?  I'd be concerned if it will have drastic effects 
on the car's handling (to the point of being dangerous.)  The goal is to 
significantly increase ground clearance (to get through the snow, eh?)  
and I don't mind giving up some handling, afterall, it is winter, and dry 
pavement is pretty hard to come by... :)

Comments?  Suggestions (no, I will not consider buying a sport brUte, 
nor, unfortunately, can I move to California.)

Drew

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| 84 Wolfsburg Edition TurboDiesel Scirocco   | 
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