woofersus

Future mods include LED tail lights from the 2018 refresh when the U.S. models switched over, and hopefully an MIBII upgrade with the 8" screen. Still sorting out the best way to go about that with component protection and the up-level audio system posing some obstacles.

Oh, what the heck. I'll share a photo anyway. Here's a gratuitous night shot I took from across the street after picking up a sandwich...

I've finally had my first round of mods installed and thought I'd share how it went. I collected and had installed all at once the following: SuperPro swaybars (26mm front, 24mm rear) SuperPro adjustable front and rear endlinks SuperPro ALOY00018k front lower camber arms The cast aluminum front subframe from an Audi S3 Integrated Engineering catted downpipe I drove on that for about 2 weeks and just a couple of days ago applied a Stage 2 Unitronic ECU + TCU tune. More on that in a moment... I have to echo reviews I had read about the camber arms online. It really sharpened up the steering. I ended up with about -1.3 degrees total camber at the front which is right around perfect for a sporty daily driver. The tires should be ok as long as I don't neglect rotation and keep the toe dialed in correctly. I can't fully separate the turn-in effects of less body sway from the added camber, but overall the on-center feel of the steering wheel is much more direct and tactile, which is what I was really hoping for, aside from reducing understeer. In addition, the added caster makes the steering load up more naturally than before. I say "more naturally" because it's still not the equivalent of a great hydraulic rack but it's a notable improvement to what was fairly artificial feeling before. I think I actually prefer the steering in "normal" mode rather than "race" now, as it feels a little more natural. The race setting feels a little artificially heavy when I get very far off center at low speeds. On a track I imagine I'd still want the heavier setting. Overall it's a very nice improvement. I would recommend these to anybody whose priorities include better steering feel. One thing that caught me off guard a little bit was the additional harshness over bumps from the firmer bushings on those camber arms. You probably wouldn't notice it nearly as much with 18" wheels as I do with the 19" ones, but on certain roads it does have me reaching for comfort mode sometimes, and I never bothered with it previously. It seems as if they're starting to break in a little bit, though it may be more that I'm getting used to it. Hard to say. I'm a little concerned that something may not be quite right with the work as the guys at the shop told me my initial request for the softer settings in front and tighter settings in the rear for the swaybars wouldn't work due to the front swaybar sagging down too far. My rationale was that since I was replacing both bars and I wanted to shift the handling balance to more neutral I would want to tighten up the rear more than the front. I told them to go ahead with the full stiff settings and it generally feels as though the chassis is carved from granite, and while I haven't really pushed it to the limit yet, the obvious front-end push that was noticeable at grocery-run speeds is gone, so that's nice. The downpipe was a bit of drama as the shop hadn't done one of these cars before and had a lot of trouble fitting it. Initially they didn't use the factory engine mount bracket because they couldn't get it to reach (I chose this downpipe specifically because I wanted the bracket used to avoid undue stress on the turbo housing) and there was an awful rattle when the engine rocked in its mounts and the two pieces of metal just touched. I took it back and they corrected that issue using some online videos that showed the trick for getting it to line up, but then had another awful rattle as a bent piece of heat shielding was touching the pipe sometimes. With that resolved there are no loud noises, although there's a slight buzzy character when I get on the gas at certain rpm's and a have a lagging suspicion in my mind that something is maybe vibrating that shouldn't be. I'll have to get another set of eyes under there at some point to verify everything is ok. Dissatisfaction with my usual shop aside, the pipe does what I want. The exhaust is slightly deeper and only a hint louder at idle, and makes a small enough difference under throttle that you'd have to have turned down (or off) the soundaktor to hear the difference inside the car. The tune was something of a revelation. I chose Unitronic over APR and a couple of others because the reviews pegged it as a more natural-feeling tune with the most grunt at the top end and no giant torque hump in the midrange. I give up a few hp/tq but I wanted drivability over the last nth degree of power. Also, Unitronic accomplishes their stage 2 tune with quite a bit less total boost than their competitors, which makes me feel a little better about long-term reliability. I haven't dyno'd the car and probably won't bother, but according to their (and others') dyno results I should be sitting just shy of 400hp and 370tq, which is to say a LOT for a car this size. In the colder temperatures we're experiencing right now and on all-season tires I get pretty significant stability control intervention even in 3rd gear. It's a blast. The TCU tune makes it more usable, too, with less lugging and better downshifting in normal mode, and less obnoxious holding of rpms at lower speeds in race mode. I'd share a picture but the car looks exactly the same, lol. I'm considering spacers but I'm a little worried they will make the wheel gaps look bigger and I don't intend to lower the car. I'm leaning toward a set of 8mm in the front and 10mm in the rear just to reduce the tuck effect. I want it to still look OEM.

Thanks for the kind welcome! As a matter of fact, Ohio has been one of the states that does require a front plate up to now. A new law was passed last year so that they will no longer require them, but it doesn't technically take effect until the end of next month. I decided to live dangerously in the meantime (as it appears the previous owner did for 4yrs) because I just couldn't bear to drill holes in the front bumper and stick an ugly plate on it knowing I could go plate-free in less than a year. Obviously it's pretty selectively enforced. This is my first car without a front plate and I'm thrilled. At least your plates tend not to be as ugly as ours. I see a ton of Golfs in general and GTI's as well here but the R's are somewhat rare. Feels like kind of an exclusive club, at least here in the midwest.

Yes, they are 19". I know the Cadiz wheels are a bit polarizing with some loving and others hating, but I find them striking, at least in this size. The 18" Pretoria wheels look a bit aftermarket to me, which of course is what many others love about them.

Hi Everybody, I'm Tim and I've had my 2015 Golf R for about 10 months now. (and my wife has been driving a 2015 GTI for almost 3yrs) I've been reading through these forums for a while and thought I should join up. Thanks for creating such a wealth of information! I'm enjoying the car so far but the real fun is about to begin. I have in my possession front and rear SuperPro swaybars and endlinks, SuperPro 00018k lower camber arms, a used cast aluminum front subframe from an Audi S3, and an IE downpipe. I'm waiting until my 2/24 CPO warranty is expired to tune, but I'm intending a Unitronic Stage 2 ECU/TCU flash sometime early next year. Good to be here!