jesusgatos

Can't say for sure, but yeah, we've been talking about making more extensive skidplates to protect more of the undercarriage. Thanks for the link. Hadn't seen those.

jesusgatos

Picked up those tires yesterday. Was looking forward to installing them but the hub rings I ordered aren't quite right so can't mount the new wheels/tires yet. Stoked on these Yokohama's though. The're a lot narrower than the stock tires, which should help with clearance. Would be even better on 6" wide wheels (these are 7"). Going to mock-up the with some longer wheel bolts and washers to figure out exactly what spacers to run. Might convert over to wheel-studs too. These bolts are stupid.

JustMtnB44

Are any of your springs currently leaking air? And given the title of this thread, why go with Gen II springs? They are the opposite of off-road, designed to give a firmer ride on smooth surfaces. Also the original Gen II springs seemed to be less reliable than Gen I or OEM, but hopefully the newest version with the rubber bellows over them hold up better.

What size Geolandars are those? They look good but really large compared to the stock tires and wheels. I am happy with my Geolandars but they are getting fairly worn down now. They still worked ok yesterday though for some off-roading:

jesusgatos

Have been talking with the people at Arnott about this project and their products and think the increased spring rate should work out pretty well for me. They've made a lot of changes to the Gen II kits over the last six months and am told the new units are performing really well. This vehicle is going to serve as my daily driver and will be loaded down pretty heavily when I'm hauling my dogs and dirtbikes and camping gear and whatever else around with me. The higher spring-rate should work well for all that stuff and the type of driving I'm most likely to be doing when I'm out mobbing forrest service roads and exploring the back-country. The Bilsteins should be a good match too. Maybe not with the valving they come with out-of-the-box, but having them re-valved is relatively cheap and easy. Eventually I'll get around to overhauling the suspension and will need to replace the rear shocks and bags with custom parts in order to make the most out of the rear suspension. But I'm anxious to get this thing on the road and would like to live with it for a while before I make too big of a project out of it.

Sorry, forgot to post the size. They're 215/70/16 and measure right about 28" in diameter, which is about a 1/2" bigger than my measurements indicated would clear at full-full-full compression without any interference. Might have to massage a few problem areas, but they should fit ok when it's all said and done. Good to see an allroad out there getting dirty. Can't wait to rally on this one.

09mehashaw

This is the most mantastic thread I've seen on AW in a while

JustMtnB44

I had Gen II springs on the front for about 1.5 years, but once one of them started leaking I went back to Gen I springs. Ride quality on rough surfaces was poor, although it seemed worse on potholed city streets than gravel forest roads. I think there is something with the allroad suspension that makes it not work well on sharp edged bumps. Here is some driving on dirt forest roads with Gen II front springs, unfortunately there were not many corners to drift but there was several creeks to cross.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtebciBMIDg

I have the 225/60-17 size, so yours are roughly 0.3 inches larger diameter, which should fit just fine. There is still plenty of clearance with my tires, which are already almost 1" larger diameter than stock.

jesusgatos

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Helpful to hear from someone who has used all three (stock, Ge I, Gen II). Makes sense that the higher spring-rate would make for a rougher ride. Just like empty pickup trucks with high payload ratings. Think I'm willing to accept that for the increased stability/control they should provide when carrying loads (which will be a lot of the time). Sharp-edged bumps huh? Seems to me that would be mostly related to how the shocks are tuned. Don't you think?

jesusgatos

Finally finished the receiver hitch. Added some 1/4" gussets to the top/bottom of the receiver hitch and tack-welded a mount onto the bottom of the crossmember for a 4 & 7-pin tow connector thingy. The allroad is pre-wired to tow, but has some funky euro connector that is useless to me. Just need to paint it and wire-up that new connector and then I can put the rearend all back together.

jesusgatos

Also spent some time cycling the suspension with the new wheels and tires in order to figure out exactly what wheel spacers I need to order. Think these tires might be just about as big as we can fit in here without any modifications. Might be able to squeeze a 225/70R16 in there, and those are .3" taller and rated for a little higher payload (1874 vs. 1764lbs), but those are also .5" wider and damn, it's already pretty tight in those front wheelwells with the 215/70R16's.

The ideal backspacing for these tires mounted on 16x7" wheels (would prefer to run 6-6.5" wheels) ends up being about ET30. These BBS wheels are ET42, so I've got to order some 10mm spacers. Think I might just have some made with a Mercedes hub bore (66.5mm) on the wheel-mounting-surface so I can eliminate the hub-centric adapters. Anybody know if that's something I might be able to buy off-the-shelf anywhere? Looks like H&R makes adapters to put Audi wheels on a Mercedes, but can't find any to fit mercedes wheels on an Audi.

Here are a few pictures to show the fit and clearances. These were all taken at full compression and full-lock steering (front) and 3.375" past where full compression would be with the stock shocks in the rear. Maintaining clearance for these tires, looks like we can cycle 12.5" of wheel travel with an 8" stroke shock. But the Bilstein shocks I ordered for the rear are already capable of stroking 6.91", so it might be the air bladder that's the limiting factor.

jesusgatos

Ended up ordering some custom spacers from motorsport_tech.com. Called and talked to a few different places and these guys seemed the most technically competent, accommodating, and their prices were really reasonable.

Went with one-piece double hub-centric 10mm spacers (brings the total offset to ET32) that have a larger 66.56mm bore on the wheel-side, which fits these BBS wheels I picked up. Was thinking I ought to stick with 57.1mm Audi spacers and use hub-rings to adapt to 66.56mm to make it easier to swap wheels around in the future, but Lenny at Motorsport-Tech told me that most of the new Audis all have 66.56mm hubs now. Also ordered wheel-studs and lugnuts!