SteveK-O (stock!)

I have a 98 2.8 with sport suspension. It's great on the road, but I plan on doing more winter rallying this year. I did one last year in Red Wing, MN. We won it so now I'm hooked. Anyway the sport suspension does not go well will blasting around fire roads in the snow. How hard is it to raise the suspension. Note I have little time, but even less money I can spend on this.

Thanks

Steve-O (98 A4 2.8QMS + 01 Passat GLX4Motion)

John/TSR

...it'll also raise the spring rates. Beware.

Rich_W

not an audi...

Dave Griswold

I'd recommend a set of coilovers...you can raise in winter and lower in summer..$$$ though.

WClark

...those should be pretty easy to get for cheap. I dont know if the OEM sport shocks are a decent match or not but I wouldnt be surprised if relatively new non-sport shocks are also easy to find cheap.

Audi also produces an A4 with what they call the heavy duty suspension - from what I can imply from the specs in the Bentley manual, which appears to be a firmer than stock and increases ride height a bit. I dont recall ever seeing one listed for sale in the US but the springs might be available from Euro sources. Probably needs shocks too (mainly the longer travel)

SteveK-O (stock!)

Assume one is mechanically inclined but not experienced, how long does the changeover take? The used OEM stock spring and shocks seem like the best plan, but I would want to re-lower for summer.

Steve-O (98 A4 2.8QMS + 01 Passat GLX4Motion)

WClark

with all the proper air tools and lifts, along with experience the job can take as little as 3 hours, but first time and with hand tools (plus a spring compressor) plan on spending the better part of a day on it.

If you may be going back and forth, you may also want to look into the couple extra parts needed to make each spring/shock an assembly. This would eliminate the repeated and time consuming step of compressing the springs and removing the shock. I would guess those parts (bottom cups, top cups for the front, tower for the rear, plus nuts and bolts) will be available from auto recyclers. You want to get your hands on a Bentley Audi manual so you know what is involved.

RangeR BoB

Off road places might be a good place to look.

You might talk to a spring rep and see if someone like H&R makes a spring with a similar rate to yours but with greater free length (from another application) so that the suspension will start out higher.

Just don't top out your shocks, or you could damage them.

RangeR BoB

Part of the spring, the area between the adjusters, will now be locked solid. SO you will have the same spring rate (lbs per inch of compression), but less of the spring will be active. This will make bottoming or coil binding the spring a reality, because you have removed a coil from active use, but the travel of the rest of the suspension is still there. This is really bad especially for off road, with lots of bumps.

Worse, the loads will be placed on a very small area of the spring, leading to nicks & notches, which are stressraisers. The small contact area will also serve as the fulcrum for the transition from the dead coil to the live coils, which focuses the stress and that means that you have dramatically increased your chances of breaking the spring at that point.

Stay away!

SteveK-O (stock!)

Thanks for the info! - I'll start looking for stock parts cheap