Minor update not worth putting on the website: got my free ugly OEM wheels back from being painted by a buddy (was an exchange for helping him replace his front sway bar) along with 15mm spacers:
Funny enough I don't actually completely hate them. They have 215/45R17 Conti ECS on them which I'll be taking with me to VIR this weekend. The car feels super nimble on these small tires. The wheels are relatively heavy, but the massively reduced scrub radius makes the car feel very "playful". A really lightweight set of narrowish 17in wheels would be a lot of fun from a daily standpoint I think.
I am renting the GTI out for the weekend to a friend of a friend so probably won't be driving it as much/as hard as usual.
There are a pair of 17x9 Konig Hypergrams that should be here tomorrow thanks to Sean at
www.itsnotstock.com . Highly recommend him, he called a few suppliers to make sure they were in stock and shipping from a warehouse in time for me to get them this week before the event. I got them mainly so I can bring all (6) of my V730s with me as well just in case, though that may not really be necessary. Will put the 245s square V730s on the Apex wheels and the 255 pair on the Konigs.
Shaping up plans for next year, I'll be buying another pair of Hypergrams of course to make a full set, and those will get wrapped in either RE71RS or Nankang CR-S (V2) for autocross, and I'll probably keep burning through the remainder of the V730s on track (with either the autocross set with me as backup ready to go, or rain tires depending on expected weather).
Testing this weekend will include my MK8 PCV with the holes in it, detailed here:
I'll probably also be trying to play with the rain setup a bit by switching the front sway bar to soft. Reduced grip = less body roll = not as much roll stiffness is necessary. Since it's looking like ALL Sunday will be rain, I'll
probably end up swapping my DS2500 pads back on Saturday night as there won't be a need for the grabby track pads in the rain.