I agree too... stock suspension with stock "summer" tires is tuned really nicely right out of the box.
My problem OTOH was that the car came with the crappy Dunlop A/S...
1) so I decided to upgrade the tires, but then I read reviews that there is an optimum amount of grip that any car with stock suspension is best with... however the tires I wanted to get have more grip than the stock suspension can handle... leading to more body roll which meant actually less contact patch which ultimately causes even less grip... similar to a magazine's review about different size tires on a regular Golf. Ultimately I went with Dunlop Direzza Z1 Starspecs.
2) So I decided to upgrade suspension too and got the H&R Street Performance Coilovers that I have set at about 1.5 inches lower than stock. This combination provides tons and tons and tons of grip on that backroads... no torque steer and ultimately feels very planted and fast... the downside is that the lowered suspension got rid of the tossability of the car, the ability to steer into oversteer/ understeer with the pedal... with the XDS I just point the steering wheel to the inside of the turn and it pulls the car in that direction... but I don't think that really is oversteer and it causes the XDS to work overtime I guess. On tighter courses, the car understeers into turns, but then I give it a bit more gas coming out and the XDS pulls the front end into the turn... that's still understeer
3) So to try to get that easy tossability back... I've read great results from MKV owners using bigger rear sway bars, I've even found out that MK6's come with a "hollow" 24mm rear sway to give it more oversteer, but MKV's where upgrading to 24-28mm solid bars that are still gonna be stiffer than the 24mm rear bar... then I found out about AWE tuning's MK6 GTI running an exclusive H&R time attack 28mm rear bar:
http://www.golfmk6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5528
In fact in AWE's MKV GTI they where the fastest fwd in a redline time attack event which was equipped with Bilstein PSS9's, and the 28mm H&R rear sway bar + Dunlop Direzza Starspecs
In fact H&R equips all their project cars with the smaller H&R front sway bar + 24mm rear sway bar.
So I'm gonna go with the H&R 24mm tomorrow + raise the coilovers from 1.5inches low to 1.2 inches low then I'm doing a track day at Streets of Willow next week and see how it goes... if the back end comes too around too much I'll add the front sway bar.
My other experiences with sway bars as well...
First car was a 1994 Honda Accord lowered on TOkico shocks + Ground Control springs + neuspeed rear sway bar... the car was very fast around the turns... pointed the front end in the direction I wanted and kept foot on the gas to keep the rear end planted and it was fast both on offramps and onramps and on the racetrack... I remember being in a hurry when a prototype E46 M3 test driver thought I was trying to catch him and take pictures ... I was just in a hurry but in the turns my 1994 Honda Accord was fast enough around the turns/ freeway onramps and off ramps around Marina Del rey to stay on him... he was annoyed... but it was fun. Downside was... if you weren't on the throttle enough/ braked late into a turn/ or was too slow... that rear end would come around... happened on a canyon road but was easily corrected with throttle making the car look like it pulled off a clean drift... on the track if I went into turns too fast and braked too late the rear end would just come right around... but if you got it just right it was fast around turns.
Next experience with sways... 2001 E46 BMW + H&R cupkit + H&R front sway set to stiff and one side and soft on the opposite side (to give a middle setting) + the H&R rear set to stiff + Hankook V12 evo's... the car had the same feel as E36/ E46 M3's around tracks and canyon roads as far as neutral handling with oversteer when you wanted but much more planted with much higher grip levels that even with it's 185hp the car was faster around canyons and racetracks than my friend's cars (M3, EvoX, S2000, 911)
Now with the GTI... definetly has lots more grip than any of my previous cars with this setup... but I don't get the same throttle steer/ oversteer at will as the previous cars... yet.
hahaha
