Sean's Shadow Blue GTI

Got my coilovers delivered last night. I've seen one or two earlier prototypes floating around on vwvortex and facebook market place but so far haven't seen anyone with the finished product yet from this company. They are from YCW Suspension, also known as MFactory I think. I originally thought I was getting the Aeris series but everything from the invoice to the labeling on the boxes indicates they are the Reference series, which is fine by me, a free upgrade. My only previous experience with coilovers is the Racelands I had on my MK4 and the BCs I recently helped to install on my GFs MK5. We all know Racelands suck, but BCs have a pretty good reputation and it is well deserved. The BCs (BR series) I installed were definitely good quality and I had no issues with them. These however were definitely a step above. Everything about them just feels very solid and polished. They have adjustable dampening on both front and rears, adjustable camber on the fronts, and also come with neoprene sleeves to protect the threads from dirt and other debris. They also come from the factory with swift springs with default rates of 6k front, 8k rear. Honestly I have no idea what that really means, but you can have them changed if you want to. Hopefully I can get them on some time this month, although I won't be driving the car much until April-ish until they stop salting the roads. I also have to figure out how to set the preload and figure out which height and dampening settings I want.

Finished my rear coilovers today. Started them on Tuesday but had to wait to get the nut on the top of the rear strut off since I don't have any impact tools. I had to go to the local VW dealer to get some new stretch bolts for the motor mounts and they actually popped them off for me so that was pretty cool. Doing the rears was a piece of cake though, i'm more worried about the fronts i'll be starting tomorrow. Also finished the install of the VWR motor and transmission mounts. I thought I fucked up the rear hole that connects the mount to the body but I just needed to use the supplied spacer since the profile on the mount is shorter than OEM.



Got reallyyyyyy lucky this didn't fall down to never be seen again.


Kinda hard to see but the rubber is starting to get some cracks in it on my old mount. This is the 034 Street Density mount. The transmission one looked good however.



Here you can see the small portion of the spring that was snapped off.

Those coils sure look purdy. Definitely going with them when I replace mine. Let us know how they ride after you get them dailed in.

Finished up the front install on Saturday and then finished up adjusting the heights last night. Had to come up with the fronts and down with the rears. Overall the install went pretty smoothly, especially for being just be and not having a strut spreader or spring compressor. I ended up just using a 1/4" ratchet as the strut spreader then used a jack and a broom to compress the oem spring/strut so I could get the knuckle off the bottom. The first side I did took a while since I had to keep putting the tire on then off to get the correct strut length but once I was able to get that, I just replicated it on the other side so that one went much quicker. I'm not sure if I did the swaybar correctly though. I pushed up on it as to "preload" it I guess as it seemed to be sitting really low and that it would hit the control arm. After driving around a bit though I checked and didn't see any signs of it hitting the axle or control arm so I think i'm good. I definitely need to roll my fenders though, and maybe even pull them a bit if I want to go any lower. I have a bit of bacon on my passenger side one and it was actually shaving some of the tire off, pics below. Lastly I noticed that due to my wheel being so close to the strut, the inside is rubbing away at the neoprene covers that were provided. This isn't really an issue since it definitely won't hurt the wheel and i'd rather have a slightly deformed cover than the threads and springs exposed to all the shit the underside of the car sees. The ride is definitely stiffer, I have the dampers set to softest in the front and middle in the rear. May change the rears back to the softest to see what that changes. Also installed the VWR motor and transmission mounts I picked up. These definitely increased the NVH way more than the 034 mounts did. It feels more like i'm driving my dads 69 Firebird than a VW now. I love it though, have yet to get any wheel hop and feels super responsive. Now for pics



I don't have any pics of the rubbing but right below the YCW emblem is where it's getting rubbed against.


Adjustable swaybar endlinks


A bit dark but still sitting a bit lower than before. After looking at this pic on a bigger screen. I think I may lower the rears a bit more and then once I get the fronts rolled maybe drop them a little more as long as I won't be rubbing.


Already pretty flush. Hoping my BBK doesn't require spacers because then i'll be doing some serious fender pulling.


I spaced and didn't take a pic of the transmission mount installed :iono:

Nice man, awesome that you got them on. I’ve been wanting to get konis with HR springs for mine, but still a little intimidated about doing coil overs myself. Need at least to get a second daily so I can give me some time to have to GTI up on jacks. What BBK are you going with? I just picked up TTRS front brakes and plan on running my lagunas with spacers until I get new wheels, but I know they say always do suspension first and then see what wheels will fit.


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pdan said:

Nice man, awesome that you got them on. I’ve been wanting to get konis with HR springs for mine, but still a little intimidated about doing coil overs myself. Need at least to get a second daily so I can give me some time to have to GTI up on jacks. What BBK are you going with? I just picked up TTRS front brakes and plan on running my lagunas with spacers until I get new wheels, but I know they say always do suspension first and then see what wheels will fit.


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It really isn't that bad to do them. The rears are super easy. Only thing I didn't have is an impact gun to get the nut on top of the strut that holds the mount to it off. If I had that I woulda had both the backs done in about an hour and a half at most. The fronts it was mostly the adjusting that made it take a while. After I got the first side all setup and copied it to the second side it only took about an hour to do. Then from there it was just adjusting the height so I wasn't rubbing. I'm gonna be going with the full 18z kit from Rotorlab. I may be buying one for a slight discount from someone who ordered one but isn't using it but it's silver when I want yellow for mine so now i'm thinking I'll just buy it new from rotorlab. Also gonna order the mk5 r32 rear calipers to use as a parking brake setup and the RS3 master cylinder so the pedal doesn't feel like mashed potatoes.

Went out on Saturday with my gf and a few friends to freeze our asses off and take some pictures. My girlfriend took them all with her new camera and they came out great so it was definitely worth it.

Those coils look top-notch. I've been looking at the BC Racing coils as an upgrade from my solowerks, but these look like a serious contender now. Do you like them better on your Mk6 vs what you've got on your GF's Mk5?

KollinWithaK said:

Those coils look top-notch. I've been looking at the BC Racing coils as an upgrade from my solowerks, but these look like a serious contender now. Do you like them better on your Mk6 vs what you've got on your GF's Mk5?

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I really havent driven her car much and also mine is so shaky from all the mounts I have in there it's hard to really compare just the coils. I'd say the quality definitely seemed better on the YCWs. Not that the BCs were bad, the YCWs were just a step above.

Installed my BSH Integrated Throttle pipe yesterday. Pretty much as straight forwards of an install as it can be. Old pipe out, new pipe in. I put some locktite on the plug for the water meth jet for now since I don't have my setup yet. The quality of the pipe is good, the only thing I didn't like is where the MAP sensor goes in I feel like they could have cleaned it up a bit instead of leaving all the metal in there like the picture below.



Water meth bung was cleaned up nicely on the inside


I feel like they could have gotten rid of some of the metal that was left over from when they put the hole for the MAP sensor in

Love the look of the 255/35's on the 8.5" wide wheels. :thumbup:

Do you have any rubbing at your current ride height? I'm looking at upgrading to the Motegi MR133 in a 17x8.5 with 245/40's for my track setup.

Ronnie_B said:

Love the look of the 255/35's on the 8.5" wide wheels. :thumbup:

Do you have any rubbing at your current ride height? I'm looking at upgrading to the Motegi MR133 in a 17x8.5 with 245/40's for my track setup.

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I rub in the front when I hit bigger bumps, nothing in the rear though. I'm gonna be dropping the rears down more soon and I still have to delete the front fender screw and roll/maybe pull the front fenders also

smanierre said:

I rub in the front when I hit bigger bumps, nothing in the rear though. I'm gonna be dropping the rears down more soon and I still have to delete the front fender screw and roll/maybe pull the front fenders also

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Gotcha. How much camber are you running? Wondering if you could get rid of some rubbing with a little more camber?

Ronnie_B said:

Gotcha. How much camber are you running? Wondering if you could get rid of some rubbing with a little more camber?

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I honestly have no clue. I gotta get my front strut covers cut off so I can adjust it without pulling out the coilovers then I'll go to a good shop to get an alignment done and have camber set properly

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Got my H&R 24mm rear swaybar installed this saturday. Overall really easy install that only took about 30 minutes. Just undo the 2 endlink bolts that require a triple square and wrench, then the 4 swaybar bracket bolts. The H&R re-uses the OEM brackets, but has new teflon bushings that supposedly require no grease. The grease I ordered wasn't in on time so I didn't grease them, but if I get any hint of squeaking, I will be. I put it onto the hardest setting and it definitely feels better in long turns with much less body roll. I have 034 adjustable endlinks coming today that i'll toss on there this week as well. I have a few more things to do in the near future that all require an alignment after so once I get those done i'll get it all aligned and corner balanced and hopefully do my first autox this spring/summer.