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Track Prep Day at A.W.E. Tuning

A

Alex/AWE

Guest
Spring is here and we’ve got cabin fever.

There has been some gorgeous weather in the Philadelphia area and we’ve been itching to get back on the track. Thankfully our friends at New Jersey Motorsport Park gave us a ring recently and told us the first member day of the year was approaching. Once we saw the weather forecast it was obvious where we’d be spending our weekend.

This outing marked the first track day for our Mk6 GTI and Porsche 997.2 TT. While these are both capable vehicles from factory, we did some prep work to give them that extra something special.

First up our Mk6:

Our car was stock with the exception of our Turboback Exhaust and G.I.A.C. Software. Not exactly the ideal setup for low lap times.

In order to make it track ready we added the following:
C|C|B Intake with Black Piping
Bilstein PSS-10 Coilovers – The only kit currently in the country, courtesy of our friends at Bilstein.
StopTech 328mm Big Brake Kit with Race Pads
Our exclusive H&R 28mm Mk5/Mk6 Time Attack Rear Sway Bar
Dunlop Direzza Star Spec Tires mounted on OE Audi B7 A4 S-Line wheels.




Now the Porsche:

First up for the 997.2TT was a set of Bilstein Damptronic Coilovers. We had these coilovers on our 997TT and fell in love with their sweet combination of sharp handling, adjustability and compliant ride. They were the only option we considered for our 997.2TT.



Later that day our technician installed a 6-Piston Front and 4-Piston Rear Brembo Big Brake Kit and Hoosier Race Tires mounted on a set of BBS Motorsport wheels.

These two upgrades combined with the GIAC Software already on the car should make for some rather impressive lap times!

While track days are always fun, we spent the day collection valuable data. Members of our Engineering Department spent a few days installing an army of sensors and probes to monitor key engine parameters while on the track. We’ll be using this data for future upgrades for the 997.2 TT.



Needless to say, we were quite excited to get to the track and put some perfectly good rubber to waste in the name testing and product development.

Here are some pictures we took during the event:







So, how did it go?

Both cars performed flawlessly.

The Mk6 turned consistent 1:20s at the Lightning Circuit, great times for its first time on the track. The car felt composed at speed, had gobs of usable power, turned with enthusiasm and could out brake more expensive machinery. We’ll be returning to the track soon enough with hopes of knocking those times down even farther.

Our Porsche was the belle of the ball. The Lightning Circuit has a longer straightaway than Thunderbolt which gave the car some room to stretch its legs and put down all 526whp.

While at the track we took the liberty to do some acceleration testing with G.I.A.C.’s new 997.2TT Software. Check out this chart which gives visual and statistical how a stock car compares to one with GIAC Programming. We’ll be putting together more charts like this as 997.2TT product development continues.



That’s all folks!
 

PandaGTI

Go Kart Champion
Curious... Was the GTI running the 28mm rear sway bar & stick front?

What did you set the rear bar to? (soft? Middle? Hard?)

what effect did that have? Did it decrease roll
overall? Or make the front roll more and the back roll less? Just the right amount of oversteer? Or unstable at the limit?

I have a similar setup... H&R street performance coilovers + dunlop direzza starspecs as well and just ordered the 24mm h&R rear bar...

Thanks
 

PandaGTI

Go Kart Champion
Also, how low/ what's the minimum ride height I should be at if I'm gonna track the car... I think I'm at 1.5 inches lower than stock on 18 inch Karthoums and still getting some rubbing up front in the hardest of turns... It's rubber on plastic rubbing lightly but still annoying.
 

PandaGTI

Go Kart Champion
I'm sooo jealous of the 28mm H&R rear sway bar :(

The 24mm H&R I have is too small...doesn't do enough

Tell me more about your setup? Any other suspension or tire upgrades? have you done tracks or autocross with that setup?

I've been researching this and am getting conflicting responses, but no one that actually has this in the MK6 GTI.

I get mine installed tomorrow.
 

snobrdrdan

former GTI owner
Tell me more about your setup? Any other suspension or tire upgrades? have you done tracks or autocross with that setup?

I've been researching this and am getting conflicting responses, but no one that actually has this in the MK6 GTI.

I get mine installed tomorrow.

Well I'm getting my MKVI this week and I have the 24mm H&R bar from my MKV that I'm going to (obviously) transfer over

No racing or auto X-ing here....just a daily driver

I had the Hotchkis (same as APR bar -- Hotchkis makes it for APR)....27mm rear bar & it handled AWESOME. No body roll at all.

BUT the poly bushings squeaked and drove me crazy.....so I went with the smaller H&R bar instead because it doesn't squeak at all with the Teflon lined bushings

It's a nice improvement over stock, but a larger bar would be nicer IMO
 
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