An upgrade to your suspension is a night and day difference from stock.  Let’s start at the strut towers.  When you turn corners, your strut towers do not move in sync, they move independently.  That movement is called stress.  Thus, when the car leans, different stresses occur to each strut tower.  To reduce give in your car, it’s best to install an upper stress bar.  Take for instance the ABD Racing Upper Stress Bar.  It’s got a twin tube design which helps reduce flexing and twisting when cornering.  The install for an upper stress bar is relatively simple.  Set stress bar into place, mark holes for drilling, drill, drop hardware into holes, place in stress bar, and bolt down. 

For the test drive, head out to to the freeway and take a spin.  The first thing you’re likely to notice is that bumps will feel more stable and even.  Without a stress bar in place, you’ll feel one corner of the car rise up when bumps are hit.  With the stress bar in place, it should be blatently obvious that one side of the car no longer flexes and gets pushed up.  The whole front  end now disperses the shock of a bump more evenly.  When cornering, you’ll find that there’s not as much lean in the car.  This will add to the ‘ride on rails’ feel as you continue to upgrade suspension parts.  If you want to stiffen up the back end a bit, a rear stress bar is about the same price as a front.   

Our next area of topic is the air intake system.  If you’re looking for a little pep in your step, and some growl under the hood, then you’ve found your next modification.  Several companies put out good quality cold air intakes, but Euro Sport Accessories’ Cool-Flo Race Air Intake System seems to accommodate the widest range of VW models.  Even if you’ve got an old Volkswagen with a CIS/E fuel injection system, you can still boost performance and feel results.  Don’t let that fuel dizzy fool ya!  Install is relatively easy, more time consuming than hard to understand. 

The other great perk about Euro Sport’s Cool-Flo Intake is that there are no more filters to buy, the filter is re-usable!  Simply remove filter, rinse with water until clean, let stand to dry, re-oil, and back on she goes!  That’s roughly $10.00 savings every time you go to get your oil changed. (ok, maybe every other time)  Either way, it’s money in the bank for two more cheap upgrades! 

Be sure to check back soon for Part II and III of this VW upgrades series.