A1 Bilstein front struts -- which ones??

[924Guy]

Just looking to compare notes here, since our cars run A1 front chassis - which front struts do you guys run, those of you who run a full-race Bilstein up front?

We just put a pair of the V36-0103 on the front of my teammate's car, but they were REAL short, like they were designed for a Prod car, and we had to do some creative work (thank god we were in a machine shop!) to get them to give the needed ride height - fully extended length was quite short. I've got the 924-specific AK1130/1131 on my car, I think, but those are decidedly NLFA, so not exactly a direct comparison.

I'm just wondering if anyone is even using these V36-0103's, or if the V36-0059 works better for an IT car (by being longer). The 0103's are threaded-body, whereas the 0059 is a "conventional body" (should take a stock-type 5" or so spring).

[Sandro]

I am using the V36-0103 on my Rabbit. I agree they are short. I ended up using a shorter spring to start with so that helped a little with being able to physically mount them to the car.

You said you did a little machine work to get them to work so you might have done the same thing that I did. I am running camber plates so what I did is I made a spacer that mounts between the bottom of the bearing and the lip just below the threads on the shaft of the strut. Initially when I installed them I had so much of the shaft sticking up above the top of the bearing that I almost ran out of threads and the car was too low for my liking. After I did this it solved the problem.

[924Guy]

Yeah, exactly that, used the spacers on the shaft to move the position of the spherical bearing up as much as possible - 1.38" in our case (that was the length we managed for the lower spacer/insert for the bearing - left us a reasonable amount above the nut for proper thread engagement). And yes, the top of the strut shaft did seem to be much longer by far than was needed...

But boy they'd sure be magic for a seriously-low Prod car!!! :)

Thanks!

[Joe Camilleri]

Vaughan, if you want to swap the 0103s I have an almost new pair of 0059s. The 0103s will work better on my Production Scirocco.

[924Guy]

Thanks for the offer, but I think we can work with them - since he's got them custom-valved already and set up on his car! Was just wondering more for the long-term... also think he got something slightly different than the 103's I expected...