Well it’s been a busy weekend for me. On Friday I had an early start to get over to Grizz’s for him to fit my PSS9’s, new brake discs + pads and Phaeton brake cooling modification. I’ve tried to keep a photograph diary of what was done and I’ve posted my views further down on the end result.
For starters I should probably thank Grizz for doing the work in the first place plus acknowledge/thank skiwi from RS6.com whose instructions on how to do the Phaeton brake upgrade proved invaluable.
The next thing to cover is why I’ve ended up doing this modification. Well in all honesty I’ve just got fed up with having the car with dodgy suspension and frequent visits to my local dealership. It’s had 6 new shocks and 2 new gas valves in the space of 12 months and it’s still not sorted. It’s been so long since I had a healthy DRC system I can’t remember what it was like to drive before. I’m also at the point of paranoia where I’m waiting for it to fail and although the current shocks weren’t leaking at the time we came to swap the suspension out, in my mind it was only a matter of time before one or more failed again. My faith in the dealerships ability to fix and maintain the DRC is minimal although the problem does lie in the initial design. Unfortunately my experience to date shows that allegedly the dealerships hands are tied by the extended warranty company who will only authorise direct replacement of the failed shock. The only way to fix this problem is for the dealership to change both opposing shocks plus gas valve - but even then my personal belief is that it’s only a matter of time before failure reoccurs.
So for anybody in a similar position to me contemplating this upgrade here’s the list of parts you need.
***Bilstein PSS9 Kit (clicky-clicky)***
Avant = 006489
Saloon = 005785
Note although the saloon and avant variants have different catalogue numbers if you check on the Bilstein website they both have the same product numbers (GM5-8868) – kind of makes sense given that both spring and damper rates are fully adjustable. Here’s a link to Bilstein Website.
It is also worth noting that you can really feel the quality of the Bilstein kit once you’ve got them out of the box … they really look the biz plus from my perspective it’s certainly felt like I’ve got my monies worth.
As an aside, coincidentally Grizz had another client there on the day who had bought & installed a different brand of coil over on his MX5 for a little under the cost of the equivalent Bilstein kit – he was already having a number of issues and suffice to say it really didn’t compare quality wise to the Bilstein set-up.
*** Other Suspension Bits***
Qty Item Part Number
1-pair Front suspension top mounts 4D0 412 377 F
1-pair Rear suspension top mounts 8E0 512 121 D
I would strongly advise you to change the above OEM suspension components whilst you’ve got the suspension off. My car is over 4 years old so the rubber mounts have seen a fair amount of service. It also highlighted some of the issues I’ve been having with the OEM DRC suspension which I will elude to on a different thread.
***Brake Discs & Pads****
Qty Item Part Number
1-pair Front Brake Discs (Cross drilled variety) 4B3 615 302 A
4B3 615 301 E
1-set Front Brake Pads (for 1 pair of front discs as above) 4B3 698 151 A
1-set Front Disc Securing Parts 3D0 698 269
I bought these from DSGWagen on ebay – service was excellent and prices just as good. I can supply contact details if required – there’s really no need to go via ebay and you can save yourself an extra 4% by contacting him directly.
***Phaeton Parts***
Qty Item Part Number
1-pair VW Phaeton front brake backing plates 3DO 615 311 C
3DO 615 312 C
1-pair VW Phaeton front brake air ducts 3D0 615 447D
3DO 615 448D
4-off Brake bolts N10 065 002
8-off Securing bolts N90 842 903
A full list of tools and parts are listed as part of skiwi’s write-up – refer to RS6.com for full instructions on how to do this upgrade. Again parts were sourced through DSGWagen although Vagparts were marginally cheaper but combining postage was best for me.
Right –so lets get started. First thing was to get it on the ramp and get the wheels off ….
Next off came the rear discs & callipers. Grizz’s approach was to loosen all the joints but not actually undo or remove any of the suspension components. That way when it’s all tightened up there’s no need for realignment. This does mean that it’s a bit of battle getting the rear shock out – it required both of us plus leverage from a long crow bar to persuade the old shock out. We found it best to lift the upper suspension arm up and then use the crowbar to force the lower suspension arm down. This provided enough space to angle the old shock out from the bottom … once it was clear of the lower suspension arm it was a simple case of removing it. Rather interestingly the DRC fluid when drained was heavily aerated with lots of tiny bubbles … not good.
Here’s old vs new …
It was then a simple case of bolting the new mount onto the Bilstein shock.
Before putting the shock back on the car it’s worth setting the damping rate via the little dial on the shock body as it’s tricky to get to … Grizz and I have both of ours set to 4. …
Putting it back on the car … new going on was a lot simpler than old coming off - here’s what it looks like installed ….
So with rears done it was onto the fronts … although there’s a lot more parts getting the front shock off was a lot simpler than the rears. Here’s what it looked like …
Here’s an old vs new shot
Here’s a pic with the suspension installed.
So with suspension on we tackled the phaeton brake cooling upgrade next. Here’s a pic of the OEM RS6 backing plate – note the absence of any scoops …
Here’s a pic of the larger Phaeton backing plate vs the RS6 backing plate.
Essentially if you follow skiwi’s instructions you can’t go wrong. I had cut a MDF template of the backing plate out before hand which we offered up to the strut … we just then scored around the strut to get the shape, cut out the part from the template and used this to mark up the backing plate. Grizz with the use of a pneumatic hacksaw made short work of the metal cutting … if you’re doing it by hand then make sure you have your weetabix as theres some double thickness sections you’ll need to cut through. In the end we fastened the backing plate using 3 out of the 4 holes and simply put the 4th screw into the upper hole to make sure it didn’t get filled with gunk over time. It certainly feels strong enough with just 3 fasteners in place. Grizz turned the strut bolts around (option ‘b’ on skiwi’s list) which seemed to be perfectly fine. The only issue is that on full lock the edge of the air scoop pushes up against the xenon light automatic adjuster. It stopped touching if I backed off full lock by a ¼ turn Without cutting a good chunk off of the scoop which kind of defeats the object of the exercise there’s not much you can do. So in the end I’ve just got to remember to not go on full lock - which isn’t exactly a regular occurrence. Here’s the installed product …
And finally, it was a simple case (… or so we thought) of getting the new front discs & pads on … more on this as part of a different thread.
So with wheels back all that was required was to set the ride height. After a little experimentation I decided to go with a 100mm gap between the top of the rim (19” Audi OEM) and the bottom of the wheel arch. The kit can go much lower but it maintained the same gap between the wheel arch and tyre all the way around. Having parked next to another RS6 at the track day at Croft circuit they both look remarkably similar in stance.
As an aside, Grizz is running MTM bimoto’s (lovely … could even be tempted away from my desired Sportec Mono’s) are running 275/30 tyres which fill the arches a bit more so he’s gone with a 75mm gap which looks spot on – much meaner and more aggressive.
So what are my thoughts after a few days with the suspension on. Well so far I’m very pleased with it. Although you can’t see much of it with the wheels on it feels like a quality product. The car feels lovely and taught when pushing on … the initial body roll I had with the OEM DRC system has all but been eliminated - it feels wonderfully planted and I think I can feel more of what the car is doing underneath me. Ride quality is the same as with DRC – it’s certainly not back breaking or teeth chattering. On a motorway run I’d be hard pushed to notice any difference between stock and new. I’m even tempted to try dropping the suspension another 10mm
So my conclusions are quite simple – if you’ve had enough of DRC issues then swapping over to the Bilstein is certainly the way to go. It’s a quality product (as I keep saying) that really can be adjusted to whatever you want. If you want to keep the OEM look and ride quality then it can be done. If you want it slammed to the ground with full on driving attack in mind it can also be done.
Rich.
