Old Library

This is part 1 of a 2 part update on my conversion from the Neuspeed
rear sway bar to the Shine rear sway bar.  The reason its in 2 parts
is I lost and or threw out the original bolts for the rear shocks so I
have to go out to True Value on Sunday and get a coupe grade 8 10 mm x 3"
bolts with lock tight nuts.  Oh the humanity...

Even though the NS bar WAS black powder coated it is now mostly rust along
with the end links and assorted nuts and bolts.  Removal of the NS bar was
pretty straight forward and I think I may have figured out why the clamps
keep breaking.

Theory: With the sway bar set on full stiff, the end links are stretched
backwards from the shock mount to the back mounting holes on the sway bar.
When one side of the axle moves up and the other side down too far (as in
hard cornering) the end links pull the sway bar away from the axle on the
side that is up thus pulling the sway bar away from the axle and pulling
the clamp out of shape.  This may explain why the clamps keep breaking in
the same place each time.  The end link can be adjust only so far as your
limited by the length of the threaded rod they give you to work with, plus
the pivoting end of the links are aluminum and if they don't have enough
thread in them the threaded rod will just pull out.  If the links are made
too long, the sway bar will hang too low and catch curbs and other road hazards.


Installing the Shine bar
Let me just say, the Germans make one hell of a hard steel!  Damn that shit's
tough to drill through... now I see why they recommend the cobalt drill bits.

Your to center the bar inside the axle and mark the locations of the holes to
be drilled.  On the passenger's side of the axle there is a plastic guide plate
the routes the brake lines and wires for the ABS.  I had to shift the sway bar
about 3-4mm to the driver's side to compensate for the bolt heads to clear the
plastic guide plate.  On the stock sway bar there is a rubber doughnut, if you
take a screw driver you can leverage that sucker out in order to cut out the
center section so the Shine bar will rest up against the stock sway bar.  Now
just put the two halves of the rubber doughnut back in place.  This keeps the
bar from slapping the inside of the axle.

The axle turns out to be about 1/4" thick and gets thicker as it goes back and
folds back on itself.  We did have a bit of trouble getting the holes to lineup
from the bottom of the axle to the top, so we had to elongate the top holes to
compensate on one side, the other side went better/ligned up better.   When I
get my Super Sprint exhaust system put on in a couple weeks I'll have them put
a few tack welds on the sway bar/bolts/axle just to keep everything in place.
I also had to grind the inside edges of the sway bar for it to fit snugly inside
the axle.

We measured the diameter of both bars and the Shine bar is 28 mm just like the
NS
bar.  But the Shine bar is hollow with 1/4" thick walls.

I'll give driving impressions tomorrow once I get the shock mounting bolts I
need.

--
Mike Bigus
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In a message dated 2/20/99 10:27:59 PM Eastern Standard Time,
&#103;tivr6r&#64;chicagonet<img src=/i/dn.gif border=0 width=35 height=15> writes:

> Installing the Shine bar
>  Let me just say, the Germans make one hell of a hard steel!  Damn that
[...] 50 lines deleted

This is so much like exactly what I went through when I installed the Shine
bar. Only a couple differences to your install and mine:

1) I ground the center rubber bushing down instead of taking the center out
since I thought that they(the bars) would make noise if left to touch
together.

2) I removed (with a grinding bur) the part of the plastic brake line/abs line
bracket instead of moving the bar over some. This probably doesn't matter much
though.

I have the pleasure of telling you that I am sure that you will love the
difference the Shine bar makes.

I am going to be lookin into getting a front bar now so I will report what I
think of the handling after I get one on there. Take care.

Regards,

Mark Herrly
7/96 Black GTI VR6
You wanna run it..??
http://members.aol.com/u1arunit/marksgti.htm
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Part 2 and the conclusion;

I got out early this morning to True Value to get the 10 mm 8.8
hardness 3" long bolts and lock nuts, and had some trouble getting
those suckers installed, but after scratching my head, bitching,
moaning and yelling the appropriate curse words they found their
way into their proper place and I didn't biff a single knuckle.  :-)

Driving impressions:
I'm not sure how to relay this information but at the first corner
things felt pretty normal since I already had a stiff rear sway bar.

But the longer I drove the more I noticed subtle but nice improvements
over the NS rear sway.  The back end feels abit stiffer and more solid.
The larger shock bolts may have to do with this since the shock no
longer had room to move up and down some.  See the stock bolt is 10 mm,
NS give you a 3/8" bolt to replace it with so its a smaller diameter.
So the shock moved just a bit on the 3/8" bolt.  Now with the 10 mm
bolt back in it feels more solid and the rear end works better, feels
more planted.  Does that make sense?

I had some squeaks and rattles from the old bar and absolutely NONE with
the Shine bar.  The car feels tighter and corners sharper now than before.
This tells me the Shine bar is either stiffer or just a better design and
better uses the car's natural forces to control the axle flex.

So I found a few roads near me to throw the car around and it definitely
corners and rotates better than with the NS bar.  I'm pleased with the
results and would do it again if I had too.  I headed out to a computer
show a few towns over and did more road testing.  On and off ramps can
be taken about 10 mph faster now.  No BS, the back end just feels more
planted and the car can be pushed that much further/faster.

I'm still gonna have Race Partners (local tuner) zap a few tack welds on
the sway bar/axle just for some extra strength while I'm in getting my
Super Sprint system put on.

Which brings me to the last topic... exhaust RUST!  The pipe running from
the center resonator to the "suitcase" and then over the axle to the muffler
are completely rusted as are both ends of the muffler and tips.  There's
no way the stock exhaust is full SS.  Only the CAT & resonator are still
clean and rust free.  The "suitcase" cover and muffler body are clean
but are showing signs of rust at the seems.

Oh well, that's all for now.


--
Mike Bigus
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