Mk3Love

Thanks for dropping by my blog.

Just thought I chuck in a link here for those that love what my Golf is about, and why I'm so obsessively into it.


Tuesday 12 December 2006

wheels, tyres, and brakes

alright, i haven't written up that i've bought a new (well, second-hand) set of rims for $660. BBS RS, 16x7, ET33, 3-piece wheels in 5x114.3.




got these quite a while ago, like about 2 months ago. there's the slightest dish to them (at about an inch) but they look awesome.


I havent got around to putting them on yet cos they need tyres, and redrilling. redrilling? what's that? well, first off, mk3 golfs like mine use a 4x100 lug pattern for wheels. hey, that means you can't fit those wheels onto your car? well, no. didn't you know that when you got them? of course i knew. but i asked around, and found out that i could redrill these rims into the golf's PCD. it's actually quite common for them to be done like this as BBS RS rims are discontinued now and so there are very limited sets around, so redrilling or fitting adaptors are the only solutions. fitting adaptors are a no go for me as they're illegal (along with spacers) to use in australia, so that has left me with redrilling.

the process involves filling/welding in the lug holes, then redrilling the new PCD. so basically, the 5 holes in my current RS's will be filled up, then drilled into the PCD I want.
i went to peter at ozwheels to ask about the redrilling (i was recommended to go to him cos the previous owner had his new polished lips made and put on there before he sold it to me). first problem i encountered was that the the hub was not flat backed, meaning that it would be incredibly hard to convert to a different number of holes for the PCD:


it would be impossible to drill 4 holes into my wheels cos that would mean some of the holes would fall into part of the cavity, which would lead to an imbalance when trying to get the wheels to sit on the hub. u could make it flat-backed, but that would mean you would need to fill all the cavities which would mean some extensive welding, which may compromise the structure and also the finish of the wheel. plus, it'll cost a shitload, so no way.

my solution was to upgrade my brakes and hubs to VR6-spec - 5x100 lug pattern. parts were easy to get, as fortunately, Matt from Camden GTI was wrecking a few VR6's. bought both rear and front set for $350 in total:


this way, i can redrill the wheels from 5x114.3 to 5x100, so i won't need to fill the cavities. basically, it'll be very similar to what they are now, except the holes are just slightly more closer to the centrebore hole.

being 16" and 7" wide, i'd be needing some low profile tyres to get them running legally on my car. in stock form, the golf GL came in 14" wheels with 185/60 tyres mounted. to run legal tyres on them would mean that I'll need to maintain the overall rolling diameter (i.e. the diameter of the whole wheel including the tyres). this is important as if the overall rolling diameter isn't maintained, then the speedo won't function as normal and the mileage won't either. e.g. if i put on the same 185/60 tyres onto a 16" rim, then the overall diameter would be 3-4" larger than normal. that would mean the wheel would spin slower when driving at the same speed, so the speedo would show, e.g. 55km/h when you're actually travelling at 60km/h.
because of that, and since the RS's are 7" wide, i'll be needing 205/45R16 tyres to maintain the same overall diameter. being a 45 aspect ratio tyre, they'll be considered performance/low-profile tyres, and would cost me at least $120/tyre. decent ones would be nearly $200/tyre. not cool :(

gonna get the RS redrilled after the new years when ozwheels moves to their new workshop.

Monday 4 December 2006

Boris' VW picnic

went to a VW meet yesterday, at deepwater reserve, milperra. was a fairly great day, meeting some people and cars that i've never seen before (corrado being the stand-out... i've only ever seen pics of them and not in real life, so i can say now that pics don't do the car justice. looks MUCH better in the flesh). i got there at 9-ish, and was like, the 10th car there. i was also pretty much the first watercooled car to get there too, so i stood out real bad, especially with my shocker of a stocker. but people there didn't judge you on the car you have, so it was all good.

about half an hour later, 4 other watercooled cars from the kingsgrove shell meet came and made me less lonely :P there was a manual 1.8T passat (looks standard), E-designated mk1 GTI (late model, rare to find), mk2 GTI, and a mk3 VR6. we ended up sticking together pretty much the whole day (until 2-ish) and met some other watercoolers that ended up parking in the car park. we saw a few new beetles, two mk3's that were owned probably by the organisers (a VR6 and a GL/CL that had foggies), another GL early model mk3 with rims out in the parking lot (didn't know who the owner was), an audi TT, costa's orange mk1 with BBS RA's, matt's seat 16V toledo and of course, carpoid's (forgot his name haha) corrado supercharged G60.

here are a few pics:





some more pics on my photobucket.