Riz

Is the Neuspeed sport spring/bilstein adj perch shocks set up give the most performance for the buck? Is the ride sacrificed? Any suggestions for other setups would be appreciated as well.

Carlos Ramirez

Hi first of all comfort, and performance is relative to the driver especial for a street driven automobile. In AutoX / Drag / Track events cars have their suspension / engine / camber / tires / etc tuned for that driving environment.

Thus suspension mods are all relative to the driver and who is doing the review. Just like someone who came from a Big Buick Roadmaster to a A4 with sport package might think that the suspension is too hard or the opposite thats it the worlds best suspension of all time (hey and I think its a great stock suspension, good job Audi!) and nothing could be any better and any kind of tinkering of the suspension will just make it worst.

So having said that there are some of the popular suspension mods.

1) Bilstien/H&R sport springs (you can also use race)

2) Koni/Eibach

3) Bilstien/Neuspeed (I am going this direction)

4) The replacement of the swaybars for any of those above configs. Alot drivers/tuners do not like the extremely larger swaybars that are over 31mm because it affects the independant suspension.

5) Some people just replace the springs and find performance to be enough and comment about not having any problems. However its recommend you replace both springs and shocks, but usually by someone who has already spent the money on new shocks. I think likewise someone with expensive coilovers would probably not recommend anything other than coilovers. A little biased maybe :-)

6) Koni coilovers. Great but someone people who race suggest having them revalved and to use different springs.

7) Tada in comes Vortag Coilovers, Koni's in disguise but specifically modified for Track with revalving and slightly different springs. A nice thing about Vortag is they will let you trade up your springs if you don't like the ones they came with. However at $2200 they are at a premium.

8) Anyways I am sure there are alot of suspensions I don't know about but those are some of the ones mentioned here often.

I personally suggest that you think about what your true needs are. Consider if you are going to for long rides, if you are spending time on any kind of track racing, the condition of the streets in your area that has alot of pot holes or the streets are uneven, If you wife/GF/friends going to complain about your gocart style ride, if you care they say, etc and tally up the score and that should give an answer as to what kind of suspension upgrades you want.
Don't be influenced on buying a race setup or spend alot of money on config because someone else has it, and there no such thing as the best suspension configuration.
One last thing to try is to find a local A4 owner or club who has modified there suspension and possibly be nice enough to let you ride with them. A good place to start is to ask the local Audi dealership (almost every dealership has some kind of modify audi). Also call up tuners that are listed in the ads or links page and explain to them what you are looking to do. You will find that while alot of vendors are going to be biased to their product line they will try to answer your questions and help you obtain your suspension modifications using there products.


Hope this helps.
Oh and if I forgat any other brands or suspension configurations please post them.
Finally I also suggest you check the archives!!!

Riz

Thanks for the help