25mm F&R S3 bars

[Owdii]

Has anyone tried the Neuspeed 25mm F&R ARB setup? They call it race-spec, but I'm more interested in them because they are equal diameters and no other manufacturer does equal front and rears. I placed an order with whiteline for the adjustable 25F/24r, but they just phoned me to say they're discontinued, so this looks like the best option now. will 25mm be too much? Our cars over here came with very soft bars, so the R32 option is out. Thanks

 

[s3dave]

What do you mean they come with soft bars over here...
Get an r32 rear bar on job done..

 

[<tuffty/>]

Has anyone tried the Neuspeed 25mm F&R ARB setup? They call it race-spec, but I'm more interested in them because they are equal diameters and no other manufacturer does equal front and rears. I placed an order with whiteline for the adjustable 25F/24r, but they just phoned me to say they're discontinued, so this looks like the best option now. will 25mm be too much? Our cars over here came with very soft bars, so the R32 option is out. Thanks

You do understand how anti roll bars work and how they affect the balance of handling I assume? the std setup uses a smaller rear ARB to promote understeer... changing this ratio obviously alters this... the favoured mod seems to be to fit an R32 19mm rear ARB, this shifts the handling bias to be more neutral/over steer... its been said that a 22mm front and 19mm rear gives neutral balance... thicker ARB's will add to the spring rate so will make the overall suspension setup stiffer... I guess this is why they refer to the 25mm setup as race-spec as this would promote an oversteer bias and stiffen the effective spring rate too...

<tuffty/>

 

[Owdii]

S3 dave: Australian R32's had a 16mm rear ARB (I believe) and stealership prices are comparable to proper suspension manufacturers, which are adjustable and come with poly bushes.

Tufty: I'm a long-time reader, but not much of a contributor which is why the 25mmFR setup made sense (matches the 19mmFR that you guys seem to rate), except for the added spring rate. So, I'm aware that blade length AND bar diameter both attribute to ARB stiffness but will 25mm be too much for the road?

I use the car as a daily with some track days. Currently have billy shocks w eibach springs poly'd all round (except for front ARB). front left ARB bush has now perished and the collar is mashed. Time to replace front and rear ARBs. Anyone tried these, or have alternative ideas for front and rear?

 

[daz-20vt]

I think too stiff can have a bad effect on the road though makes the car unbalanced and twitchy. Dont nuespeed do a 21 front 19 rear option. Thats meant to be pretty good co. Bo. Some say better than the 19 19 option. Daz

 

[Jason.s]

I personally was thinking of going up a few mm on a neutral platform still so 23/22 or something. But depends if they they still produce the rear. Neuspeed sell a 25mm rear bar which could be an idea aswell as upping the front to a R32 23m bar. But then the rear bar from Awesome is £253 which i cba with for a long time lol.

 

[Owdii]

daz-20vt: I saw the 19mm rear, but couldn't find a 21mm front, which would be perfect. maybe discontinued? Neuspeed aren't adjustable, so 25f/19r doesn't seem like a good option.

H&R are 25f/21r 2 point adjustable, so maybe the best option so far? front set at soft, rear at hard... might make it comparable to 24/22?

 

[superkarl]

I personally was thinking of going up a few mm on a neutral platform still so 23/22 or something.

^this^

whilst the r32 19mm rear bar is good, i personally would like a tiny bit more stiffness and oversteer.
if you've already uprated the suspension, and tbh spring and shock combos dont tend to be as harsh as some coilovers, you might find 25/25 fine. But id personally aim for the 21-23mm region front and rear, thats what id like to try, hopefully it wouldnt be too stiff.

There was a member who took part in a few trackdays, he uploaded some videos and everyone was quite impressed by his driving and throwing the big fat s3 around. He said he had fairly thick ARB's, im gonna guess and say he had 25mm, and he said it was horrendously stiff on the roads. But amazing for the track.

 

[Owdii]

Thanks Superkarl, that's why I added my suspension setup and wouldn't be considering 25f/r if I had coilovers for a daily. Maybe I should give it a go... won't be cornering like an icecream van ever again, but might need a kidney belt.

 

[superkarl]

Thanks Superkarl, that's why I added my suspension setup and wouldn't be considering 25f/r if I had coilovers for a daily. Maybe I should give it a go... won't be cornering like an icecream van ever again, but might need a kidney belt.

If you try it and dont like it, it wont be hard to move them on, or do a swap for smaller bars. Then again im sure s3's are rare in oz

 

[Owdii]

only about 250 came here. half are probably crashed by now, some probably from stupid arb setups. Plenty of TTs and golfs though. The noise from the front is terrible, so has to be fixed asap. Neuspeed 25f/r or H&R25/21 adjustable? I'll order tomorrow, then post my experiences when installed

 

[Jason.s]

You`d want the rear the same or higher than the front so either the equal Neuspeed or the 25mm rear and the R32 front which will be cheaper than aftermarket front. IF you can get the R32 bar over there.

 

[Owdii]

Jason, I went to VW service about 5 years ago for an R32 rear and they said it was 16mm (don't remember, but smaller than 19mm) and they had to order it from Germany and it cost roughly the same as an aftermarket one, so aftermarket end up being the same price once bushes are included. 23f/25r- I'd imagine that I'd be cocking the rear more than my dog on his morning walk? I'm just worried that with the whole system being stiffer that there wouldn't be enough weight to transfer from the rear and might limit the benefit of having Haldex... what are your thoughts?

 

[superkarl]

If you go too stiff you can actually reduce grip, so you need to keep that in mind.

If going 25/25 you are increasing hugely from stock 19/14, thats a huge increase in size and rigidity.

 

[Owdii]

Thanks for all the input guys. My head says go H&R, proportionally stiffer with some adjustment. For the sake of science, I would've loved to go 25f/r, but something tells me its not a good idea (maybe the fact it's meant for racing, not commuting?), especially with the rear seats out
cheers

 

[Jason.s]

You either man up and do it or go with your head and go for something a little tamer. But whatever you do dont go for a big increase on the front over the rear. Hence why we go for the 19/19 setup and i said i was thinking of a 22/23 setup. I think that`d be a good mid way point being stiffer than the usual but not as crazy as a proper track setup that the 25/25 is.

If you go for the smaller bars but adjustable then you could always set the front to soft and the rear to hard to try and bridge the gap a little from having a bigger front. If that would even work.

I dont think you`d be losing the backend much though with a really stiff bar. On my old A4 fwd i had a Neuspeed 28mm solid bar on the back set to hard. It never just let go unexpectedly. Only when lifting off mid bend or something which i used to do quite a lot. Being stripped out and having no weight over the back it`d certainly come round easy but managing the throttle when cornering quickly it never snapped out of shape.

 

[Jason.s]

If/When i do anything about it i`ll probably be looking at this Whiteline / Sway Bars / Audi S3 MK1 8L (4Cyl.) From Years: 12/99-8/03 / Euro Performance Car Parts along with a 21mm front bar (listed under R32 on ETKA)

 

[jojo]

ARBs in my opinion is a funny topic, everyone likes to have their cars setup differently! R32 rear 19mm ARB is the mod everyone wants, as it's cheap and effective, not to mention it looks OEM when fitted!!

For standard suspension, R32 rear ARB is just about acceptable, if you guys are planning anything larger than 19mm rear and uprated the fronts too, then I suggest it's only for cars with uprated(and lowered usually) shock absorbers to make it work. For more front end grip, I feel that lowering the front end, as in lowering the center of gravity has more benefits than an ARB.

The vid of me going rather sideways was my first track outing with an R32 rear ARB, so it's quite tail happy when provoked, as you can see! lol

 

[Jason.s]

Dont lift off then

 

[Owdii]

Jason, I like your styleThis is exactly the reason why I like this forum. 22f would be good, but I know it'd cost me stupid money and a long time to get a factory part - annoying. 25f/r would be good to try out if no one's done it.
Too much for one day, we'll see if I've grown a pair by the morning...

 

[Owdii]

I wanted whiteline as that looked the best option if changing front and rear and from Oz - so by far the cheapest option for me too, but they have stopped making them for our cars (spoke to whiteline directly today and they aren't updating, finished). I was told that there is still remaining stock overseas, but limited. So if I found some, I'd essentially be paying for their tour around the world. If you want them, make it quick.

 

[Jason.s]

So the only one you can get over there is the 25mm Neuspeed bar? That sucks. What about the adjustable 19mm bar? Could set that to hard and it`d probably be a bit better than the 19mm bar. The 21mm front bar is 8N0411305D if you wanted to see if your nearest VAG dealer could get it if you wanted to go that route.

25/25 would be epic but who knows how it`d react on the road and its a lot of money to try and it be terrible or try to kill you.

 

[Owdii]

okay, so we have all gone off topic a bit.. Me talking about southern hemisphere logistics on a UK site, you guys talking about R32 ARBs
1.Has anyone tried them? No
2.Is 25mm too much? Much debate, yes, no, maybe for road, don't know?
This could be a good setup, but it's a lot of money to "give it a go", so I won't be (ordered H&R)....

 

[jojo]

okay, so we have all gone off topic a bit.. Me talking about southern hemisphere logistics on a UK site, you guys talking about R32 ARBs
1.Has anyone tried them? No
2.Is 25mm too much? Much debate, yes, no, maybe for road, don't know?
This could be a good setup, but it's a lot of money to "give it a go", so I won't be (ordered H&R)....

A lot of members are running R32 ARBs on here, but most are just using the rear one, as it's an effective mod. The R32 front ARB was designed for a heavier V6 engine, so not quite matched for 1.8T.
25mm in my opinion is too big. If your car was quite low with uprated shocks and springs, and ready for track work, then 25mm maybe a good idea, but for road cars, it's OTT in my opinion.

 

[Sam_]

Nice to see another one being sorted out in Australia!

I got quotes from the dealers for the UK spec R32 bar and as you'd expect (for aus), they took the ****. I ended up getting a 20mm Whiteline bar from eBay for around $150 from memory. Feels good but I still get the odd bit of oversteer depending on how I drive. Would like a similar setup to what Jason has described but haven't looked into it further. The budget is going on a new engine build instead!

 

[Owdii]

speaking of taking the ****, worst quote I got for shipping was $1000! (that's just the shipping, from the states). Managed to get that down to $100 from another USA supplier, WTF!?
I'd like to do the engine Sam, but I'm hardly ever here and she just sits in the garage most of the time. my car hasn't even got 100,000kms on the clock yet, so I just uprate when things fail.
Reading all the build threads on here tempts me, but I like this site because everyone seems to be more hands-on, therefore more knowledgeable on the details.
Cheers guys

 

[StaceyS3]

H&R bars ftw as can adjust the balance with both bars having 2 mountings giving you different settings if you feel the need to play with it

Iirc front bar is 25mm and rear is 21mm but obviously can change the balance by setting the rear bar on hard and front on soft to give you a more tail happy feel

 

[Jason.s]

I`d still get rid of that front bar...