50mm to 55mm strut conversion

[KevinOS]

I'm going fitting airride to my 1.9TDI 05 A3 soon. As everyone knows, Airlift are the best option but unfortunately they only do a kit for the 55mm front strut version. My friend has a 2.0TDI and is willing to swap all the parts needed from his car to mine. I'm just wondering what exactly needs to be swapped as I have neither the resources or expertise to do it myself. I've heard lots of different versions of lists of parts that need swapping so I'm wondering has anybody done the conversion on here, and has a list of the minimum parts that need swapping so that I can tell my mechanic exactly what to do?

Thanks in advance, Kevin

 

[yeahhluke]

My mate has air fitted to his 05 MK5 golf with 50mm struts, and I remeber him saying it was a problem when he had it fitted. If I remeber rightly they ended up using mk4 golf structs to do it as they are 50mm, so might be worht looking into that first?

 

[KevinOS]

Ya I heard of people doing that too but apparently it doesn't go as low as it would with the proper kit fitted so I'm a bit sceptical about doing it that way

 

[yeahhluke]

His goes very low, lays frame pretty much, heres a photo from the weekend but it might be different on the A3http://www.ilovebass.co.uk/article/374/fitted-uk--part-1/#photo-107

 

[KevinOS]

He's on 17s though so I'd definitely be expecting to lay frame, I'll be on 18s or 19s so laying frame with that setup might be a bit tougher then... The guy fitting them advised me that I might be disappointed with how low I'd end up because I roll extremely low static so I think I'll stick to the hub conversion way to be honest... Tell your mate I love his wheels too by the way

 

[yeahhluke]

Fair enough then mate good luck with the conversion. Have you got a picture of yours currently now as youve curved my interest

 

[smurfworth]

Why don't you just get a bag over coilover setup for the front

 

[Ash B]

i changed mine from 50 to 55mm. Just used 2.0 tdi front hubs and brakes done!
Hope that helps

 

[KevinOS]

This was taken a few months ago but its not too far off what it looks like now, bear in mind that it looks like that daily (who needs a front plate really )



So does that mean just the hubs and calipers or do you need to replace the discs too? Also I heard somewhere you need to change the wheel bearings, I'm assuming this isn't true? Thanks for the advice Ash! :thumbsup:

 

[wuta3]

Is that a tesco car park? Class.

 

[KevinOS]

Sure is! I'm from Ireland so we don't quite have the selection of shows/meets ye have over there, so we must make do with whatever is on

 

[wuta3]

Sure is! I'm from Ireland so we don't quite have the selection of shows/meets ye have over there, so we must make do with whatever is on

Though slamming really, really, really isn't my thing ... your car would look better in 06 facelift sline frontend. I'm biased tho.

 

[KevinOS]

Ya I have thought about it but I have too much money gone in to getting the front bumper flushed the way that I wanted so it would kill me to change it now! Plus S-Lines are all but non-existent over here so finding one would be next to impossible... And I'm not importing a bumper and bonnet from the UK

 

[RS3dan]

Also I heard somewhere you need to change the wheel bearings, I'm assuming this isn't true? Thanks for the advice Ash! :thumbsup:

Pretty sure the wheel bearings and built into the hubs on these so