do not cut in to the shocktower!!!!
 

I don't advice to cut in to the shocktower. This will weaken the tower to much. My solution is to just grind 1 mm from the tower and 1 mm from the face of the bolt. Thats all. It works great for me and have no problems with clearence!!! :)

thanks for the advice Stuart. i agree with you. i am not overly comfortable with having to do it, but i clearance one side all the way through. my fitments don't show 2mm clearancing cutting it. not sure how tight VW's tolerances are in this area of the years and models. the bolts are 6mm thick and the shock tower webbing 7mm. can't see 1 or 2mm of webbing making that much of a difference. i can bend that by hand.

i have the one side cut and will fit the spring plate up a final time to double check clearance. if i can get away with less on the other side, i certainly will. hoping that the cup brace will help make up some of the difference in lost material. very worst case i will replace shock towers with less clearancing if needed.

i am only thinking of having a piece of flat steel welded on the inside to make up for the lost webbing.

question...how much load are you guys starting the spring plate with? using the bottom of the spring plate and the bottom stop as the reference point, i am debating between the slightly above the stop that my previous setup was at (no preload) and one spline down from that making about 7-10mm below the stop.

What do you guys think of boxing in the entire backside of the shock tower like Zen said. I have access to pieces of steel big enough to box the entire rear side of the shock tower in but it is only 2.5mm thick. Is that thick enough????

I will have a kafer cup brace to help stiffen up the rear chassis.
I will also probably have a 10 point cage to help also. :D

Hey I found some steel plates laying around the shop that just so happen to be the right size for my shock tower braces. The best part is that the metal is 6.25mm thick almost as thick as the metal removed from the other side. :D

You might have to TIG it in. That is fairly thick and the shock mount is cast. You could try 100% argon and the right wire, then max out your MIG and see what you get. You might even need to use a tri-mix gas. Ask someone at you local welding supply shop.

My mig will weld 3/16" in a single pass so think I can weld it. I will angle the metal back at a 45 degrees so I can use about three passes to get a good weld. We shall see, I should be able to weld them up tomorrow night so I will let you know how it goes. :D

I could try fluxed wire for some deeper penetration at the cost of being neat. :(

did you find 4 by chance? :D

There might be enough metal to make four braces. I will cut them out with a torch tomorrow at work. If I can get four pieces out of the metal I will ship you up a set. :D :D

that would be too cool. let me know what i owe you and how well the mod goes.

what were you thinking for fitment. my thought was to go inside the ib initially, but because there is the horizontal rib, you would have to go with two pieces.

anyone know the stength/structure implications of mounting outside the ribs rather than inside? my assumption would be that going on the outside would be weaker and just relying on the weld and inside the load is spread more laterally across the whole piece. :confused:

OK here is where I am at right now. I can make four shock tower braces but there is a problem. I am making the braces large enough to reach up to the shock bolt. What do you think of that? The only real problem with that would be possible water entrapment in the pockets of the shock tower causing rust and the fact that the shock towers are angular and the steel is flat. Were you thinking of only bracing in the bottom of the shock towers? If I were to cut the metal into several pieces it would be easier to fit into place. You will probably need a torch to heat the metal enough to bend it If you want the one piece brace. And if you are heating of hitting anything on your shock tower you might want to weld a temporary brace between them so you don't bend a shock tower. Let me know what you want. :D

my thought was to just do the areas in which material had been removed. should be any water trapment issues that way anyway. and i will install the cup brace before installing these pieces.

OK. I will cut your pieces to only cover the areas where metal was removed. If you want I can cut the two pieces and you can trim them down to fit inside of the webs if you want. I should get my cup brace in the next few weeks. :D

that's very cool of you. i appreciate it!!!!!!

My torch took a crap at work today. :(

I'll have to get the shop to buy a new one. :D


I'll practice on mine first then just knock yours out. :)