309 Arb

[Pt2051900tdic 0]

Hi

I have bought a front arb of a 309 gti to upgrade my 205.

It's a good upgrade, or is bad than the original?

 

The car is a turbo diesel so it's a litle bit heavy at front.

 

I want also to put a 24 or 25 rear arb and 20 or 21 torsion bars.

This will be a good setup for fast road and somes trackdays?

 

Or the 309 front arb it's not a good upgrade for the 205?

Thanks

[swordfish210 20]

You'll get mixed oppinions on here about the 309 ARB, bit of a Marmite upgrade. I'm running one (although i havent driven the car since i fitted it) but after the last trackday i did i found the std 1.9 one a bit soft so i went for the 309 one.

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

As an upgrade on its own I think it makes a 205 understeer more and is not a good move.

 

However coupled with some stiffer springs/dampers and most importantly stiffer rear ARB/torsion bars then yes it can work well.

[welshpug 1,657]

unless your Diesel has GTi lower arms (which it may have being a turbo) it'll have a 23mm ARB, (bigger than the 21mm? 309 item) an also a different fitting to the suspension.

[eeyore 0]

I dont think a stiffer anti roll bar is what you want as you will just get more weight transfer and it will take even more weight off your inside front wheel during cornering and create more wheelspin. you would be better of puting some stiffer front springs in.

[Anthony 1,003]

In my experience, how well it works depends on what the rest of the suspension setup is.

 

My 205 used to run a comparitively modest setup - standard 309 GTi beam at the back, and 309 wishbones and Koni lowering springs at the front. Added a 24mm ARB to the back which massively improved turn in and slow-medium corners, but on high speed sweepers the car would typically feel very nervous and any bumps or changes of road surface had you half expecting the car to try and make a backwards exit into the scenery.

 

Added a 309 front ARB to the setup, and it worked brilliantly - still had the sharpened turn-in and behaviour on slow-medium corners as before, but it completely got rid of the nervousness on high speed corners and left a well balanced car that felt planted. I continued with this setup throughout most of last year, including a number of trackdays where the car exceled and punched beyond its weight.

 

However, over winter I upgraded the rear beam with some 22mm torsion bars and dropped back to a 22mm ARB. This setup, with the now effectively mismatched front and rear spring rates (as I've not yet got around to putting the new front shocks/springs on the car) resulted in the behaviour that Colin mentions above - the car leans heavily on the outside front wheel because it's undersprung, and the 309 front ARB takes too much weight off the inside wheel, so you can't put the power down trying to accelerate out of corners - in the wet it was frankly a joke.

 

Reverted back to a 205 front ARB, and even though the car is still too soft at the front, I can now put the power down without a problem, even in the wet - the traction improvement is like someone's fitted an LSD to the car - it's that obvious.

 

All I can say is try it and see what you think - it worked well for me on my old setup, but is hopeless on the new one.

[Pt2051900tdic 0]

My car have a gti subframe now.

 

I will try and see the best setup.

 

Anyone knows the best ride height for the front?

 

At rear i have 390mm on the shock ( ihave see in the forum the measure)