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Calisteez' JSW Thread

9K views 37 replies 20 participants last post by  shimmy2244 
#1 ·
I’ve been meaning to do this for a bit, but haven't had the time or have been too lazy, lol, this will be my little build thread of sorts even though I don't plan on going so far with this one.



Some of you may know my old Mk4 R32-







that was such an epic build for me, tackled everything from body work to air-ride, several wheel builds, and my first full vinyl wrap color change, only thing I really didn't mess with was the motor. For my next car though, I wanted something different, I knew I wanted a JSW, there aren't really many modded JSW's in my area and as soon as I saw the Mk6 platform I knew the potential of what a cleanly modded example could be, along with trolling the forums to see what people were already doing with them.



So, I bought the car on 05/02/2012 with only 10 miles on the odometer, and before leaving the dealership already had an Airlift slam kit on order, I knew this car had to be bagged, after doing my Mk4 R32 I just couldn't live without air-ride, stance is a huge thing for me and my cars have to be slammed, but static slammed (note: slammed and lowered are 2 completely different things IMO) is just not functional or practical, the debate will go on forever but I have had 6 VW's previously from Mk1's through Mk4's and all of them maxed out on coilovers, I will never, ever daily drive a static slammed car ever again. :p



Now, fast forward to 05/05/2012, with only 140 miles on the odometer and 3 days after purchasing the JSW, I was already in my good friend Simon's (oscar_block) garage ready to get the air-ride installed-











The goods-







We got the car up into the air and ripped out the stock suspension in no time, Tim Tomas of the famed Tomas Sport Tuning even came through to help drop the front sub-frame so we didn't have to cut out the front sway bar-











After the front sway was out, we got the front air struts in and the sub-frame bolted back up (no worries, I did get it re-aligned after the fact), Tim started to run the air lines from the front to the rear where everything was going to be mounted and we also prepped the bulkhead fittings so we knew where all of the lines needed to end up-



















Then it was time to move onto the rears, and even after doing a "custom" rear set up in the Mk4, was more of a pain in the ass than I was expecting. First off my kit for the rears were missing the much needed rear air bag bolt brackets, so we ended up having to fab our own until I could get some from Airlift, just needed sheet metal a whole saw kit and a welder-











There was also way more cutting and grinding for the rears then I would have preferred, but at this point it was too late to turn back, keep in mind the car was still only 3 days old. :D



Simon getting rid of the rear spring nipples





Notching the body for the rear air bag top bracket clearance





Done, coated for rust proofing





Rear bag test fit





At this point we finished up running and tucking all of the airlines, kept it clean, minus some zipties you can't even tell which ones are the air lines















We called it a night and ended with all 4 corners installed and all of the air lines ran, the next morning we started laying out the truck set up and mounting the Autopilot V2 controller. being that this was a weekend installation, I didn't really have the time or materials to do a super baller trunk set up, my goal was to get the kit in and running and I could always re-do the tank set up down the line, so we ripped out all of the rear interior and the driver side panels, got the tank, compressor, and digital control unit mounted in the spare tire recess, and we ran the actual V2 controller to the ashtray above the shifter so I could hide it and tuck it away.











Got everything hooked up to the fuse box for power



and the truck set up when we were done-



So roughly a day and a half and we had the entire kit installed tuned and running, tested everything for air leaks and re check all of the connections and I was good to go, this is how it sat when we were done, no frame notch-



About a week later I got the car back over to Berkeley, CA where Tim would knock out the frame notch, I think from beginning to end it took him about 2 hours-













And finally on the ground at full drop with no axle binding-



So by 05/11/2012 the car was bagged and the frame notch was done, that's 9 days after the original date of purchase, I was pretty stoked that everything came together, but I still wasn't done yet, while getting the frame notched (also did the fender tab mod and roller my fenders), Tim Tomas told me had been sitting on a set of wheels that he thought I might be interested in-



A freshly refinished set of Phaeton Challange wheels, they were already done up with the green, so I ordered a new set of tires and the following weekend we got them mounted and bolted them up-





I loved how they looked and the fitment was spot on, and they added that OEM plus steez I'm always down with while switching it up from the stock 17's. That pretty much covers the first 3 weeks of my JSW, I'll post up more of the progress since and what I'm planning to do next, thanks for checking this out yo! :wave: :beer:
 
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#7 ·
:wave:

Ohai there :wave:
Oh hi! :wave:

Looks great Ryan, wish my mom would do the same with her JSW TDI. :laugh:
Haha, thanks Steve :beer:

Ryan the wagon looks great! I am sad that I never saw before moving! But we need to link up once I am down in Cali visiting!
Iggz!!! I know dude, sucks because you were my official photog, now I'm having to shoot all of my own pictures and you know how lazy I am, haha. Hit me up for sure next time you're in Cali. :heart:
 
#9 ·
While I'm on a Vortex kick again, I'll keep this going, think I already mentioned that I rolled my fenders and cut out the fender tabs, also test fitted a set of 20" Audi A8 wheels, if I didn't have to mount tires onto them, they may have worked out. :laugh:



Drove around the JSW for the first 3 months all green status, I cut my own vinyl so I have fun with some color match stickers



Wuste 2012



When hangin in Vegas I got hooked up with a good buddy Nicul Harkison (aka fookerbob) and he convinced me to buy his Image Billet 88 wheels, I ws drunk most of the weekend so he didn't have to do much convincing. :eek:

Made the trek to Santa Barbara, CA to swoop up the wheels, ws pretty stoked to get the home and get them test fitted, I knew the offests were going to be a challenge (19X9 ET15 fronts and 19X10 ET5 rear) and if it wasn't for Nicul selling them to me for so cheap, any other set of wheels with the same offsets I wouldn't have even bothered.

Just as I had thought the wheels would not play nice, and I wasn't about to go all in for some fender work just to make them work, the fronts I was able to pull out a tad and get them to tuck, but the rears were no where close. :banghead: I did look at rebuilding them, but pricing out new lips/barrels it ws going to cost what I paid for them to get them rebuilt the way I wanted, so I ended up selling them, oh well, at least I can say that I owned a set.







Some people were telling me that they looked good and I should have kept them, but the way that I look at it is if I went through all that work for the air-ride, I needed to be tucking all 4 when completely air'd out, poke works on static cars, but I think it's pointless to be on air and sitting on sidewalls at full drop.

At this point I decided to get the stock wheels back on and refinish the Phaeton wheels, I was getting sick of the green and wanted to re-do them a bit more classy, so I sent them off to get powdercoated pure white, it matched the cool white paint of the car pretty close, got them back right before the Waterwerks on the Bay show-





I also picked up a set of LM-R reps for my wife's Mk5 GLI and decided to mount them on my car since I still have the Falken 452's I bougth for the Image wheels, I'm not usually a fan of reps, but I think they look pretty good, almost makes me want to get a real set.





This pretty much brings us to present day, I have been wokring on some air-ride issues, I needed to have the rear control arms modded as the airlift rear bags were rubbing at drive height, chased some air leaks, but it's been a pretty solid kit so far, as of now I have about 8k on the air-ride.

I have some small things on the way, window deflectors from weathertech, whispbar roof rack bars, I'm re-doing my truck set up and adding a second compressor and cleaning up the layout for a more show freindly install.

The biggest thing I am working on is a custom set of 3pc wheels, I have the CAD done and am trying to get a 3pc version of the Phaeton wheels made, hopefully if everything works out I'll have them done and mounted by the time spring rolls around. ;)
 
#17 ·
Thanks dude! :beer:

did you rock two different sets of wheels at the same time?
Haha, no, the LM-R reps are 19's, I rocked the Phaeton wheels for the first day and swapped over to the LM-R's on the second day of the show, it was a 2 day event.

Word to my Local OG, staying motivated an spreading it to everyone. :heart:
Yeeeeee, thanks brandon, much love bruh!

and thanks for the all positive feedback everyone! :beer: :beer:
 
#18 ·
What's the ride like in comparison to coils. I have Konis and I just find myself being bumped all over the damn place on these crappy LA roads.

Great post!!!
 
#19 ·
Honestly, air ride at a decent ride height rides really well, coilovers tend to be pretty stiff, also depends on what size wheel and tire combo youre running, even on a stretched set of 19's my car rides pretty well. :thumbup:
 
#21 ·
Haha, um, sorry?? :D

Might even make it harder of a decision not to since Airlift is coming out with a new kit that has sway bar tabs in the front so you don't have to remove your front sway bar (or fab tabs for their current XL air struts), adjustable front camber plates, and they are switching to a bellow bag for the rear with a cup hat/bracket so you don't have to cut the nipples or do any of the notching in the rear that I had to, that was my #1 complaint about the Airlift rears.
 
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