Agree that upgraded sway bars will make a huge difference for you guys.
Here's a nice post on the subject of coilovers from the S4 board which I figured you guys might appreciate
here.
Quote:
I've been through the stock ADS suspension, STaSIS/Ohlins setup on the B8 and a full on race setup on the racecar all within the span of about a year. Each one has it's advantages and disadvantages and I thought it might be useful to run through those to help people sort out what's best for them.
A street car and a track car can look pretty similar but they serve very different functions. One is built with comfort in mind when you're sitting in traffic or driving on a leisurely weekend getaway. The other is purpose built to live right on edge of the laws of physics and secretly wants to kill you pretty much all of the time. If you want those two worlds to meet, there is going be big time compromises. When thinking about changing out the suspension on a car that sees mostly street time, you're going to realize the full effect of that change 100% of the time whether you're on the track or not. For me, the line in the sand was at 10-ish track days a year. That's the point where it makes sense to really start to think about a more track focused suspension setup.
The stock setup isn't terrible and if you're starting out with HPDEs and just getting your feet wet it'll be a few times before you start to even get comfortable enough with the environment to start thinking about lap times. The added bonus is that you can keep the ride quality on the street, which is one of those things that you don't realize how important it is until you're forced to feel every single seam and crack on the interstate. The other positive is that the stock suspension is built to be relatively maintenance free. Replace at the regular 60-80k intervals type situation while still being able to handle itself around a corner.
Now if you're getting more serious about performance, despite what you may have heard, and while the stock setup can indeed get you around corners, it is by no means built for that kind of work. Center of gravity is too high, spring rates are wrong and the dampers just aren't built for that type of abuse. Stepping up to a more track focused suspension is the obvious next step. You're going to want to move right into a proper coilover setup which is most likely going to be height adjustable but offer no variability, which depending on your level of knowledge, is a good thing. You will also get a decrease in ride quality...it is simply unavoidable when you increase the spring rate, decrease the travel in bump and droop or both. The change in ride quality can, at times, be very annoying and is one of the major drawbacks along with a potentially increased level of maintenance. For a basic setup, you will be looking at rebuilds every couple years or 4000 track/40,000 street miles as well. Figure the car will be down for at least a week while you wait for the manufacturer to re-valve and test the dampers.
Next stop is full on race setup. This involves 3, or more way adjustability, knife edge responsiveness and yearly (at least) rebuilds. It is also the most expensive and not shockingly is most likely intolerable on the street. The benefit is that you get to choose your ride height, fast compression, slow compression and rebound...all with 12-24 "clicks" of variability. This style of setup requires a pretty intimate knowledge of not only suspension dynamics but also a lot of seat time. You have to know what too much or too little rebound feels like and whether or not a corner requires a few more "clicks" of compression on either side to prevent understeer or oversteer. Worst of all, this is all pretty much impossible to really fine tune without a serious telemetry system which will set you back easily a couple grand. Next you have to deal with rebuilds every 1500 to 2000 track/15-20,000 street miles, which is pretty much every year. Rebuilds for these types of dampers can run anywhere from $1000 to $2000 bucks per rebuild. Not cheap.
My point here is that it is possible to over equip, and it looks like we're pretty close with the Ohlins that were showcased at the beginning of this thread. There is the real possibility that the benefits won't outweigh the costs. Are you going to get a better handling ride? Yes...is it worth it for a street car that sees track time? Probably not.
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