GTI Gets New Suspenders!

Praise the Lowered! My 2024 GTI 380 Autobahn is back from the shop. H&R Sport springs and CTS Turbo wheel spacers are installed and man, it looks good doesn't it?

I'm not sure what it is about stock VWs, but they come from the factory riding like 4x4s. My Reflex Silver MK5 rode high, my Carbon Steel Grey MK7 rode high, and this Dolphin Grey MK8 rode high too - but no more.

My local specialists Speed Factor Racing recommended H&R Sport springs to work with the GTI's DCC adaptive suspension. They were about $100 more expensive than the CTS Turbo set I'd had my eye on, but I'd had H&Rs on my MK5 and they were good, so I went that way. 

The spacers from CTS Turbo were quite inexpensive, came with wheel bolts, and had good reviews. I went with the recommended combo of 10mm front and 15mm rear.

The H&Rs have settled down to pretty much a perfect ride height I think - the car looks really good.

Got the obligatory (for me anyway) country-coded decal on - D for Deutschland. But it's not exactly a decal on the car - as with past cars I stuck the decal on thin magnet material so I can stick and unstick it from the car. Handy when you want to wash the car.

It does look pretty purposeful with the springs and spacers doesn't it!

The 380 Autobahn GTIs only come with a six-speed manual transmission and these pretty fancy gloss black Golf R wheels. 

You can see those meaty 235-section tires pushed out to the edges of the bodywork. I think the MK8 is as good-looking as any previous generation GTI.

Anyway that's it for showing off the springs and spacers. The ride is noticeably firmer than stock and there is ZERO body roll in the corners. So that's the suspension done, save for some adjustment of the DCC damping. Next up? Not sure. The guys at Speed Factor have been talking up the new APR tune package for the car, over 325hp and 390lb-ft of torque, all on regular fuel. That sounds tempting for about $700. Power certainly doesn't come any cheaper than that. I'll keep you posted!

Hawk GT is Done!

Well I reckon the Hawk GT project is done! The panels are back from Brandon the painter and fitted to the bike. I applied the gold striping and decals myself. I think it looks pretty good in the RC30 colour scheme.

The colour blocks even line up pretty well, which was a concern if I'm honest. The gold stripes set off the colours nicely don't they.

I figure this would be a good time to go over all the work that was done, before I forget!

• RC31 fairing, brackets, headlight kit (Facebook Hawk group)
• Bodywork and paint by Brandon Graham, local painter
• Powdercoated wheels (Villain Motorsports)
• Dunlop GPR-300 Tires - 110/80 and 160/60R17 (Fortnine)
• Stainless steel brake line (Facebook Hawk group)
• Rear wheel hubcap (Hawk GT Forum), painted by me
• Clip-on bars (Chinese, eBay)
• F1 mirrors (eBay from the UK)
• Seat cover (eBay, installed by Guy Anthony)
• Battery (Fortnine)
• Fuel filler cap restored by me
• Fork lowers sanded by me, much improved!
• Honda decals (Honda-decals.com); tank wings and stripes (eBay)

This cap is funny story. I posted on the Forum looking for one and some joker said he'd sell me one for $45 or something. Then I got a message from another user offering me one for free. Nice!

The striping was mostly straightforward but getting it round the curves was a bit tricky. Hairdryer heat helped.
 

Here's what we started with last year. Good mechanicals but poor cosmetics. The fairing was all cut up, the PO had trimmed it back to fit raised bars but that meant no top bracket and wobbly mounting...

This was fixed with the fresh vintage RC31 kit, it came with all the brackets and even the original paperwork from Two Brothers Racing, pretty cool.

Takes you back doesn't it! Although I still have a couple things to do on the bike (the horn stopped working, not sure why) it's pretty much done. I had it out for a ride over to my photo spot tonight and fortunately it fired right up with some gas added to the freshly painted tank. Man is it ever tiny though - the seat is so low it feels like a cruiser, next to the R1 or even the Buell XB9R. Fortunately I've got an old-school 900RR shock modded to fit the Hawk GT. My old Hawk GT had a 900RR shock too and it was a great mod, really improved the ride and usefully increased the rear ride height. Anyway I'll likely get that fitted this summer at some point. Then it will REALLY be done :-)

Cheers!

Hawk GT Paintwork

OK so let's get this out of the way right off the hop: painting is expensive. Like REALLY expensive. But it was really necessary to have paint done on the Hawk GT because it was a multi-coloured mess.

Not only are the materials expensive, but it takes time to do bodywork, especially on 30-year-old fiberglass like this Two Brothers Racing fairing. But just look at the result - fantastic.

The gold pinstripes between the colour blocks will be added with tape.

It took a bit of figuring to work out how the lines would work on the tank but I think we got it.

Next thing is to get the bodywork on the bike and apply some more decals. You should see the seat unit, the red looks really good. Fingers crossed that all of the assembly goes smoothly.

 

New Garage Resident - 2024 GTI

A new car has arrived in the garage, a 2024 Volkswagen GTI 380 Autobahn in Dolphin Grey Metallic. The 2018 Audi S3 has been traded in on the first new car I've bought in 25 years.

Why'd I trade in the S3? That's an excellent question. It was a great looking car, handled well and was a veritable rocket. It had all-wheel drive, a comfortable and sporty interior, and nearly all the creature comforts you'd reasonably want. But it didn't have a manual transmission and after three years of trying to get used to the DSG, I'd had enough. Maybe a "tune" on the DSG might have helped with the hunting issues and soft response that drove me a bit crazy, but some news from VAG helped me pull the trigger on the new GTI.

Basically I found out that the model year 2024 GTI and Golf R would be the last of their kind to be equipped with manual transmissions. That's right, after 2024 there will be no manual GTIs. Let that sink in for a second.

Volkswagen has actually commemorated this by producing a "380" edition for the 2024 model year, 380 apparently being the internal build code for the 6-speed manual transmission. And when I looked at the prices of GTI and Golf R Mk8s on the used market (that's model years 2022 and up) it honestly made more sense to buy a brand new one. So I did. 

I opted for the GTI over the Golf R for a few reasons, not least of which was price. Golf Rs are closing in on $55-60K around here and that is too much money to get my head around. A GTI is lighter and $15K less, and the lower-powered 2.0L turbo should do me just fine. The GTI also has a fancy limited-slip differential that takes some of the sting out of losing AWD. And look at those tartan cloth seats!

So far I've put about 200km on the car and have quite enjoyed it. Yes it is slower than the S3 (50hp less and a manual transmission will do that), but the driving engagement is much much greater. And it has some nice creature comforts that the S3 didn't even have (heated steering wheel, looking at you). The much-maligned haptic controls haven't bothered me overly either, they are mostly pretty easy to manipulate. The interior layout is nicer than the Audi's as well - the centre screen is well-integrated and it doesn't look like somebody stuck an iPad to the dash. Interior lighting seems infinitely adjustable - the person at the dealership who showed me round my new car spent more time on that than anything else. I had to figure out how to disengage the electronic parking brake myself. 

Exterior styling I quite like - it's a GTI after all and I don't think they've ever made a really ugly one. The light strip across the grille is cool, the door handles light up and the mirrors power-fold as well as projecting a psychedelic design on the ground. 

There's lots of adjustability in the driving end as well, you can adjust everything from steering response to exhaust sound, as well as the DCC suspension. And speaking of that, why do all GTIs come from the factory looking like jacked up 4x4s??? (look at the fender gap in pics 1 and 2 above, sheesh) Like the Mk5 and Mk7 before it, this car will be getting lowering springs (this time, from H&R) and wheel spacers (from CTS Turbo out of BC). Speed Factor has been tapped for the install.

And a hatchback is convenient! My ice hockey bag fits in there fine but I might have to lower the load floor to get my ball hockey goal pads in there better. VW really got it right with the rearview camera under the hatch release handle. Never gets dirty and always a crystal-clear view.

I'll update next after the springs, spacers and summer tires get put on but until then, enjoy shifting your own gears while you can!

Hawk GT Progress and Paint Plans

Well not a ton of progress progress but I did get the wheels powdercoated white and the new tires fitted along with the braided steel front brakeline, and had the bike safetied. The image above is the richly imagined future paintwork to be applied to the bike, looks like that will now be done over the winter. 

Since the bodywork will be sent to the painter "off the bike" it's up to me to tape out the areas that will get the different colours. This has to be done with the panels in situ because the painter won't know how they line up when on the bike. I want to avoid what happened to this poor guy and his Hawk.

So I applied the tape as shown above and applied the colours on MS Paint 3D... I think I need to tweak the upper line of the red on the fairing to make it *just* a little more parallel to the fairing bottom. That is, move the back edge of the red a little lower down towards horizontal. Other than that I think it looks pretty good. Decals have been ordered too.

Before I did this I took the bike out for a ride along my usual 50km route outside the city. As much as the bike needs to be caned around town to make progress (it is slow), it was great on the twisty backroads and easily attained 160km/h / 100mph indicated on the straights. Great machine and it'll look as well as it goes once I get this paintwork done.

Oh, and after I finished the tape work, as I rolled the bike off the paddock stand the sidestand dug in, retracted, and the bike tipped over. Fortunately the only damage was a banana'd clutch lever, now on the list to be replaced. Aaargh.

Mirrors for the Hawk GT

So my old Hawk GT's Two Brothers Racing fairing kit came with genuine Honda RC30 mirrors. These were "OK" but kinda chunky and clunky, so I swapped them for some smaller aftermarket mirrors. Problem was, when I got the new Hawk, I couldn't remember who made the old bike's mirrors.   

HawkGTForum.com to the rescue, as always, as a user identified the mirrors from a picture of my old bike. They are "F1" short-stem (40mm) mirrors from Bike-It. I ordered a pair from the UK on eBay.

They look good eh? Single-bolt so they are super easy to fit and stay very steady while the bike is in motion. Can't ask more than that of a mirror. So with those fitted I could actually put a temp tag on the machine and ride around a bit, bearing in mind the extreme old age of the tires...

Anyway, here's a few more shots of the machine...

 Next up I have to replace those ancient tires and refinish the wheels...

Look Who's Back!

I have to be honest, even with four bikes in the garage I miss my old Honda Hawk GT. I'd done a ton of mods on it to make it just how I wanted (TBR fairing kit, Racetech fork springs, 900RR shock, braided brake lines, etc.) and it was a lightweight, stylish bike that always turned heads.

Of course, I thought that buying my Ducati 900SS/SP made the Hawk GT excess to requirements. After all, as I wrote at the time, the Ducati did pretty much everything the Hawk did but with 35 more horsepower. But it turns out, it didn't really. The Ducati is a lot more serious than the Hawk GT, it's bigger, heavier, and more powerful. The turning radius sucks, and it's less reliable. In fact the latest garage addition, the 2003 Buell Firebolt XB9R, is a lot closer to the Hawk in spirit. It's also a V-twin and is pretty light and nimble. But I digress.

Not great looking

but you can see the potential

Anyway, I was talking to an old buddy who had a Hawk GT himself and idly inquired after whether he might be parting with it. In fact he was interesting in doing so as it hadn't moved under its own power for over 20 years, and he could use the garage space. So he fired it up (it's a Honda after all), gave it a once-over, offered it to me at a price that was reasonable, and I bought it and rode it home.

But as my late wife Pam would have said, while it was mechanically sound, it was also somewhat sad. My buddy the PO is an amazing engineer and he'd done some work to make the bike more comfortable for him, but that wasn't to my own taste. For example, one of the attractions for me was that the bike already had a Two Brothers Racing fairing kit, just like my old Hawk. But buddy had fitted high Telefix bars to soothe his bad back, and that required cutting up the fairing, and that required eliminating the top fairing bracket, and that meant the fairing wobbled all over the place when riding, plus it looked... odd. So the first task was sorting that out.

Thirty Yankee dollars got me a set of Chinese clip-on bars off eBay, and I bought some Honda-style grips like on my old Hawk. I'd never fitted clip-ons to a bike before myself, but after obtaining a 30mm socket for the triple clamp nut, away we went. It actually went reasonably well; after drilling a hole in the right clip-on bar to accommodate the pin in the throttle housing it all went back together, with the new clip-ons mounted below the triple clamp. I refitted the fairing a bit lower down and the look was not perfect, but was much improved. But the fairing was still very wobbly without a top bracket.

The plan was to pick up a bracket or make one, and restore the fairing to its original shape. I bought a suitable windscreen off eBay and planned to fit it, make a template showing what fiberglass needed to be grafted on, get a boat shop to do the 'glass work, then fit it back up and design a bracket... that's lots of work and time, (and money).

However, looking at a Hawk GT Facebook group, I spotted a used Two Brothers Racing fairing, windscreen, mounting bracket, headlight unit, paperwork, clip-ons, and braided brake line for sale in Winston-Salem, South Carolina. The price had started at $800 but reduced over time to $400... I offered $300 plus shipping and a deal was made. Score! And after a brief scare where I thought the seller was backing out to sell the parts along with the Hawk GT they came with (the prospective bike buyer ended up flaking on him) the parts eventually landed in Pembina ND.

The following weekend I whipped down to Pembina and brought back a giant box. The next morning I set to work fitting it. Wow what a difference, so much better than even the repositioned chopped up fairing. The bike was really starting to look like the classic RC31 I love so much, and riding around the block confirmed that the new bracket had the fairing mounted rock-solidly on the Hawk frame.    

Now I have a parti-coloured wonder... yellow upper fairing with white/red/blue tank and seat unit, and blue/black seat. However the next order of business will be to get the wheels refinished and new Dunlop Sportmax GPR-300 tires fitted. This will take some doing as the shop where the tires will get fitted and the powdercoater who will do the work are on opposite sides of the city. But never mind, we'll get it done. Bike-It F1 mirrors (same as on the old Hawk) have just arrived from the UK and will be fitted so I can ride the bike around a bit. Next thing after that will be to decide on a colour scheme and get the bike painted - this will likely happen over the winter if I'm honest. Too much going on in the summer!  

In the meantime here are some potential colour schemes:

On an RC30

On a Hawk GT

R/W/B scheme on the TBR Pro Twins Modified Race Hawk

Another TBR race bike

Yellow option - HB Cigs Honda GP Bike

Thanks for reading and please stay tuned (if you're interested) to see how things progress!