Focus on suspension and wheels
The AUTO FASHION import REAL powered by AUTO MESSE was held at Kobe Meriken Park on Sunday 3 December 2023. We spoke in detail to the owner of a Volkswagen Scirocco R-Line at the venue of this event.
Bought a Scirocco because of its design
Toco-Zq says he bought a new 2012 Volkswagen Scirocco R-Line because of its cool streamlined design. He started driving the Scirocco, which had a white body color when it was new, by adding dampers for now, and after paying off the loan and saving up money, he started customizing the car at once, including painting the entire body and changing the suspension.
“I had a friend’s sheet metal shop do the full paint job, but I spent about 15 hours assembling the Airlift air suspension myself. The color I painted the whole car was Toyota Aqua yellow. I thought this color would suit the shape of the body, and if I bumped it, I could buy a touch pen at Autobacs or something and it would be a color I could get quickly. I was able to assemble the air suspension legs quickly, but it took a long time to fix the air leaks in the piping, so it took a lot of time because I had to do a lot of trial and error. The only alignment adjustment I couldn’t do without a machine, so I had it done at the shop.”
Sticking to mortise-shaped wheels
Because air suspension has been installed, the car is displayed in a landing position at events, but when driving, the car is driven at about the same height as it was when it was on dampers. Incidentally, one of the reasons for switching to air suspension was that the ride height became too low when using dampers, causing cracks in the members. In addition to the total paint job and the air suspension, every part of the car has been modified, including a one-off four-piece muffler based on a Remus muffler, R aero parts, R seats, and a full computer system, but what Toko-Zq was even more particular about were the 18-inch holes.
“I wanted to make mortise and tenon rims, but they are not available in Japan, so I bought 18-inch mortise and tenon rims from the US and reassembled them in three pieces using commonly sold BBS 16-inch discs. The disc is 16 inches and the rim is 18 inches, so it looks like it spreads outwards from the disc at an angle. I’ve been riding with these for about eight years and I haven’t had any problems.”
“I want the wheels to be 0.5J thicker”
Toco-Zq says this Scirocco is almost complete as he has already been driving and customizing it for more than 10 years since he bought it new, but he still has some thoughts about the wheels.
“The fronts are 10J, but I think I can get another 0.5J in there after machining, so I want to make them thicker. I’d like to modify the inside of the wings to fit without replacing them. The inner wings were ripped off once, so I bought them from the dealer and replaced them. I rubbed it and made a hole in it, but I didn’t want it to look like mush, so I fixed it. So I want to keep the inner wings on and modify them.”
translated by DeepL
