Ballin' on a budget

[Capt. Obvious]

My other car has a thread (http://www.stanceworks.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=25459), so I figure my daily should have a thread now that I'm actually doing something to it.

About three years ago I bought a 2000 Passat Variant for a beater/commuter car. It's a 2.8L V6 with a 5 speed and only had 55k miles on it at the time. Mechanically, the car was pretty much perfect. It was owned by an older woman who bought it new and did every last bit of "maintenance" her local dealer could sucker her into doing whether it needed it or not. However, the car looked like shit. I'm pretty sure the day I bought it was the first time the poor thing had ever been washed.

I had plans to do the "usual" to it and call it a day: coilovers, wheels and a few small things here and there. Well, shortly after I bought the Passat I bought a house and got engaged, so my money started going towards remodeling the house and paying for the wedding. Because of that, the Passat got pushed to the wayside and I never got around to doing anything to it besides maintenance.

On top of that, about 6 months after I bought it, my wife was driving it one day and got rear-ended by an on-duty police officer (yes, you read that right). She was fine, but the car was written off as totalled by my insurance company. I ended up getting $500 more for the car than I originally paid for it and it was still totally driveable, so I bought the car back from the insurance company for $700 and then it cost me about $200 to get it back on the road. Score.

At this point, we were still knee-deep in remodeling our house, so the Passat became my "truck".


(this is what 900 pounds of concrete looks like in the back of a B5)

Well, fast forward a bit and now I can't handle it anymore, it's time to mod this thing! Since this is essentially a $1000 car, I'm going to cheap out on this car as much as possible without being downright ghetto. The Porsche gets babied and all the nice toys; this car gets the shit beat out of it and gets whatever I can get the best deal on.

[Capt. Obvious]

I don't plan on doing a whole lot to this car, but there are three words that pretty much sum up where I'm going with it: Simple, clean, low.

The reason I bought this car in the first place is because I'd wanted a B5 Variant for a really long time because they just look so damn cool. In my opinion, they are the epitome of a "Euro" car. These two cars are my major inspiration for this car and pretty much what made me fall in love with this body style in the first place and are what I've had in my mind since the day I bought this car:

[Capt. Obvious]

This post actually happenened about 8 months ago, but I figured I'd get everyone caught up.

The first big mod was addressing the factory halogen headlights. The light output was worthless, plus all the mounting tabs were broken from the accident so they were pretty much just sitting in there. So, I decided to order a set of DEPO projector headlights off ebay. Once they arrived, the first thing I did was take the heat gun to them and opened them up. I then cannibalized a spare set of OEM HID headlights I had from my old S4 and yanked the DS2 projectors out of those. Then I swapped the better glass lens from the DEPO headlights to the S4 projectors and installed them into the Passat headlights. I topped it off with a set of 5000k bulbs and a 35-watt ballast from DDM tuning.

WAY better now.

[Capt. Obvious]

Then, in December after I had taken my Rotiforms off my S4 for the winter, I decided I should put them on the Passat. However, it still had stock suspension. Luckily for me, I had enough random VW/Audi suspension components laying around from my old cars to cobble together a temporary suspension that consisted of:

- Factory B5 S4 front struts
- Tein "race" springs in the front
- Bilstein shocks in the rear
- Vogtland rear springs for a B6 A4

Despite the strange assortment of suspension parts, it actually rode and handled fairly decent. It definitely wasn't low enough though, but it would do for the time being.

[Capt. Obvious]

Alright, fast forward a few months to last weekend and here's where the fun starts.

Continuing with my theme of being cheap, I ordered a set of Raceland coilovers. Despite being sub-$400 coilovers, I've actually heard a lot of good things about them so I figured "what the hell, why not?" and ordered some.

The control arms were also totally shot since it's a 12-year old Volkswagen. That's okay though, because I had brand new OEM lower control arms I had bought for my S4 that never got installed and I also had a set of freshly rebuilt CPP adjustable upper control arms that I had bought for it as well. I also tossed on some new tie rod ends as well to complete the overhaul.

When I put the coilovers on last weekend, I cranked them pretty far down but didn't roll the fenders. I figured I'd just be careful for the next few days and roll the fenders this weekend once the springs settled and I did the final adjustments . Well, that turned out to be a bad idea because I fucked up both fenders on the first test drive when the tires snagged them. :facepalm

It was stupid, I knew better than that because I had the same problem on my old B5.5 Passat that only had H&R springs on it. That's what I get for being impatient. So, I parked it and decided I'd drive the Porsche all week and roll the fenders this weekend. That was fine until Tuesday rolled around and the waterpump on the Porsche took a shit on me...

Once I got home I had to get the Passat drivable so I can get to and from work the rest of the week. So, I got the fender roller out, yanked the fender liners and went to town. The Passat has a previous accident repair in the front and the drivers side front fender was replaced. The second I started rolling it I knew it was not an OEM replacement: that son of bitch started rippling and waving instantly and it also became obvious they used shit paint as well because it cracked like a bastard. :banghead

After screwing with it for awhile I was able to get it pretty straight and it's not too noticeable, but it's still going to drive me nuts every time I look at it. The passenger side was a lot better, but it still has some wavyness and a little bit of cracking where the tire caught it before I rolled them. I just need to keep reminding myself "it's a $1000 car, it's a $1000 car..."

So, now the fenders are good to go, but the alignment is totally fuckered. The adjustable upper control arms will let me have a way better alignment once it gets professionally aligned, but they make it almost impossible to ghetto align in the driveway.

Here's the new suspension installed:



And here is how the car is sitting as of this morning:

[Capt. Obvious]

And to complete today's updates, I picked up some new shoes for the Passat too:



They're Lorinser RSK5s, 18x9 et37 all around. They're not perfect, all four have some curb love on the lips, but other than that they're in pretty darn good condition (no chrome flaking or pitting).

I ordered some 225/40 Falken 512s for them that should be here early next week.

[Yogi_Bear]

very descriptive and a good read. The wagon looks great as well. Also your sig is hilarious

[Flavourless]

Darrick...shits wiiizeak

[Capt. Obvious]

Darrick...shits wiiizeak

Hella weak! If you're bored and looking for something to paint, we should talk.

[Capt. Obvious]

Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Looks like I'm going to be getting my old Lorinser RSK3's back thanks to "BADwayz", who currently has them on his BMW 7-series. So now I'm going to have two sets of wheels to choose from for the Passat.

Do I go with the 18x9 chrome RSK5s or the 19x9 RSK3s?

Here's how the RSK3s looked when I had them on my old B6:

[Capt. Obvious]

Damn. No love for the Passat, huh?

[sally pu]

man alive, those wheels on that B6 look amazing!

[C-Hutch]

man alive, those wheels on that B6 look amazing!

lol. haven't heard someone say "man alive" in a loooong time. that's awesome

[G535]

Cool ride, great color and i like the Lorinsers!

[sugmag]

Loved the A4 and the B5 wagon is awesome. Wish I could find one for $1000!!!!