Modified My W12 Suspension today..

[daviesbike]

Well .. i embarked on a Quest for clearance today ..

Being very much an avid user of my A8 i do take it everywhere .. and i mean everywhere .. from Swiss alps in winter to the deep forestry of wales where you struggle for clearance..

All this being said i didnt want to compromise the over all look of the car day to day .. so i came up with an idea .. after doing some digging and finding the early A6 allroad had very very simmilar suspension to the A8.. in fact almost identical. . The extra lift come from a combination of spacers and software ...

"My plan.. to have nice stance on road but amazing lift off road "

My solutions quite simply the opposite of lowering arms!

I made a set of 4 new arms for the level sensors from 3mm aluminium changed the spacing to 30mm this is the maximum you can do as i discovered with a full day of trial and error.. the 30mm equates to an extra 57mm lift than standard lift mode

My new lift mode is an incredible 520mm lift .. bear in mind the standard ride is usually around the 380mm mark.

Combine this with some vcds coding and the results are quite impressive I have to say.

Its a combination of fooling the system.. oh and in case your wandering if this will compromise the suspension in anyway ATE who manufacturer the struts actually test them a staggering 55mm more than what i am going to so should be more than happy to operate in these conditions.

I have included a picture of Dynamic when vcds is set to 55 or "standard ride hight"
im currently at 99 that is the maximum lift you can gain electronicly via VCDS " hence the idea of arms to fool the system"

Im going to trial my primitive arms and all being well i will make some from billet aluminium proper ones.



DYNAMIC AFTER MOD



LIFT AFTER MOD




COULD GET MY HEAD IN THE ARCH



ARM MOD

i also drilled 3 different holes in the next batch and with it being just a 10mm nut i can now just turn the wheel full lock and change from standard to extra lift to Extreme lift all spaced 10mm apart

[ainarssems]

All that torsion in the rubber has potential to damage bushes.

[Witchfinder]

Haha, A8 Allroad Quattro, huh?

That's some very smart modifying work there.

[Johnmed]

I too like to take my 8 everywhere, hills, unploughed fields, beaches etc, and the only limiting factor (for me other than road tyres) has been the overall clearance and overhangs, or I'd have gone further.

With the grunt of the W12 you really will have a 2CV rivaling weapon.

This mod really interests me, great work. Is this likely to compromise any components, like ainarssems says?

[daviesbike]

To be honest because ive set the parameters on vcds its only ever maxed out in lift mode .. it acctually only sits 20mm higher in comfort that before. So i guess you would argue it will add more strain to things like bushes and joints but only briefly while in lift .. you use it when needed not all the time of course ..

[daviesbike]

Here is a better visual of the clearance





And this is comfort mode



and my winter wheels will be accommodated well i think

[tc4332]

Guy,
Well done.
I admit those last piccys made me think you were doing something drastic like fitting twin wheels

[g-black]

Could this theory be reversed? I've been doing a lot of reading up on the factory air suspension and how it all works. I have a lot off experience using aftermarket air suspension from airlift and Airrex.

I'm trying to find out if there is a way to have the car on the ground while in it's lowest setting, but still able to lift it for normal driving.

Edit- should point out I'm aware of coding the car so it sits lower and also using lower links. My current method would be a mixture of coding, lowering links and possibly making the point the lowering link attached to the arm closer to the sensor.

[daviesbike]

I belive MTM made an aftermarket control module for the standard air suspension on the A8. This gave 6-7 settings of programable ride hight and stiffness via the mmi ... operated rather like aftermarket air bags only using oem parts and just changing the controller.

USB inputs allowed you to customise each of the settings.

Renamed

Lift
Custom 1
Comfort
Custom 2
Automatic
Custom 3
Dynamic

[daviesbike]

http://www.mtm-online.de/en/Audi/S8-...m-2a8fct-25/20


Not sure if you can still buy it for the D3