But all that boost is not necessarily good, says Jay: "Part of the problem is that the Quaife LSD is always fighting to figure out where to send torque-even in a straight line. In the turns, the car feels unmanageable, since the engine is so peaky." This on-off power delivery is ultimately ABD's undoing. As fun as it is drive, it's hard to drive seriously.
APRDespite our reservations about the APR car's brake set-up (actually, it seemed all the Brembo-equipped GTIs exhibited some incompatibility with the factory-calibrated ABS and ESP systems), we were most enthusiastic about APR's tuning, especially whatever they did to give it excellent clutch and LSD feel.
"All the tuned manual GTIs ran the same clutch and Quaife LSDs, but this one had excellent clutch feel and did not torque steer, like ABD's or the stock car. It's a matter of power delivery: when boost spikes, the wheels spin, and since the axles are not symmetric, the load on each front tire is different. This car doesn't do that, since boost-or maybe just power-is fed in at a slower rate."
The suspension isn't nearly as well sorted: "It is well balanced in terms of spring rate for the track, but either the travel or damping is all messed up," continues Jay. "The car feels like it bottoms out in the front first, then bounces up. The front loses traction and leaves the rear to figure out what the hell is going on. In those situations, all you can do is lift and watch the car's nose push toward the edge of the track."
R GTIThough there isn't any point in comparing the R GTI to the others for the purposes of this competition, driving it back-to-back with the rest gave us a lot of insight into how far the tuners had come, and how much could still be done.
"Without comparing its stats, the R GTI is by far the most beautiful and fastest of the group. The engine delivers power progressively, without the stock turbo's peaky or out-of-breath feel. Torque steer is also minimal, even though this car felt the quickest."
Power delivery aside, the R GTI's most compelling characteristic is its smooth and transparent handling. That no other car drove better was redemption for H&R, since their car ran the exact same setup as the R GTI. "Minus the power, this is probably what the H&R car would have felt like had we allowed them to run the Hoosier race compound. It's well sorted, without travel or damping issues, and exhibits the best track feel with lift throttle rotation-though not in excess."
The only imperfection we find are the seats. Not only do the Recaros seem to be mounted too low, but they are wide at the thighs, hips, and back. I'm by no means a skinny guy, but I found myself sliding around during cornering-disconcerting in a car this fast and sticky.
The WinnerThe following day at the dyno only supported both the lap and acceleration data collected at the track. With 368 wheel-hp, the APR car won the overall dyno battle by doubling stock output, though the APR-powered R GTI was not far behind with 358hp.
So who won? Clearly we would have given the top prize to the R GTI had this been a competition for unlimited vehicles produced with unlimited resources. But since this was a competition designed with tuners and regular Joes in mind, the exotic R GTI could not be counted.
From the first click of the timer, the battle was clearly between ABD and APR. Unfortunately, mechanical issues took WRD out of the competition and, though nicely set up for the street, the mildly tuned H&R GTI was clearly outgunned-surrendering over 100hp and nearly 100lb-ft of torque to the other two.