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From YourSITE.com Technical Features The entire personality of a car can be made or broken by changing one single element- the wheels. Our Project A3 is no exception, and choosing the right wheels for this car was no easy task, considering the serious braking hardware on display behind them. The A3’s distinctly German design was begging for equally distinctive, equally German rolling stock for its SEMA debut.
All finalized, a set of Schmidt 3-piece VN-Line’s measuring ET54 19x9” in the front and ET29 19x9.5” in the rear were ordered for the car. The front wheels sport a 2” lip and the rears a 3” stepped lip. This staggered setup endows the A3 with an aggressive look, despite the controversy in the front-wheel drive world. Such a setup is quite functional on a rear-wheel-drive car, but when employed on a front-wheel-drive chassis, the benefits are mostly cosmetic. Purists will grouse I suppose, but the look is mean and aggressive, something that fits the nature of this particular project. This sizing practice is quite popular on the German show scene, and it offered some clean Euro flare that many enthusiasts here in the States seek. The Schmidts were also chosen because of their cult-like following on these shores. It’s nice to have a true German-made wheel on the Audi without falling back on BBS, OZ or Hartmann. The chances of our A3 parking next to an identical are slim.
Tires Continuing the aggressive Euro look, I decided to go with the stretched tire appearance, fitting a set of Falken GR Beta FK-451s in 235/35/19 both front and rear. The FK-451 is a tire designed for the sport compact market and geared as a high-performance street tire with good wet weather and dry weather traction.
Mounting these tires on such wide wheels caused concern at the local tire shop, where they questioned the safety of this particular combination. Some shops just aren’t familiar with the stretched look, though Falken’s own website recommends that tire size for wheels 8 to 9.5 inches wide. Even when properly installed, they exactly look like “normal” tires do, and stretching the tires mean the full lip of each wheel is exposed. It’s a risky move, but a textbook Euro-look that draws a lot of attention at shows like Dubfest or SEMA. Brakes
Balancing the A3’s date at SEMA in Vegas with regular time on the track, an aggressive brake setup that was both great-looking and functional was the order of the day. ECS Tuning’s new Stage V brake kit for seemed to fit the bill perfectly. With the A3 being such a new offering, the brake kit was still in development when the custom wheels were ordered. Tom at ECS was kind enough to forward a template of the system’s dimensions so that Schmidt could build the wheels to clear the brakes. With the odd factory offset of ET56 on the A3, the front wheels were definitely going to have to be custom made to get the clearances we needed for the massive calipers. The brakes are no small matter, measuring 14.1” in the front. The ECS Tuning rotors are a floating 2-piece cross-drilled and slotted setup, utilizing OEM Porsche Cayenne Turbo 6-piston calipers to put the pressure to the plate. The Stage V kit also included stainless steel brake lines, OEM Porsche Pagid brake pads, new brake fluid, and all of the aluminum brackets that ECS makes in-house to bolt these monsters up to the car. As with Porsche, ECS offers calipers in factory red, black or silver- I opted for red. And while red calipers on a green car might be a bit too “yuletide” for some, in person this isn’t the case at all. Red calipers may not be as subtle as black or silver, but Project A3 DSG is not about subtlety.
Like an episode of Overhaulin’, the A3 was coming together in the eleventh hour in order to make it to SEMA. Tom and the folks at ECS pushed forward production to get a complete kit on the car before it departed for the big debut. We will have a complete review on the brakes at a later date as they have not been “pushed” to their limits just yet. At the time of writing, the brakes have only been used in the A3’s drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas and back again. With the wheels mounted, and the brakes in hand, the A3 was dropped off with Derek Scott of Exklusiv Motorsports in Phoenix for final installationWhile it was up on the rack the KW Variant 3 coilover suspension was adjusted up from its original slammed state in order to accept the sizable increase in rolling alloy and rubber within the fenders. Derek and Paolo of Exklusiv commented on how easy the brakes were to install. In their words, ECS does a very good job of supplying all the items necessary to make the install very simple and clean. “They were as easy as doing an OEM replacement install.” Conveniently, ECS lists complete installation instructions on their website along with all of the formulas used to calculate brake biasing and front-to-rear distribution with their upgrade kits. Many thanks go to Steve at Tunershop in Nevada, Tom at ECS Tuning in Ohio, and Derek at Exklusiv Motorsports in Phoenix for this portion of the ProjectA3 buildup. Without their help, Project A3 DSG would have been late for its very, very important Las Vegas date.
Related Links Project A3 DSG Main Page Schmidt Wheels Tunershop.com Falken Tire ECS-Tuning
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