Drove a Bora

[Fielder5757]

Ive been playing Need for Speed underground ALL weekends! its slowly taking over my life to such an extent my girlfriend has to tempt me away from it with promises of sex, Even then i ask if i can do her doggy style so i can still play at the same time!? (joke)

Anyway. My new found speed addiction has lead to me pestering mum even more than usal to lemmie take the bora out for a test run. She FINALLY let me take her Superchipped Bora TDI down to bovingdon airstrip (an abandoned airport) and take it out for a rag.

Well, All i can say is, Try going to a bar, walking up to a woman and saying the good old chat-up line "if i told you that you had a sexy body, would you hold it against me?" i promis you that the woman would be more responcive to you than this bora was (if she was sober of course)

There was a delay between pressing the accelerator and the power comming in, and the same for stepping off. The 6 speed manual gearbox was relentless, Shift too fast and it slips, Shift too slow and it bogs, Heck, even reversing out of the drive way was a pain! The car was horribly sluggish around the bends and felt like it was going to topple over.

The breaks where the best part! no matter what speed you where doing it would bring you to a hold safely, No matter what i tryed nothing worked. The seats where cool as well. Really held you in place.

i tryed to do a lap of the taxi way and all ive gotta say is that this car has some serious oversteer problems, a corner my Golf can do at 60 no problems caused the TDI to start screeching and the back end almost snapped out. At that point i think my mum was starting to regret letting me use it. I took the same bend again but tigher into the line. Lets just say tomorrow im going to re-turf the front lawn, using whatever bits of grass i scrape out from behing the arches. The back end snapped round and i went flying. At that point i was told to give mum the keys back.

Another important lession from Fielder. DONT BY A BORA TDI! THERE SH1T!

(Braught to you by fielder, the same guy who braught you "Malabu causes Dioreaha" and "i think i slept with a tranny")

[Omar]

........blimey, its hard to believe that a Bora isnt designed to be ragged around an air strip, jeez!

I suppose theyre only good enough for commuting or taking the kids to school then? 

[topher]

All that says to me is you don't know how to drive to be honest. Ok they don't corner like a sportscar but that's not what it's designed for. Not instant power ? .. never driven a turbocharged car before have you then.. the effect is even worse on diesel turbos.

The 6 speed manual gearbox was relentless, Shift too fast and it slips, Shift too slow and it bogs

Find the powerband and learn how to drive a diesel properly and you won't have that problem. 

Oh and the brakes, its called ABS 

Ive been playing Need for Speed underground ALL weekend

That, my friend, is your problem 

[richy]

^^^ lol!   

[VeeDubGTI16v]

gotta say the brakes on mk4/boras are superb, they are soo good i still cant brake smoothly in dads v5, they a bit sensitive but f**king amazing

and you got a mk2 shell fielder, course its gonna handle like crap compared

[S11EPS]

Fielder,

As someone who put a fair few miles (just over 60k in less than two years) on a PD engined Vee Dub I can confirm that Topher really has hit the nail on the head - these things require a total shift in driving style to get anywhere near the best out of them, and you cannot jump straight into one of these (especially with no previous turbo experience, diesel or otherwise) and expect to get the best results.

As for the handling, I can't imagine why you were having problems! I will be the first to admit that these things do lean, but there is no shortage of grip - I'm guessing that the Bora is running on 205 profile tyres on 16 inch wheels. Bear in mind that the mk4 has (or had, until the mk 5 came out) the widest track and longest wheel base of any golf, the available mechanical grip is there - its just the softer springs /dampers (fitted to increase comfort) and extra weight that have a negative effect.

I used to drive the a55 off of my car, no two ways about it - not only did it get a daily caning on a mixture of the UK's roads, but it also did several track days. The natural handling characteristic of the Golf/Bora chassis is understeer (as in most fwd cars), and mine was no acception. There were instances, both on road and on track where the car could be coaxed into oversteer, but this was a result of using weight transfer techniques to get the car to do this. Even under hard driving, the traction/stability control would always minimise what exactly was happening, so I can't understand how the back end almost 'span out' on you??

In no way do I want to sound condescending, as I think you're a great bloke, but I think instead of jumping in a car and trying to drive the a55 off it immediately, you should take some time to learn it.

You are very lucky that you have this airfield available to you (the rest of us have to make do with 2am inclandestine meetings with large roundabouts, or the expense of trackdays to be able to safely explore the limits of our cars) so use this time/space to explore what can and can't be done, not just by barrelling into every bend at 150mph then declaring they car as a pile of crap when it doesn't do what you want!!

Try balancing the car, experimenting what happens with different entry speeds, by lifting off mid bend etc - you will see a far more entertaining side to any car by actually doing something other than simply burying the throttle and understeering everywhere. You will become a much better (quicker) driver, and will know how to exploit the very best from any car.

I can't urge you enough to have a go at a track day mate.

[VeeDubGTI16v]

i only ever got oversteer once on my old mk2 drivers, and both times i crashed but that was cack original suspension, with the 16v and koni/eibach it sort of drifts round corners, i got it nicely balanced?

and id get a more fun car than a diesel bora for a track day  might as well do it on yer skateboard

[Fielder5757]

LOL thanks everyone. My mum is making me wash the car tonight.  The wheels are 17inch on some pritty high profiles. I think i might know why i snapped the back end out. I think the lean might of spooked me and i un-countiously breaked mid bend. Wont ever get to find out tho I think thats the last time mums letting me loose in her car.

Maybe i was just too harsh on the car, I was just very dissapointed about the responcivness of the car. The accelerator seemed very sluggish and was rather dissapointing to me  Id been waiting months to get behind the wheel of it and was rather dissapointed by it.

As for the airstip, They do rent it out on saturdays for anyone to use, No-Rice did a drag session there. If everyones up for it, its a fair way to drive for some, But hows about a Golfgti.co.uk Group thrash at an airfield???

[S11EPS]

If you're serious, that sounds superb!!

What are the costs likely to be? Limit on numbers? Insurance?

We need more info dude!!!

Is it wide enough for us to create a track with cones, or are we going to be limited to 1/4 mile type runs? Would it be legal, or will the coppers steam in there handing out producers and NIP's?

[Fielder5757]

Yeah, We should be able to setup a track. Theres two runways i think, they hold a market there on some days and theres a destruction derby track. Its called Bovingdon Airstrip. Its next to bovingdon prison. Ill do a google search when im home some time tonight and try and find out what its like.

I know for sure you can rent out a runway to do drag racing down. Im not sure if you get compleate access to the entire area when you rent space, of if your restricted to certain areas. But im sure i can find out.

Its out in the middle of no-ware so not many cops come past. Its usally chaned up at the gate but people regurly break in which is never a great idea. Im sure we can get in there legally for a small fee. I think No-rice wanted ?20 from everyone. ill post more infomation when i have it.