I can now see why when we go to shows, people say that we have the coolest job in the world. We build cars with little to no hassle and rarely have to deal with the problems that others encounter when building their cars—or so you’d think. Although we deal directly with manufacturers, there are still stumbling blocks. The occasional miscommunication, for example, can bring our plans to a screeching halt. Now, guess why I’m writing all this? Yep, a screeching halt. This is even more ironic considering the reason for the screeching halt was that we had problems with parts necessary to bring Budget Bora to a screeching halt. Our original intent for this issue’s installment was to show you some cheap and simple brake upgrades that would complement our power addition from Part I, and our 19-inch wheels, tires, and springs. Unfortunately, there was a translation problem between British English and American English (two countries separated by a common language, you know), as well as confusion based on the vehicles available in Europe and stateside.

You see, EBC was to be our original parts supplier. The U.S. arm of EBC does great things with the motorcycle world and has only recently come on to the radar screens of American car drivers. With the sales explosion of its brake pads, EBC began offering the brake rotors in America. This was a very recent development, so when we called EBC to get pads and rotors sent out, there was much scrambling on their end trying to determine exactly what rotors fit our 2000 Bora VR6. Rotors were sent out, but they were for the 16-valve 2.0L, a car not available here. Obviously this put a huge snag in our plans, as the rotors were only $99 a piece, and finding something with similar quality and price was going to be difficult, if not impossible. We had our EBC Green Stuff pads and elected to hold off on installing them until we found a set of rotors to mate them to. Our search continued until we thought of an “old faithful” in the form of ABD Racing.

For only a few bucks more than the cost of EBC’s phantom rotors, we had a solution: ABD’s cross-drilled rotors. ABD’s cross-drilled rotors. Another problem arose, however. Though we did finally come up with this solution, it didn’t happen quickly enough to facilitate an install-and-test for this issue. I’m gonna blame it on all the damn smog here in LA. Look at it this way though: You know that some time in the not- too-distant future we’re going to show you some budget braking performance figures.

We did, however, make the changes that we hinted at last issue, including: Konig wheels, Falken tires, and B&G springs. The combo adds to the car’s “show appeal” amazingly. Hell, we were so intent on showing you how good the car looked last issue with its new body kit that we had to have the Konigs on to complement the kit.

The wheels that we decided to put on the car are new to Konig’s line for 2001. The wheel, called the Verdict, is a clean six-spoke design, featuring a

She’s turning into a real beauty, isn’t she? The wheels, tires, and springs are just about the last things that we’ll be adding to make people notice the car outside of the show. From here on out, it’s underhood and interior mods.

Wheel Warehouse mounts the Falken tires on the Konig wheels, being careful not to scratch them. We recommend taking your wheels and tires someplace that deals with putting bigger wheels on cars. Retail chains may not take as much care when handling your investment.

A proper balance is a must on wheels and tires this big. We had a basic balance done, which doesn’t balance the portion of the wheel on the outside but is not really necessary on a wheel with as high of an offset as ours.

The rear springs are easy to install on the Jetta. Jack up the car, secure it on jackstands, remove the rear wheels, undo the bolts that hold the shocks to the torsion beam, and let the torsion beam drop. Pull the stock springs from their mounting locations, place the rubber hats on the B+G springs, and reinstall the springs. From there you can figure it out.

The front, however, is not nearly as easy as the rear. You’ll have to remove the bolts that connect the tie rods to the spindles, the three bolts per side that hold the spindle to the lower control arm, and the bolts that connect the sway bar to the lower control arms in order to pull the strut and spring assembly from the car. A spring compressor must be used to remove the springs from the struts. B+G’s springs are then put in place of the OE springs, and everything is reattached and reinstalled to get the car back into running condition.