I replaced my downpipe with a fancy performance one and took the old one to the scrapyard. Turns out the two catalytic converters on my old one were worth $180. So I bought an expensive bottle of whiskey.
I tell a lie, I actually bought some scotch. Ten year old Laphroaig.
After driving a lowered car with stiffer springs for a long time I wound up just keeping my koni struts and putting stock springs back on. Still handled amazing and was a lot better to drive. You don’t realize how much the jostling and vibrations affect you, but I find that having a quiet and comfortable car is better for my well-being. I had a Volvo xc70 for awhile and it was the best of both worlds, unfortunately It was nothing but problems reliability wise.
I’ve heard you can get great handling with beefier sway bars on the stock suspension so I’ll start there and see how I like it. They’re a lot easier to do than coilovers all the way around.
But she’d look really good with about 2” less ride height
My other car is a 2015 Volvo v60 but she’s been rock solid and is the road trip car. My GTI is just for running errands and fun.
The one thing to be careful with swaybars is that it can make the car oversteer/understeer especially in snow/rain. Oversteer in fwd cars is fun because you don’t want to let off the gas and transition the weight off the rear. I used to auto-x a dodge neon. I would pump up the rear tires so I could get the car to rotate, of course I had to stay on the gas through long sweepers or it would come around.