MK4 Golf GTI 1.8t

[Rossios]

So I started on Saturday to get the work done to the car.
Checked over the lights, all fluids etc first for the MOT and all was well so got it up on axle stands to install the bumper and IC.

The bumper was surprisingly very easy to take off, the most difficult part was disassembling the bonnet latch but other than that it was a breeze.

Everything that could be seen was cleaned, thanks to @HILL9N3GTI for spending ages scrubbing my pancake pipe, it came up like new!

I got everything installed and gave it all a nice clean. It went back together and lined up handy enough, only point of difficulty was the MAP sensor, the hole in the IC seemed 0.5mm too small to fit the MAP sensor so it had to be filed back the slightest bit, but fit perfectly nonetheless.

You may be wondering why there is a house vent on my arch liner, the 225 TT's came with a vent in the arch liner to let the hot air after the IC escape, so I decided to fabricate one onto my Golf, is it unnecessary and tacky? Probably,I'd say it's better than all the air getting trapped in the arch liner. If it somehow explodes or deems useless i'll just get another archliner from the breakers handy.

I unfortunately don't have a good picture of the splitter but that will have to do, it really shows how faded the rest of the plastics is on the car so i'll grab some black trim restorer in my next detailing-stuffs order! I raised it 10mm and replaced the front plate and prayed to the DVA Gods as my MOT was the following morning.
I left extra early as my MOT was at 8:45am and got my headlights aligned, just for them not to check the alignment, oh well. It passed with flying colours, although the underbody inspection at the end of the test seemed to take them unusually long but hey it passed!

My CH's are sent away to get powder coated, so hopefully get them sealed and fitted this weekend, not sure yet if i'll keep them on or wait until the weather picks up some more, but we will see. Other than that the wee car is good to go! It's had a lot of work done this year but the only other work I have lined up is to get it sprayed. Still not sure if I'll have the front end sorted for Dubshed but I doubt it.

Cheers to @martymim and @adampatts for also helping with the car, cheers for reading and have a good week!

 

[martymim]

May my blood always be in that splitter.

 

[Blackie]

Would you not be better fitting the “house vent” with the slats facing down? I’d worry about debris coming of the wheel with it spinning forward and potentially chucking stuff at the I/C, possibly blocking the veins and maybe creating “hot spots”.

or am I overthinking things? Lol

 

[Rossios]

Would you not be better fitting the “house vent” with the slats facing down? I’d worry about debris coming of the wheel with it spinning forward and potentially chucking stuff at the I/C, possibly blocking the veins and maybe creating “hot spots”.

or am I overthinking things? Lol

I was thinking of water splashing up from the ground but the orientation you're describing makes more sense, I plan to check the inner arches this weekend to see if any dirt has accumulated and make a decision whether I'm gonna keep it or turn it around based on that.
Still not sure if the vent is functional or not

 

[michelinman]

Nice bit of tinkering there! I like it! The vent is functional and that's the most important thing

I would say that any dirt will not find its way into the vent, because the only chance it has is when you are moving forward. Under that condition, air should theoretically pass through the vent, which will keep positive pressure in front of the vent exit. This should stop anything getting in. I guess the slats are angled to stop rain getting in when installed on a house, but in your case I would think its deep enough in the arch. The only thing is that the slats pointing upwards might be against the flow of air going around the tyre, when you are driving. So the pressure/speed of the air off the tyre might be higher than the pressure of air coming through the vent. So for that reason, I would also turn the vent around. Then with the slats pointing down, the air should travel in roughly the same direction as the air coming off the tyre. That's just my opinion though

 

[Rossios]

I have always been a big fan of Meguiars black plastic restorer but my lower grills being 20 years old had seen better days, so after trawling detailing forums it seems that Sonax Xtreme is a favourite amongst them for bringing up faded plastics.

It definitely did the job to restoring the plastics, but it is very difficult to apply!

My wheels also came back from getting powdercoated and they definitely have came up very well!

I originally was going to order carbon collective or Gtechniq wheel sealant but after not ordering it soon enough I got AF Caramics from my local Halfrauds, application was pretty easy so I shall see how hydrophobic it is when I next wash it.

I also got a last minute Dubshed application in and was placed in the reserve outdoor spot, which is what I wanted as the car is a daily driver the paint will never be perfect! But it comes up really well for the age of it and was obviously well treated in the past.

Thanks for looking and have a good week

 

[Boydie]

@Rossios what was difficult about it and does it last?

I have a plastic splitter on my car which isnt that old but fades quite badly - anything I have used to date just doesnt last and washes off

 

[Rossios]

@Rossios what was difficult about it and does it last?

I have a plastic splitter on my car which isnt that old but fades quite badly - anything I have used to date just doesnt last and washes off

I agree with you, anything I've used in the past comes off with a wash or a good spell of rain!
It comes out in stupidly small quantities and the gel is very vicious and dense, I find it doesn't give off a good as shine like the gels I've used from AG/Meguiars but gives a much deeper black. it's been a week since I put it on and it doesn't seem to have faded yet, only cost me £9 so definitely work a try at least

 

[martymim]

Chunky fitment on the new CH’s, looks good Calu.

 

[Boydie]

@Rossios thanks - will give it a go once my current product runs out!

 

[purplea4T]

Mate, still have these brakes, if you could meet halfway I'd happily travel to Moira so you can get them on for Dubshed?

 

[michelinman]

Oh yes, that looks great on the CHs!

 

[Rossios]

Mate, still have these brakes, if you could meet halfway I'd happily travel to Moira so you can get them on for Dubshed?

I could possibly meet you weekend the 20th March if you're free?

Oh yes, that looks great on the CHs!

Thank you! They sit a lot nicer than the replicas I had on

 

[Rossios]

I've been slowly purchasing away at parts and basically finished now for my K03s swap (except the turbo, i'll come to that later )
I had researched and asked around about getting a heat shield made up for the air filter, but they were difficult to source and seemed to be too big of a job to get made up locally, Badger 5 or Cloude 9 Customs seemed to be the only 2 guys here still making heat shields for 1J style 1.8ts, so I went with a Badger 5 one. Reasoning for this is just before the lockdown I drove to Craigavon to get my phone fixed (It was a 100mile~ trip for me) and I noticed on the last 20mins of my journey my car was heat soaking quite badly, after getting home and checking the air filter it was pretty hot. This is why a lot of guys opt to keep the OEM air box rather than go for an open filter but I like them turbo noises too much, hence the heat shield!

You are being blessed with low-res vertical mobile photos as my engine bay is pretty dusty and needs a clean! The heat shield fit ok, these Badger 5 ones are more designed for a 80mm Turbo inlet pipe (which I haven't on yet) so the fitment on the OEM TIP is a bit stretched but it all lined up with a bit of fiddling. I had to get some groceries so I let the car idle for longer than I should have and drove into the shop in town, after some traffic and 2 or 3 WOT pulls, after getting home the heat shield was pretty warm and the filter was not so win win I think! I have no way to test what actual improvement this gave me as I have no laptop right now to check intake temps on VCDS, but I was happy with the results especially being a warm day.

I had also purchased these, the tubing is for a cold air feed, and a fog light grill, I'll not get too into it too much but the general idea was to replace the bottom right grill with the fog light grill, and have a cold air feed running from the hole in the grill up to the air filter, seemed like a good idea at first but it meant I had to cut the plastic battery tray and relocate the horns, I figured it was too tacky and not rewarding enough for the effort put in, and the original cold air feed seemed to be working perfectly with the heat shield so ultimately binned this approach, picture below of my intentions on a Leon I found online:

Another thing I bought for the car is this:

It's a turbo charge pipe from an AGU 1.8t, there's nothing wrong with my charge pipe, however the one on my car uses a clip design as pictured which is prone to leaking and not sealing, mines seemed fine when I last checked but there was some oil around it so I'll swap it out for the older style, which will allow me to use jubilee clips giving a better seal. I've also purchased a Creation Motorsport silicon pipe which connects the AGU charge pipe to the pancake pipe, all 1.8t mumbo jumbo!

Regarding my turbo, I was taking pictures to the guy I was planning on taking it to, to get it refurb and I noticed this:

It's a crack by the waste gate flap , these turbos are extremely prone to cracking hotside so I'm with a few options on what to do relative to my budget:
- Get the crack welded and refurb the turbo as normal and send it
- Buy a Maxspeedingrods K03s and get it rebalanced
- Buy a Maxspeedingrods K04-001 and get it rebalanced, and get a large intercooler and injectors and aim for a bit more power. (260 ish)
The K04 001 is essentially a K03 hybrid uses the K03 manifold and oil/water lines.

I'm not sure what to do, I'll have to see what way financially things are with Coronavirus, i'm still technically in a job right now (civil service through an agency) but it could change very quickly, I'm currently waiting for equipment to work from home but being agency they could fire me any of these days, so I won't be doing much more to the car I think until this passes (I also need a holiday as my trip to NYC was cancelled due to this!)
There's bigger issues in the world right now, and I hope everyone is staying safe and wish you all the best, next year will be a big year for the shows and meets hopefully!

Thanks for reading!

 

[purplea4T]

I run a long arm Carbonio during the warmer weather, there's next to no heat soak in the carbon fibre, just afraid of swamping the filter as its just above the road! Think @buster was selling a K03S. I've put the Anni back to standard but think I'll go k03s/k04 hybrid on the oceanic Green one.
Good job with everything you've done, though nothings straightforward!

 

[Rossios]

I run a long arm Carbonio during the warmer weather, there's next to no heat soak in the carbon fibre, just afraid of swamping the filter as its just above the road! Think @buster was selling a K03S. I've put the Anni back to standard but think I'll go k03s/k04 hybrid on the oceanic Green one.
Good job with everything you've done, though nothings straightforward!

I killed a run-about clio I had a few years ago by driving it through @HILL9N3GTI 's lane after flooding and hydrolocked it , so the higher my air filter is the better!
I seen that oceanic green one for sale on another post I think? I mentioned it to my father but he's after a TT, it has cream interior doesn't it?. Once this passes I'll have a chat with the guy and see what he thinks the best route is to go down, I definitely need to upgrade from my K03. And cheers! It started off I was going to keep the car standard but everything spirals out of control

 

[purplea4T]

I killed a run-about clio I had a few years ago by driving it through @HILL9N3GTI 's lane after flooding and hydrolocked it , so the higher my air filter is the better!
I seen that oceanic green one for sale on another post I think? I mentioned it to my father but he's after a TT, it has cream interior doesn't it?. Once this passes I'll have a chat with the guy and see what he thinks the best route is to go down, I definitely need to upgrade from my K03. And cheers! It started off I was going to keep the car standard but everything spirals out of control

Yeah, cream heated leather and sunroof. K03s blows to about 240, after mid 200's you need to start looking at rods and what not. My old 1.8t 180 was mapped to 235, seriously sharp going thing with standard turbo and big FMIC, TT 225 FPR, forge diverter, downpipe and exhaust.

 

[Rossios]

Yeah, cream heated leather and sunroof. K03s blows to about 240, after mid 200's you need to start looking at rods and what not. My old 1.8t 180 was mapped to 235, seriously sharp going thing with standard turbo and big FMIC, TT 225 FPR, forge diverter, downpipe and exhaust.

I hear it's the torque that kills the rods, it seems 300lbft and over they cave in, but if the torque comes in too hard low down i've seen guys bending them at 240/250lbft on some of tuning pages as you say. I remember seeing ages ago a guy with a Jetta GLI (Bora) running a big turbo with 400+bhp on stock internals, but the tune on the car had the torque coming in really smooth and late in the rev range and it held up 7k miles with no issues . In my head i'm still aiming for 200/200 but i'll just see how things play out, especially with the replacement turbo.

 

[HILL9N3GTI]

I killed a run-about clio I had a few years ago by driving it through @HILL9N3GTI 's lane after flooding and hydrolocked it , so the higher my air filter is the better!
I seen that oceanic green one for sale on another post I think? I mentioned it to my father but he's after a TT, it has cream interior doesn't it?. Once this passes I'll have a chat with the guy and see what he thinks the best route is to go down, I definitely need to upgrade from my K03. And cheers! It started off I was going to keep the car standard but everything spirals out of control

memories and then driving it to its death on 2 cylinders

 

[r16vka]

Since the heat shield already has a cutout for the s3 strut brace, it would be rude not to purchase one. And the lower brace while your at it for the full oem chassis upgrade

 

[Blackie]

I love following this thread. Still haven’t got a Mk4 yet though. Lol.

 

[DaddyCC]

Since the heat shield already has a cutout for the s3 strut brace, it would be rude not to purchase one. And the lower brace while your at it for the full oem chassis upgrade

But would you really wanna drill into the strut tops if you don't need to

 

[sam_9n]

Honestly wouldn’t bother with a KO4-001, it really
isn’t any if at all better than a ko3s. I have a Ko3s from my Polo GTI sitting here doing nothing. Can do you it cheap.

Ko3s on mainland have cracked 260hp believe it or not, my friend who mapped my Polo achieved that.

Regarding heat soak, front mount is the biggest help for that before going meth. when I was basically stage 2 on my Polo the heat soak was crazy after a few speed runs, front mount was noticeable in helping it run cooler.

rods are fine as long as torque is capped and isn’t a crazy torque spike. Know plenty of guys running 290-310hp in their Polos with standard bottom ends. Proper mapping is what makes them last.

386cc injectors from a BAM will give you enough head room for good figures. Don’t fit those until mapping.

my stage 2 spec was
3.5” DP
oversized TIP
3” MAF
Filter
386cc injectors
Front mount
Standard turbo.

I went k280 hybrid after that all I changed was rods because I asked for the mapper to not worry about torque capping and then 550cc injectors.

 

[Rossios]

Since the heat shield already has a cutout for the s3 strut brace, it would be rude not to purchase one. And the lower brace while your at it for the full oem chassis upgrade

I am embarrassed now as I couldn't work out what the cut-out was for .

Honestly wouldn’t bother with a KO4-001, it really
isn’t any if at all better than a ko3s. I have a Ko3s from my Polo GTI sitting here doing nothing. Can do you it cheap.

Ko3s on mainland have cracked 260hp believe it or not, my friend who mapped my Polo achieved that.

Regarding heat soak, front mount is the biggest help for that before going meth. when I was basically stage 2 on my Polo the heat soak was crazy after a few speed runs, front mount was noticeable in helping it run cooler.

Something about a front mount just puts me off the idea of it, the likes of cutting the crash bar and seeing MK4s on the owners groups with intercoolers hanging out the bottom of the splitter I'll weigh things up closer to the time of mapping and see. Absolute power isn't my goal with this car, I drove @HILL9N3GTI 's Polo and although it's very well put together and nice, the power is too much for my driving capabilities right now, I think 200/210 would be a nice figure for me but I just want to go down the most economical route, is the K03s you have good to go? I just need a turbo now and I think good to go for mapping, without starting a flame war could you (or anyone) recommend someone to map a 1.8t in NI?

 

[purplea4T]

I am embarrassed now as I couldn't work out what the cut-out was for .

Something about a front mount just puts me off the idea of it, the likes of cutting the crash bar and seeing MK4s on the owners groups with intercoolers hanging out the bottom of the splitter I'll weigh things up closer to the time of mapping and see. Absolute power isn't my goal with this car, I drove @HILL9N3GTI 's Polo and although it's very well put together and nice, the power is too much for my driving capabilities right now, I think 200/210 would be a nice figure for me but I just want to go down the most economical route, is the K03s you have good to go? I just need a turbo now and I think good to go for mapping, without starting a flame war could you (or anyone) recommend someone to map a 1.8t in NI?

Autotune did my black one, nice map on a pretty standard car amd was able to tailor it to the mods as time went on.
My Anni has a stage 1 map, so early 200s and it's really strong in the mid range, lovely for overtaking without the threat of killing something.
Forge do a nice front mount twin Pass that hides in behind the bumper.
I agree with you though, hate seeing a front mount that's just thrown on with **** mismatched pipes hanging out.