MK5 GTI

[cj_mcc]

Hi,

After hearing good things about rms and having a few friends who use it regularly I finally got around to joining.

After driving a diesel as a daily I wanted to swap to something VW and petrol.

I recently bought a 2006 candy white mk5 gti in the following spec - dsg, three door, sunroof, Xenons, leather interior.

So far I have have fitted the following parts/mods -

3" Scorpion de-cat downpipe into existing Miltek
H&R coilovers
18" two piece BBS calitos
BBK - Porsche Boxster S calipers with Mercedes 330mm discs
Ramair oversize inake
Forge pcv delete

I bought the car already remapped to an unknown bhp. (dyno day needed)
My plan is to add an upgraded fmic and hpfp to the parts listed above and hopefully aim for a reliable stage 2 on the standard ko3 turbo.

I plan to run the car static in the new year with the addition of H&R deep coilovers and srs tec wide wings.

Thanks for reading

 

[Lyons]

Welcome along. Can’t beat a Mk5 GTi, you’ll fit right in here. I’ve had 2!

Looks great in white.

 

[DaddyCC]

Looks like a very tidy example from the pics. What's hpfp sorry?

 

[veedubnoodle]

Tidy looking MK5

Welcome to the forum

 

[Carson]

Welcome ! I think there are one or two MK5 GTI fans on here IIRC

 

[natogreen16v]

@DaddyC high pressure fuel pump I believe. Popular mod for these.

@cj_mcc I still want this car so bad

 

[ChrisL]

Looks great, nice and subtle

 

[Cooper]

Welcome to RMS! A forum registration voucher seems to be in the glovebox of all Mk5 GTIs!

Great cars and I think this generation saved VWs reputation that they can make a properly enjoyable hot hatch (after wasting their time making awful 6 pot sofas )

 

[cj_mcc]

Looks like a very tidy example from the pics. What's hpfp sorry?

High pressure fuel pump

 

[cj_mcc]

Shortly after getting the car home from England I had a proper look underneath it and found out pretty quickly that the full years English MOT it came with wasn't amazing... x2 rear broken spings, a few bald tyres, no windscreen washer jets and shot front brakes.

I started looking into upgrade options for the front brakes since they needed replacing and found that Porsche boxster brembo calipers seemed to be a fairly popular choice.

I came across a set of front calipers going cheap on ebay listed - parts or repairs. They had a bleed screw rounded off and appeared to need all new hardware, dust seals, bleed nipples and a refurb. Nothing like a challenge I thought and bought them straight away...

Once they arrived and I did some more research I found out that I had bought boxster S calipers which nobody seems to have fitted because they won't work on the standard 312mm VW disc and as they are a bit chunkier which means you aren't clearing them on standard wheels without spacers.

I managed to remove the damaged bleed nipple and stripped the calipers down in preparation for powder coating.

I discovered that the boxster s disc diameter was 328mm so I needed beefier brake discs.

I ordered a porche to vag caliper fitting kit from creation motorsport which included - braided lines, caliper carrier brackets and bolts, Mercedes 330mm discs and spigot rings.

After rebuilding the calipers with all new seals etc. I fitted them, bled the brakes and went for a test drive...

The result wasn't as expected with the brake pedal feeling less responsive with no real bite, which I assumed there would be with 4 pots. The most annoying result of fitting brembos was brutally loud brake squeal at really low speeds, sub 10mph.

I thought at first that cheap brake pads were the culprit (apec) so after checking the caliper pistons were moving freely I ordered a set of textar pads which are meant to be an oem porche pad.

After fitting the new pads I had the same level of squeel at low speeds. I did some more research and foubd that the same caliper on a porche is fitted as a trailing caliper and I was fitting them as leading calipers.

This led me down a rabbit hole of trying to find out which of the 4 pot pistons should be at the top/bottom as they are two different sizes.. 36 and 40mm.

I found one guy who swapped his calipers side to side and upside down, swapping the bleed nipples and link pipes from top to bottom. This resulted in the smaller diameter piston now being at the top, which should in theory give you a more progressive brake pedal feel.

I also discovered that these calipers cane with anti squeel pad shims from factory and that running them without can result in unwanted pad squeel.

Armed with this new information I ordered a set. I decided to swap my calipers around as mentioned above along with fitting the anti squeel shims, I thought surely now I will have a more progressive pedal and no pad squeel.

I was wrong, swapping the calipers did give me a more progressive pedal but the main issue of the squeeling was as bad as before.

After looking at the brakes for the 10th time I worked out what was wrong
The inner edge of the brake pads were running off the edge by less than a mm but still it didn't look quite right.

I fitted x4 washers (one per bolt) between the carrier brackets and the calipers and straight away everything lined up better with the pad now contacting the disc face evenly.

Long story short after spending £160 on different brake pads the fix turned out to be x4 80p washers.

 

[mark19]

Hard work payed off

Brakes look great in there!!!

 

[Woodcutter]

Lovely GTI, Candy White on the Mk5 GTI is the colour that started the white car fashion again.

I had an Ed30 last year which I loved, the Mk5 is just great!

 

[HILL9N3GTI]

Its about time you got on here @cj_mcc bud welcome to the form.
hopefully i get to actually see these new bits in person before they end up on here.

 

[cormac81]

Welcome along, another ex mk5 GTI owner here and if I was to get another it would have to be in white.

 

[cj_mcc]

Welcome along, another ex mk5 GTI owner here and if I was to get another it would have to be in white.

Cheers! Yes, I think in white they look a lot fresher than they are.

 

[Laundrymike]

Cheers! Yes, I think in white they look a lot fresher than they are.

Couldn't agree more! Will get one, one of these days and love what you're doing with yours - great spec

 

[martymim]

Great write up Caleb, looking forward to plenty more to follow.