Scirocco Central

Stayed up till about 3am cleaning the car...needed the therapy lol...

IMG_0542-2 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Certainly had been putting these Pagid RS4-2 Blue's through their paces..

IMG_0537-1 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

IMG_0539-1 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Then took my old man to get his new car, a CR170 Octavia VRS - Cool to have my Dad in the same sort of car as mine, already got him primed to pull the trigger on some H&R springs, ball joints and bushes courtesy of Alex

IMG_0557-1 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Then the next day I set off for Darkside at stupid-o-clock



Arriving on literally no sleep and 3 red bulls... I grab a half-arsed shot of her on the dyno.

IMG_0590-1 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

At Darkside we had the following:

EGR Delete
3 Inch Downpipe / DPF/Cat removal
Hard cut limiter set at 5k


It was down on power compared (normally from my experience VAG engines pull about spot on or just over their rated power) but the end figure is there or there abouts.
I spent a lot of time talking to Darkside and perusing other diesel tuning forums to get a proper idea of what sort of power these engines reach as there's not much in the way of actual dyno'd & verifiable output. Darkside said anything between 195 and 205 is bang on the money.

My Fiscon has also highlighted how quickly the intake temps can rise, even when it's 8 or 9 degrees outside the temps shoot up from about 11-12 degrees to 22 or 23 after a single pull through 3rd and 4th, so an uprated intercooler is on the cards - watch this space...

Regarding the future power, my EGR was apparently very blocked up and they were surprised it hadn't caused me any issues - because of this they recommend that I clear the inlets and remove the swirl flaps which may free up a bit of extra power.
A 2056 and tubular manifold is on the cards but having just spunked £3k on the car in the matter of 2 weeks I need to let my bank account balance settle (and sell my Golf FFS) - I think 240-250bhp and this would be a beast of a car on road and track. For now it's quick enough to put a smile on my face and handles brilliantly.

Driving wise, well the tuning has transformed it - It no longer feels breathless and does pull very well indeed. I would say it's quicker than my GTI was standard. The MPG has also improved quite a bit. Ryan was very complimentary on the handling setup saying it's one of the nicest cars they've driven and how well it handles and rides.

The next plans are pop back over to Alex for my cat-back exhaust section to be made up, giving me a full 3 inch TBE, we will see what he can do RE the swirl flaps as well which is happening on the 19th of December. Gonna tweak my short shift (change some bushes and add some washes to stiffen up the side to side movement) and look into a bit of fabrication for a heat shield or two...


And here's the results.

10376188_380320572136615_3506914564937856865_n by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

So went from 161 to 194bhp with a huge jump in torque from 270 to 330lb ft


Am I happy with the figures? No, if I'm honest. Then again I have always been a subscriber to the "under the graph" dyno area, which has improved MASSIVELY everywhere along the rev range - But I take some comfort knowing that Darkside know what they are doing first and foremost, and secondly, have an honest, real world dyno. My old TDI left another tuner with 171bhp and went to Darkside's and pulled 155. I would rather have a solid, safe 195bhp than a dyno-happy and smokey 215-220bhp.

Am I happy with the driving experience, the smoothness, the lack of smoke and the kick up the back when I put my foot down? Yes, absolutely!

It was explained to me that these cars which claim to have up to 220bhp (which are all usually very smokey) can sometimes have sky-high EGT's which are over 1000 degrees C from 3500rpm upwards (they flatline at 1000 which is the maximum sensor reading, so are of course going to climb over that figure!)

My EGT's are limited to 850, and I noticed absolutely no smoke on the drive back. The guys said if they had raised the EGT limit they could have got into the low 200's but the extra stress on components is not worth it for the small (5-7bhp) gain, which at the wheels you wouldn't really notice anyway.

Despite the fairly disappointing end NUMBERS, the driving aspect of the car is great and yes, I would pay the money again knowing the outcome. Albeit feel that I could have gone straight for the GTB kit to begin with... anyway...

IMG_0627-1 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

IMG_0629-2 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Big thanks to Darkside :-) as finally I no longer feel like my car is dogsh*te slow!!!

UKtom wrote:love the progress with this and the way it's heading, always good to see things done properly... I admire your work

Thank you mate. I am very much a believer of "do it once, do it properly" - And enjoy getting as hands-on as possible! Shame it ends up costing a fortune

DAN180Y wrote:

i have one question. what do you do for work and are you hiring !

Haha.

I'm a Phone / Wireless engineer for a IT company by day and obviously do the detailing as well in the evenings with mates, not very glamourous haha! I just have my car quite high up the priorities list...

irckorus wrote:12mm spacer you need to put for the new break to fit with the interlagos?

We tried a 10mm and it caught, 12mm clears with barely a sheet of paper between the caliper and the spoke.

Thanks mate, i got some 12mm so let's go soon!!

Had it MOT'd today.
No advisories.





On Friday it's getting the remainder of the exhaust done so it will be very loud (hopefully not too loud!!) from a 3 inch Eurojet vband clamp system thanks to Alex.










Got a Mk7 GTI gear knob. Needed a lot of poking and I also had to drill it but now my knob fits really snugly and the balls feels great in my hand. It's a bit rubbery as opposed to hard like my GTI one.

Some nice updates there .

xjay1337 wrote: my knob fits really snugly and the balls feels great in my hand. It's a bit rubbery as opposed to hard

This is a bit disturbing though.

whiteDevil_170 wrote:Some nice updates there .

xjay1337 wrote: my knob fits really snugly and the balls feels great in my hand. It's a bit rubbery as opposed to hard

This is a bit disturbing though.

Someone's got a sick mind haha

Nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, some minor further modifications.

Finally got the remainder of my exhaust done with my mate Alex over at AKS.

A Eurojet 3 inch V Band system, designed for a Golf Mk5 GTI, but obviously, being the same as a Golf underneath, it fitted fine. This exhaust was orignally going on my GTI, but as I was selling it, I lined Alex up with another buyer - Who had since bailed. Fortunately for me...

20141219_161642 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Looks lovely. Very shiney...very big.

Firstly we inspected the Darkside down pipe to see how we'd have to adapt. The Darkside system was 3 inch from the turbo to about half way down the exhaust tunnel, where it was reduced to I think it's 2.5 inchs to the stock system.

We (I say we, Alex did it ) needed to fabricate up an adjoining link pipe. So we started with some 3 inch stainless steel piping.

20141219_163504 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Measure twice, cut once.
Or in Alex's case, measure once (and do it properly) and cut once.

20141219_163548 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Out comes the TIG welder! To connect the new link pipe to the existing Eurojet link pipe at one of the 90 degree bends..

20141219_164615 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Not bad for a quickie!!!

20141219_165534 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Now onto the car.....

20141219_165601 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Having to cut away the reducer off the back of the Darkside DP... not nice !!

20141219_170931 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

After a slip on sleeve was fitted to connect to the Darkside downpipe, as well as mounting up the rest of the exhaust system less than 2 hours later we had the following:

20141219_172343 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

20141219_173207 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

20141219_173223 by Fat Bear Photography, on Flickr

Very brap brap ting.

Sounds wonderful, so deep and almost the perfect mix of cruising refinement with full beans crazyness. Sounds just as nice as my old GTI did IMO.

Will get a proper sound clip when I next have my DSLR out.

great write-up and pics; good work. well, come on then. let's hear it!

Cheers bud


Here's a crappy video of the noise.

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very nice burble there

That a TDI?
Sounds very nice!
Best sounding diesel ive ever heard!

Also the loudest ever autofocus

Yeah that autofocus lol.

Car sounds good though mate [THUMBS UP SIGN]

xjay1337 wrote:Cheers bud


Here's a crappy video of the noise.

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That actually sounds ace
Really impressed

Thanks jay is not bad.

easyrider wrote:very nice burble there

thank you buddy

selleym wrote:That a TDI?
Sounds very nice!
Best sounding diesel ive ever heard!

Also the loudest ever autofocus

Yes it is.
Cheers dude. Apologies I left the camera on auto focus instead of setting it to manual, but hey ho.

Shaun1982 wrote:Yeah that autofocus lol.

Car sounds good though mate [THUMBS UP SIGN]

teaches me for using cheap cannon kit lense
thank you

Been testing my Go-pro out so can go for some racekoring later and record it hehe .

impressive sound congrats

Thanks matey.

Got these through today.




Factory HID's are terrible IMO. Especially compared to my old Golf.
Hoping these Osram Night breaker unlimited improve night time and wet weather driving.

Fitted the bulbs and, wow, what an improvement. Actually can see things are night.

And one filthy car



Wheels are supposed to be shiny silver somewhere lol

Got a small delivery today from the lads up north...






The intercooler itself, and these two lower Intercooler hoses will be going on in February, along with my new clutch and flywheel. The rest of the pipework will be going on when the turbo kit is fitted in a months time.

Looking good.
but I don't understand the difference between this intercooler and standard ?

DAN180Y wrote:Looking good.
but I don't understand the difference between this intercooler and standard ?

Stock intercooler:



Benefits of the one I bought
Full metal construction (not plastic end tanks which can pop off).
MUCH thicker core (twice as thick) and the intercooler is also physically a little bigger widthways

610mm x 415mm x 55mm
The inlet/outlets are 70mm vs the S3 57mm and I think stock intercooler 52mm so much better air flow.

Doing some research it seems exactly the same as the THS one which goes for £500+
All I need to do is paint it black prior to fitting. Not something you have to do, but something that helps reduce heat build up in traffic / slow / stationary traffic.