Reply With QuoteThat looks pretty cool, James.
Dave
Volkswagen Enthusiast
After taking a look at the design of the front fog lights & grilles a little while back I decided that the grille on the driver's side of the Polo GTI is really stupid. The flow of air to the intercooler is blocked by plastic coverings, with the air sucked in from the centre of the car and then redirected behind the (hot) fog lamp onto the intercooler. I can't explain why this is the case, but for a car that will be driven hard on more hot days than foggy days, I decided to tweak the grill slightly.
The first step was obviously to remove the obstructions, which meant the plastic between the grille bars was removed, the rear 'deflector' taken off and the fog light taken out. This gave a nice clean flow of air to the intercooler, but fog lights do come in handy (especially in Canberra winters) so I needed to come up with a replacement.
This evening I finally finished the first draft version of those new grilles:
I'm sure we'll get another foggy morning here in the next week so I can try them out in the real world, but from my testing in the garage they seem to have a similar light throw to the standard lamps - perhaps slightly weaker but on the plus side a nice blueish light.
I bought new grilles and used the connector from OEM fog lamps to wire up the LEDs, so the new grilles can be swapped back to the originals in about 2 minutes.
The new design is really only required on the driver's side where the intercooler is mounted, but obviously for symmetry I did the same to both sides.
Although this was a function over form project, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out for a first draft.
Lifetime VWW Member
That looks pretty cool, James.
Dave
Volkswagen Fan
that's awesome!
would be really nice if you can integrate them inside the headlights.
this is what I did to my car. retrofitted the headlights and added 2 led strips.
Volkswagen Enthusiast
Do you think it made much difference?
I have been monitoring the intake temp for the past few days using a ScanGaugeII which uses factory sensor located after the intercooler (I been told its on the intercooler, correct me if im wrong).
The intake temperature on the car is only about 5 to 6 deg hotter than the temp outside (according to car display temp). I should point out that this is while you are moving at reasonable speed (60kms/h+) and have not been stationary in traffic for a long period of time.
If you are in slow moving traffic or stationary for a long period of time then expect the temp to be 50 deg+.
Note: these observations were made in past few days (Winter) at night in Sydney.
Volkswagen Enthusiast
I'm not sure - Canberra in the middle of winter is not the best time to test a new cooling solution.Originally Posted by Bubu
When the weather warms up I'll connect up the VChecker and take a look at the intake temps after some hard driving and compare between the new setup and the stock grille & fog light.
leasaunce - those headlights look great - did you install the LEDs as day time driving lights (as per the new Audis)?
Volkswagen Fan
nah, just for parker lights. (plus didnt know how to connect as a DRL).
where did you get your LED from??
Volkswagen Enthusiast
The LED came from http://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/WFLB.htm - the ones I got were 'cool white' which came to about $11 US per strip.
Volkswagen Fan
DId GTI come in YELLOW?????
nice led, saw em on ebay...
Volkswagen Enthusiast
No, it didnt come in yellow, the car was wrapped in a yellow vinyl sticker. If you do a search you will find more info on the topic.
Volkswagen Fan
Did you have to remove the grills to install?
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks