Let the tinkering begin...

[Greg Roles]

Wish i was up there with you guys to see the dyno runs and play together.

Not really my thing mate, I'm into chicks, but thanks for the nice offer.....

[Jaymz]

My intercooling pipework is a ways off, as my plan is to add two serial water intercoolers to the plumbing either side of the stock air one.

The holdup is finding suitable water radiators for the intercoolers. Wait till you see what I have in store there

Yep a universal e-bay intercooler kit, obviously chinese, but looks fine to me. This set pretty much covers 95% of what I need, and cost a massive $168 delivered from the states.

This sounds very interesting and you will have to keep me posted on this one.
Interestingly i noticed last night after the comp the air temp had dropped to 21deg around 5pm. The GT was having no trouble breaking traction in 2nd gear with about 1/3 throttle. Usually it holds the road well with the big Kumhos. Getting the air temp down to 20 odd deg makes a big difference in how it performs.
Bring on the better intercooling!

[Logzy]

Not really my thing mate, I'm into chicks, but thanks for the nice offer.....

I was waiting for a comment like that after i had posted.
Dont worry im into chicks too.
I should have said "play with cars with."

[Greg Roles]

OK, been busy lately, but as you can read on other threads here I've built my own bucket pod filter, and removed the MAF grid. It's running perfectly, with no Vag-com errors thus far, and believe me I've been testing the "entire" rev range, as unhappy as the weazy diesel sounds up there!

http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/newf...t=14853&page=2

I have Steve at Modshack making me just a phenolic housing and unlike Mik's cool setup am going with the shorter, fatter 20cm x 20cm housing. To fit it nicely that smaller radiator hose just in front of the stock airbox will need to be lengthened and run down low. I will have to make up a front inlet that seals the round housing to the front over radiator air inlet. So it's all go on the inlet side.

I'll get the exhaust hacked up next week, and the plan is to just ditch the rear huge pancake muff, and then consider a better flowing muff in the other rear "axle" area. The DPF is safe for now till someone comes out with a delete kit. I'd like to keep it, and just actively bypass it somehow. Time will tell...

Oh yeah, I fitted the rear solid 22mm swaybar, on the stiffest setting and the result was amazing. MUCH flatter cornering, really "feels" like I have a solid rear axle now. Almost not enough, but I do feel I will be lifting the inside rear on spirited twisty driving. Will be the berries for you lowered / flash shock types. It DID make the rear more harsh, and whilst not at GTI bump levels, did add a bit of road shock over stock. I easily adjusted to it though, it's nothing bad.

[gldgti]

OK, been busy lately, but as you can read on other threads here I've built my own bucket pod filter, and removed the MAF grid. It's running perfectly, with no Vag-com errors thus far, and believe me I've been testing the "entire" rev range, as unhappy as the weazy diesel sounds up there!

I have Steve at Modshack making me just a phenolic housing and unlike Mik's cool setup am going with the shorter, fatter 20cm x 20cm housing. To fit it nicely that smaller radiator hose just in front of the stock airbox will need to be lengthened and run down low. I will have to make up a front inlet that seals the round housing to the front over radiator air inlet. So it's all go on the inlet side.

I'll get the exhaust hacked up next week, and the plan is to just ditch the rear huge pancake muff, and then consider a better flowing muff in the other rear "axle" area. The DPF is safe for now till someone comes out with a delete kit. I'd like to keep it, and just actively bypass it somehow. Time will tell...

Oh yeah, I fitted the rear solid 22mm swaybar, on the stiffest setting and the result was amazing. MUCH flatter cornering, really "feels" like I have a solid rear axle now. Almost not enough, but I do feel I will be lifting the inside rear on spirited twisty driving. Will be the berries for you lowered / flash shock types. It DID make the rear more harsh, and whilst not at GTI bump levels, did add a bit of road shock over stock. I easily adjusted to it though, it's nothing bad.

we're gonna need our own vw diesel racing series soon mate.... hehehehheheeeee.

nice to hear that your chopping up your exhaust, i love it.

good to hear things are coming along.

[Greg Roles]

OK, been slow lately thanks to work going nuts, but the Mod Shack housing is in. Unlike Mik's pioneering example in his thread, I got the larger, shorter TTDA housing only, as the dry Apexi pod I am running draws air around the edge, and is far less long and skinny than the nice thin and pointy K&N one supplied in Mik's example. I must point out that the MAF and inlet is absolutely pristine with no fine dust at all, so the dry filter is doing the job nicely. When I did the swap I was able to tap the filter and get some bugs and a bit of dirt out, so it will be a routine item to pull out and clean, probably with some compressed air from the inside out.

In Mik's pictorial, you can see the problem he faced was length ( steady...) whereas I have a thickness issue.

Seriously, there isn't a ton of room around the Apexi, but I did get the extra thick insulation upgrade. I will say that Steve from Modshack obviously LOVES fabbing up project airboxes, and his e-mails to me were excellent. The quality of the product is great, and I'm very happy. Steve charged me $185USD delivered with a blank front plate, extra insulation, and just a 75mm hole in the rear. All I had to do was drill the Apexi holes ( easy ) and mount the holder bracket ( a little tricky ). I have thus far blanked off about 1/3 of the front in line with the radiator by silastic-ing in a segment of the front end plate. This picture explains it better, as below the inlet is blanked off. If I wasn't planning a full sealed front, I'd block off some of the top as well, like my earlier bucket version ( which is now available Jamie! )



The top of the housing rubs on the bonnet liner, but it's not bad. I was trying to mount it as high as possible to get as much of the width of the stock over radiator inlet into the bucket as possible. Down below you have to watch the radiator fan, and I've mounted mine as close as I could. It has a few mm clearance, and is pretty solid with the temporary upper support bracket. Once I make the front, sealed "lid" it will ensure it doesn't rub. Still working this out, but most likely fibreglass.

[Greg Roles]

Choosing a colour is about the hardest part!
Steve sends a few colour Modshack stickers, I got red, white and silver ones. I went Metallic grey overall, as it blends pretty nicely.

I have a piece of BA Ford 6 pack inlet rubber hose between the filter and the MAF, but the plan is a piece of straight silicon tube. I know the Gen 3 holden had a straight tube inlet upgrade over the Gen 2 concetina type like this part, and Holden said it aided torque. Possibly not the same for a turbo, but I plan to rebuild the whole airbox to turbo tube anyhow, with smooth walls the aim.

You have to watch the clearance to the stock airbox support at the rear, and I chopped away a little bit of plastic for clearance. Also the hoses out of the fuel pump get mighty hot and touch the housing, so I zip tied them together a bit and out of the way a bit, and added a little outer insulation. bit of overkill with Steve's excellent design!

Oh yeah the red lined radiator pipe has to be lengthened, and it's a bloody heat source anyway, so I looped it low. You need power steering hose from supercheap.





Sorry out of focus, but you get the idea.

Finally you have to bend the support Steve supplies a little, but god he guesses well! Even the support is a work of art, rubber and nylon washer mounted. Nylock nuts. The guy is detail minded! Again note the red lined hose, this is the lengthened version I added.




It took me a few hours to get right, so take the time. I'm absolutely stoked with the result thus far.

Now, to find some more time!!!!

[Jaymz]

Nice work mate good to see its coming along. I'm really hoping to see some increases in response from these mods when you stick her on the dyno.
I'll be right behind you if thats the case

Mate am waiting on a response from Peter at Superchips as to whether they can delete the DPF from the software upgrade. Surely they don't run DPF's in the TDI race series???

[Greg Roles]

Oh yeah. My TDI is at 6000kms now and I drained 50 to 100mL of nasty black oil out of the Provent already. Without one you guys are most certainly ingesting more oil than you want to think about. This, given the erwin self study manual goes into depth about just how complex the GT TDI oil seperation mechanism is...it has several stages and even a centrifical seperator as part of the system! Amazing so much still gets out!

And I'm afraid it appears the 103kw TDI has a more basic seperation system in the tappet cover, so you guys are possibly eating even more oil again!

[Greg Roles]

Nice work mate good to see its coming along. I'm really hoping to see some increases in response from these mods when you stick her on the dyno.
I'll be right behind you if thats the case

Mate am waiting on a response from Peter at Superchips as to whether they can delete the DPF from the software upgrade. Surely they don't run DPF's in the TDI race series???

I can't see an airbox and Pod liberating much dyno HP, but I'm definately noticing more response. The exhaust is next on my target list, and the first step is deleting that giant rear muff. Hope to visit Ultimate Exhausts out at Brendale next week, but man my work has been keeping me stupid busy!

Thing is mate if you can have a car like yours WITH a DPF.... I'm in no rush to start leaving clouds of black smoke everywhere. IF it can be deleted AND tuned perfectly so there is limited soot, then it's much more appealing. I still like my crazy active bypass idea. The EGR cooler in the GT works exactly this way, it's very very clever. On that front I'd be much keener to limit the EGR circuit, so can you ask Pete about that?? We are dumping hot gas into the intercooled inlet charge, and there's a friggen flap causing suction in the EGR pipe by closing off the bloody inlet according the erwin. This is definately a limiting factor in the inlet. I'm sure a efficient custom tune would do more for emissions than this system after seeing your and my air fuel ratios on the dyno days. My stock car is much messier, and thus the emissions are probably worse!

What I did notice is that the TSI guys don't have an EGR system as the twin charger is on boost so much that there is little window for a vaccuum to draw exhaust gas through the system. We get it, and when not on boost you're adding exhaust and heating the inlet up, but confusingly with less oxygen for combustion keeping exhaust temps lower, and with less NO which is the whole point apparently. Bottom line is I don't like the idea of the flap limiting the inlet. Great for shutdown and to avoid run away if the turbo fails, but I'd love to limit it's involvement like the TDI-club guys have discovered you can do with VAG-COM on their 1.9's. I've been looking myself on ours...no luck as yet....

But that's me.... you go for it you environmental vandal!