I had a prior thread that wasn't focused on my GTI only, plus it was made at a time before I was sure about keeping my car.
I wanted to make this one to dedicate to my GTI and use this journal thread as a car blog about my daily driver.
It's a carbon steel gray metallic 2013 base 4 door manual. I chose the spartan model, because near the end of it's life cycle, the available packages on the mk6 became much less à la carte, and much more bundled with options an owner might not want.
The two things I wanted were HIDs and Dynaudio, which were very reasonable on the 2010 car I originally built in the VW configurator, but needed autobahn to get both by the time I was sure I wanted a GTI for 2013.
I made lemonade out of lemons with the Dynaudio loss, and my first mod was a custom audio system, replacing every single component, sans the rear door speakers. I'm not in love with my front door speakers, so eventually, I'll move them to the rear, and put something nicer up front.
The car is now powered by an XAV-701HD Sony head that is a DVD unit which I setup to work when the vehicle is in operation. There's a navigation plugin, but I am rarely driving somewhere that I require that, so I pipe Waze through my phone and it gives me voice commands by attenuating the music briefly while the Waze lady talks. The BT in the factory VW heads is garbage- The base HU I had wouldn't allow you to change tracks on the unit, so I had to scroll up with my iPhone. At 2013 launch, there wasn't a lightning cable adapter from VW, so that aided in my replacing it. The VW navi unit wasn't much better, because although you could stream audio and switch tracks, they had a static sound, and it was awful. I ripped all that crap out, and my Sony HU controls iTunes and Spotify seamlessly.
I went with Alpine components in the front, an Alpine 5 channel amplifier, and an Uber Stealth Audio box with Pioneer sub in the rear, which hides under the rear deckliner, allowing me to drop the back seats and carry my road bike.
I love the new stereo, and it blows anything OEM out of the water, while being clean and invisible.
Here's a pic of the HU installed.
Here's a pic of the rear deckliner lifted so you can see the Uber Stealth box and sub installed. I had to put a few small pieces of plywood under the styrofoam tool side to bring the floor up to Uber Stealth box level, so the floor would be level.
Here's another pic of my son's Recaro I moved from my last car. My daughter is older and just uses a generic booster seat.The next order of business with the car was the tepid stock power. I couldn't really deal with it, and immediately went to APR Stage 1 and Carbonio Stage 1.
I've been very pleased with the results, and have seen typical dyno gains of 30whp and 50wtq for these mods. The difference is most profound on the interstate, where passing power in 6th without downshifting is great, and downshifting to 5th or 4th gives powerful acceleration on-the-fly for such a tiny turbo.
I prefer stage 1 to keep the wife happy, because it's church mouse quiet and has no catless exhaust stench. The intake's sound is barely noticeable, but gives great proven higher rpm power compared to a stage 1 car without. I am running it on the 91 octane map in attempt to preserve the stock clutch's life as long as possible.
Here's an under hood shot.
I'd put this car around 14.2 at 99mph, maybe it would break 100mph on a cool day.
I think the tune and intake is completely worth it, and offers a great bang for the buck gain.
During this time, I also disconnected the soundaktor, because it made my windshield rattle my radar detector at high throttle tip in on the highway, and drove me crazy.
I also did a few VCDS tweaks, the big one being allowing the stability control to be defeated with a press and hold. LOVE.
