mikejsmith1985: 2012 GTI Autobahn

How well does the dual caliper setup in the back work?

I went with the HPA kit in back and, well, it's not all I hoped it would be.

I've spent a lot of time on several versions of the bracket to make the e-brake caliper really grab and I still think it's just ok. The brackets were designed so that the calipers would be on the "wrong" side. The cable setup is much easier that way but the bleeder valves are at the bottom and make bleeding difficult. But as far as the combo of the ttrs mc and the cayenne brakes I can't find a car that stops better. Since I'm DSG the e-brake doesn't see much use.

I don't have the patience to mess around with my parking brake after a full year without one that worked but I think I'm going to try a hydraulic one in a couple years. Seems to be the only real way to have a functional parking brake with big brakes.

Hydraulic would be really nice!

It's here!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is my wife's Birthday so I plan on starting installation Saturday.

Got a late start but the IHI is out. Tomorrow the F23 goes in!

So the F23 is in, the IHI came out relatively easy, the install was surprisingly time consuming. Every bolt seemed to fight me for 30 mins then just magically thread right on.

All in all I would say if you're nervous about doing this it isn't overly difficult, I didn't have to fight any of the stripped allen heads or anything seized, and I found that removing the down pipe before the heat shield made the 3 bolts much more accessible.

Once I had everything installed I decided to go ahead and start it up naturally. Here I found that my battery was nearly dead (its been in the garage untouched for about 4-6 weeks... SO I threw on the jump pack and was able to fire it right up with a ton of DTCs about weak voltage. After clearing all of those I let the car idle for a bit found no leaks but did notice a ticking that sounded like a relay clicking but I was opening up modules in VCDS and decided that was to blame as it stopped after I closed everything out.

With the car not leaking anything and 90% buttoned up (including loading the F23 file) I took it out for a very short very easy drive, I gave enough throttle to have boost onset once and I can say that this thing is a completely different beast than it was at stage 2, and I barely got into it hit ~10 psi boost.

So I came home and of course the off gassing of all the oil and stuff on the new turbo made it stink and scares me that something is horribly wrong and will continue to do so till I prove otherwise, but no CEL or anything. I let it idle for a bit and still no leaks to be found, but that relay ticking came back... I'm not sure what it is but I've had it happen before when I did my brakes and was running some VCDS procedure not sure any more what the process was though.

The 2 other issues I've run into during the install and I'm not happy with are I dropped a coil pack popping it out of the motor and the clip for the coil pack on the driver's side (cylinder 4 I think... I can never remember which side to start counting from...) will not lock on to the CP, it does seat fully but it can be pulled off without releasing the clip. I tried moving CPs around to see if that had anything to do with it and no luck...

Car ran fine, but I'm going to be babying it for a few days taking short drives and checking for leaks and gradually increasing the throttle and distance.

Then I'll do the final button up with all the inner fender, belly pan, engine cover, etc.

My turbo stunk too man, took just a day or 2 to gas off. I always let a car run 50-100 miles before I get on it after a mod though most say just letting the car idle for a while is enough.

How did you handle the silicone coupler? I'm going to have a hard pipe made for that whole side on mine, as after the IC install my boost wouldn't go over 20 psi. I think it's that cheap OE coupler.

Anyway, glad it's going well!

I got the prototype F-Top from Doug, quality and fitment is spot on with the spulen pipe I had with the IHI. I installed the coupler after I installed the turbo and although it looked like it was tight clearance with the block the coupler and clamp slid right on no problem.

Neat. Congrats on the F23.

Thanks, the plan already got shot though...

I hit a deer with my wife's Volvo, and I had to go into the office today. I typically work from home but my boss is in town so I went in and drove the GTI. I had 1 mile clocked last night and drove 33 miles to the office mixed traffic on city and freeway. Car drove great. Aside from enhances induction noise babying it you wouldn't know it's been upgraded.

It will be fine. How else will it get broken in unless you drive it. You're using Eurodynes f23 specific tune right? Does the tune feel good?

Also im assuming by the thick black you got it ceramic coated? Looks good.

I did get it ceramic coated turbo felt/looked like a quality piece. I blipped the throttle once and hit ~10 psi of boost going to get a couple hundred miles on it error free before I open it up and see what it's capable of but the blip I gave it made it clear there is a lot more power here than stage 2!

I want to get a feel for the car take some notes and get a dyno tune and then provide feedback on the 2 not sure of timing on everything. But thanks to the deer I should get miles on it pretty quickly as it will be hauling the family around for the next week or so.

cool cool. it looks good, makes me confident when i buy it.