mikejsmith1985: 2012 GTI Autobahn

I hope to keep up the technical info thread for anyone else who goes down this path but if I get lazy or don't cover something just shoot me a PM and I'll help out any way I can!

So really loving the refresh on the car!


Drive home was great still no codes or leaks I can detect, rolled on the throttle once I was close to home and I'm really really impressed with the car my butt dyno says it pulls harder rolling gently into the throttle than putting it to the floor at stage 2.

This is exactly what I was hoping for a car that pulls hard w/o having to beat on it!

I'm ~185 miles into the new setup and overall I'm happy.

I did a full throttle pull on the highway off the on ramp to about 80. The traction light won't shut up which is clearly proof that the car is putting more power to the ground than stage 2 with the IHI. However the top end pull still makes you want a bit more, the low and mid range pull though is great!

The car has had a couple of stutters where the revs sort of hang and it's not real sure what to do for about a half a second otherwise no real issues with the tune. I'm not complaining about the high end power as its both stronger than what my all seasons can handle in 50* weather and it's rare that I drive the car in that range. I'll probably keep this tune till February/March time frame and then get a dyno tune so I can make sure I give it a proper test and review for the community.

I'm glad I did it the car is a blast to drive and I think I'm at a point in the build where I need to shift my focus away from adding power and into managing and using the power I have successfully.

So I've got my confidence in the install now. I took the car out and got into it some. Using the p3 gauge so no idea how accurate it is but had a best 0-60 of 5.92 spinning the whole way. I did get the wheels to hit 60 in 3.8 secs once so I'm definitely far beyond the power of what my tires/suspension/skills will allow traction for. I should have my garage space available this weekend so I'll be able to get some pics of the F-Top and coupler. Hopefully I'll be able to get a final print on my surface mount too. The first design worked out great for holding it but wasn't ideal for popping it in and out of the dash when not in use.

So I've got my confidence in the install now. I took the car out and got into it some. Using the p3 gauge so no idea how accurate it is but had a best 0-60 of 5.92 spinning the whole way. I did get the wheels to hit 60 in 3.8 secs once so I'm definitely far beyond the power of what my tires/suspension/skills will allow traction for. I should have my garage space available this weekend so I'll be able to get some pics of the F-Top and coupler. Hopefully I'll be able to get a final print on my surface mount too. The first design worked out great for holding it but wasn't ideal for popping it in and out of the dash when not in use.

Let my brother take the GTI for a spin this evening. His butt dyno believes that the GTI with Eurodyne base file and mixed flow f23 will give his C6 coupe a good run and may even beat it. Neither of us are "street racers" so I'm going to try to get him out to the drag strip when they open up again. I did have another rich fuel mixture detected at idle DTC not sure if the tune is to blame or the intake... I did have to flip the connector for a proper install on this intake. But If it continues I'll either get a new intake or a tune sooner than expected. Even though I can clear the code from my p3 gauge it's already getting old.

Got under the car and everything is still good and snug, no signs of any leaks or problems anywhere.

Pics of the Pipe, coupler and clamps:







I couldn't get great pics of the install of the F-Top to the turbo but here is the best I could do.



I tried to film it while I installed it one handed but couldn't manage to do so, it did take both hands but again it took less than one minute to complete this.

Last a couple pics of the installed F-Top with my custom pipes (sorry no pics of the OEM hoses)

Got my GoPro mounted. I'll try to get a video soon!

Pics of my custom designed mount.
From rear seat:

From drivers seat looking back:

Screenshot of my phone displaying the view in this position:


Folded up when not in use:

So, I finally got my colorfabb xt filament in so I can print my car mount for the surface and I got a free Asus Transformer Book which has an ARM processor (better battery life) and is much lighter. Plus it charges with a regular micro USB so back to design I'll be using this as my tuning/logging/VCDS PC exclusively. Hopefully can have it mounted and pics up before the weekend is out.

It was crazy warm today 67* and I got to do a couple 0-60 runs with a 4.75 best. I'm practically Flintstoning the car off the line not to break traction. With some good sticky tires and proper road/track conditions I think it could break into the 3s but I'm not sure[emoji848]

So designing functional brackets within the constraints of my build volume inevitably takes longer than I expect it too, I'm currently printing the final version of my tablet mount now, as long as there is no warping or other catastrophic mishaps I'll be able to post pics of the tablet installed in about 4 hours.

Debating what is up next for the car. I really want to do the climatic retrofit, I feel like I'm always tweaking the temps in this car... but I really want to get the most out of all the new power too so I'm thinking:

Wider and smaller wheels with Summer tires - this of course is useless right now...
DSG Tune - I haven't heard or experienced anything that really feels like slipping but better to do sooner rather than later.
LSD - I'd probably go M-Factory because I like their pricing best.

My wife said to do an AWD swap so I won't "fishhead" anymore LOL this was her play on fishtailing in a FWD
--Realistically I'm not up for the cost or the work on this though!

Any other thoughts on better traction or mods I'm missing/in need of?

Hahahah "fishhead" pretty clever

MFactory LSD (for DSG) just showed up today. I'm getting it installed in a few weeks and I can let you know my thoughts.

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NoSpark said:

MFactory LSD (for DSG) just showed up today. I'm getting it installed in a few weeks and I can let you know my thoughts.

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That would be awesome thanks! good luck and happy modding! ?

So this filament is too expensive to keep testing at this scale with. It wasn't awful. But I had some warping and stringing but I'll get it figured out at a smaller scale and reprint in the future. This position keeps the gauges and the radio completely visible but does take up a lot of windshield. I'll probably modify the model so instead of 2 holes it's one long slit making it infinitely adjustable between the top and bottom most points but here it is at last!

So I've got nearly 1700 miles on the base tune and F23 now. The car still makes me smile and I've driven it more in the last few weeks than I have since we bought the Volvo (family car) last year. I can happily report that my "sports car" is finally faster than my SUV family hauler. If you want to go out and beat it the tune is great, driving around town isn't really a problem at all either. In fact my wife didn't even notice a difference when she drove it. However with extended seat time and running it through all the paces there are a couple of "gotchas" with the tune. It will stutter a bit when you do a partial throttle acceleration, say switching lanes to go around a car, You don't really want to squeal the tires but you don't want to disrupt the flow of traffic in the other lane so with moderate pedal modulation you zoom away after a short period of lag and what are we doing race car or driving miss daisy decision the car leans toward race car... It will drive miss daisy no problem but there are some hiccups between the two. Its a very streetable tune, and I'm not knocking it at all just sharing my thoughts and experiences. I plan on getting a DSG tune and a proper dyno tune as soon as I can now that I feel I've give this tune a comprehensive test. We'll have the Volvo back early next week and we won't be putting many miles on the GTI for a while again.