GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

Kollin's 2012 VW Golf R

KollinWithaK

Autocross Champion
Hi all, some of you may know me/my old car. I used to drive a 2013 2.5 Golf named Lola and loved it. Back in April I had the opportunity to sell my 2.5 and upgrade to a 2012 Golf R, and so I did. I sold Lola to the same guy I bought the R from, so I drove up to Iowa where the R was, swapped cars, and drove back down to the Space Coast in Florida, all in one weekend.

I was beginning to go pretty deep into my 2.5 when this opportunity popped up. Was starting to research going turbo and swapping to a 6-speed, and then the R popped up. It was a 2012 with just over 82k on it, and was bonestock other than a Neuspeed Intake, a GFB DV+, and a rear wiper delete. Two previous owners. Was glad I was able to get this deal worked out. Was pretty amazed to see a near bone stock, well cared for Mk6 R like this.

Here is my old 2.5 when we did the trade off, did it in an old Harley Davidson parking lot.



Here is the R from the side after we traded.



Like I said, the trade was back in April, but I just started modding the car (albeit lightly). Figured I'd hop back into the forums and start keeping track of stuff again.

The first thing I did with the car was get the windows tinted to the same level as my last Mk6. It's far too hot in Florida to not have window tint, it's like driving around in a heated fishbowl. This is 15% all around, 50% on the windshield (yes, I know the laws) and a 35% sun visor strip.




After that, I went ahead and swapped out the shift knobs. One of the previous owners and put in a knock-off Audi R8 shift knob which is metal. It would get extremely hot during the day and this would make the car difficult to drive since you didn't want to touch the shift knob because of how hot it got. :laugh:
I swapped it out with a full carbon fiber shift knob from EuroImpulse, you can follow the link here if you're interested in that. I don't have any pictures of it yet. Granted, the top and bottom of this shift knob are still metal and will get unbelievably hot, the CF middle stays much cooler and is easier to handle. Install was easy, and I'd recommend EuroImpulse if you're looking to purchase something from them.

Another thing that I've done to the car is the OEM to Euro LED taillight swap. The OEM taillights on any Mk6 are arguably the worst part (visually) of the car, and I was very excited to get a set of sequential taillights. Wiring on these was a bit annoying, as most reviews would say. The difficult part being going from the trunk to the hatch, as shown by this picture below. You have to run wiring in order for the full sequence of the taillights to work.



Aside from the wiring, these taillights have better fitment than my old eBay taillights on my last Mk6.

Some other small things I've done that you can see are blacked out emblems, and a paint matched vinyl circle to go behind the rear emblem. I painted the emblems myself, and the vinyl that I used can be found here.


I also had the car professionally paint corrected and ceramic coated. The paint needed A LOT of work, and it ended up being a near 14 hour long detail, all in one day. If you're in the Space Coast area and need a detailer, I'd highly recommend Maldo's Detailing. Great guy, and a fellow VW owner.



And that's all I've got for now. I'll follow the same format update that I did for my last car. I tend to buy parts in batches, and I imagine the R will probably be fairly similar. I also have some leftover parts from my 2.5, including a Unibrace XB and a 3-piece carbon fiber lip.

Bonus pics of Reba next to a Cornflower Blue Rabbit that I found in Tampa while on my way to Summervibes.





EDIT: Sorry for the poor photo formatting, I forgot I need to resize images before I upload them to imgur and host them here. I'll keep that in mind moving forward.
 
Last edited:

torga

Autocross Champion
Very nice! Now that's a solid trade. Looks like you put plenty of work into your old 2.5L. Looking forward to your R's progress.
 

Blakcard

Autocross Newbie
good on ya. looks great. the detailing really makes the red pop
 

KollinWithaK

Autocross Champion
Very nice! Now that's a solid trade. Looks like you put plenty of work into your old 2.5L. Looking forward to your R's progress.

Appreciate it, I do miss it at points, mostly for the sound, and the headunit ironically. I don't like the factory headunit thats in the R.

good on ya. looks great. the detailing really makes the red pop

The difference was insane. The bumper was initially a different shade of red, seeing it after it had been cleaned up was pretty eyeopening. It did end up revealing some damage where it looks like the car was lightly rear-ended or something. So I do have some body work coming for me in the future, both on the front and rear bumpers.
 

torga

Autocross Champion
Appreciate it, I do miss it at points, mostly for the sound, and the headunit ironically. I don't like the factory headunit thats in the R.
Get an RCD330! And a TBE!
 

KollinWithaK

Autocross Champion
After taking a bunch of (ultimately unecessary) precautions to protect the R from Hurricane Dorian, I did some maintenance on the R after hitting 90,000 miles. Oil change, spark plugs, coil packs, and I bought a new cam follower, but haven't done it yet due to lack of time. Pretty generic stuff, but figured I'd update the build thread anyways.

Went with this option from UroTuning for the ignition bits. Straightforward, came bundled together, and UroTuning is less than 2 hours from me so it's nice to help out a local-ish company.

Decided to try out LiquiMoly oil for the first time since I had never used it before. Felt weird pouring green oil into my engine. Bought this kit, also from UroTuning.

They also threw in a free magnetic oil drain plug that happened to be red, so I popped that on.

Car progress is probably going to slow down substantially for a bit unfortunately as we are getting ready to relocate across state if all works out how we planned it.

Pics for fun.

 

KollinWithaK

Autocross Champion
Had a rattle develop from the passenger side of my engine bay. Couldn't figure it out for a while. Turns out it was my timing chain and timing chain tensioner that were starting to go bad. This was right around 91k miles.

Took the car to Melbourne Motorsports, they diagnosed it that day. I dropped it off again before I left town for work, and came back to a working and fixed car. Cost right around the $700 mark.

I've since moved across the state to Tampa for work. So hopefully once we get everything settled and finish with the holidays I can start modifying the car again.
 

Blakcard

Autocross Newbie
Had a rattle develop from the passenger side of my engine bay. Couldn't figure it out for a while. Turns out it was my timing chain and timing chain tensioner that were starting to go bad. This was right around 91k miles.

Took the car to Melbourne Motorsports, they diagnosed it that day. I dropped it off again before I left town for work, and came back to a working and fixed car. Cost right around the $700 mark.
.

good price!!
 

svickstc

Go Kart Champion
Nice catch on the timing chain, my gf at the time now wife was using my GTI for a daily work commuter a couple years ago and Ignored all sounds and signs of timing chain rattle until it was too late and a complete head rebuild was needed after getting a call one day that she heard a weird rattle in the morning starting the car and decided to drive 30 miles on a skipped chain bending all my valves.

After head rebuild/port car drives great again after about a year of work lol
 

KollinWithaK

Autocross Champion
good price!!

Thanks yeah, I was expecting way more. Guess I caught the friends and family discount since I knew someones younger brother who owns a 2.5l.


Thanks! Still loving the car.

Nice catch on the timing chain, my gf at the time now wife was using my GTI for a daily work commuter a couple years ago and Ignored all sounds and signs of timing chain rattle until it was too late and a complete head rebuild was needed after getting a call one day that she heard a weird rattle in the morning starting the car and decided to drive 30 miles on a skipped chain bending all my valves.

After head rebuild/port car drives great again after about a year of work lol

Yikes sorry to hear. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid. I let it go on for about a week and a half before I finally had it checked since I couldn't figure it out.
 

KollinWithaK

Autocross Champion
Got Unitronic Stage 1+ yesterday on the Golf R. Really quite fun. It amplified a small thing I've been noticing lately, however.

Got some fluttering going on in the high gears around the 3k rpm range. I've read and heard that almost everyone agrees its just an overboost protection thing, where the wastegate and DV are releasing pressure, I was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts. I definitely think this may be the case since the tune forces the car to make more boost. I've also heard it could be a failing DV (i've got a GFB DV+ that I want to replace), a failing wastegate, N75 valve, or possibly even a bad turbo. Anyone else dealt with this?

Edit: This fluttering was happening before the tune as well.
 

torga

Autocross Champion
Fluttering in terms of boost pressure fluctuation?
 

thedude4bides

Go Kart Champion
Got Unitronic Stage 1+ yesterday on the Golf R. Really quite fun. It amplified a small thing I've been noticing lately, however.

Got some fluttering going on in the high gears around the 3k rpm range. I've read and heard that almost everyone agrees its just an overboost protection thing, where the wastegate and DV are releasing pressure, I was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts. I definitely think this may be the case since the tune forces the car to make more boost. I've also heard it could be a failing DV (i've got a GFB DV+ that I want to replace), a failing wastegate, N75 valve, or possibly even a bad turbo. Anyone else dealt with this?

Edit: This fluttering was happening before the tune as well.
My R was over-boosting and misfiring a few months back. A tune shop ended up replacing my n75 and an o-ring in the turbo. Was fine for a few days and started over-boosting again. Checked my GFB+ and it just fell to pieces when I undid the 3 bolts. Lost the piston somewhere in the abyss so I was stuck returning to stock and that returned things to normal. Give it a shot and see what difference it makes...

I mean, for sure this thing will flutter from time to time so it may just be normal. Some old threads on vortex might help you.
 

KollinWithaK

Autocross Champion
My R was over-boosting and misfiring a few months back. A tune shop ended up replacing my n75 and an o-ring in the turbo. Was fine for a few days and started over-boosting again. Checked my GFB+ and it just fell to pieces when I undid the 3 bolts. Lost the piston somewhere in the abyss so I was stuck returning to stock and that returned things to normal. Give it a shot and see what difference it makes...

I mean, for sure this thing will flutter from time to time so it may just be normal. Some old threads on vortex might help you.

Yeah, I've spent most of the day puttering around googling this, seems that the most likely culprit is the DV, as all the tuners I looked at (APR, Unitronic, IE) all recommend the factory DV all the way up to stage 3. I can get the latest OEM D revision DV for cheap, so I'll be picking that up and throwing it on next time I've got tool access (in the middle of a move at the moment).
Never been a huge fan of the GFB DV anyways, I'm among those people who seem to have had a bad run with it. Oh well. Came with the car so no harm no foul done to me.
 
Last edited:
Top