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Tony's Black GTI

SoWalGTI

Autocross Champion
Correct, one benefit is better aerodynamics under the car. Some even reported it helped get rid of steering wheel vibration because it keeps wind off the steering rack.

The main reason I installed the belly pan is to keep road gunk and salt off the oil pan, dogbone mount, transmission, etc. This is what coverage looks like with the stock belly pan (if something about the pic looks odd it's because the lower control arms are removed):


Awesome! Thanks for the info and pic. I'm pretty certain the wagen shares the same belly pan as the Golf, so I may try this upgrade as well.
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
I finally had time this weekend to replace my intake manifold and do a carbon cleaning of the intake valves. They sure needed it. This is 72k miles of buildup because the dealership cleaned the valves at 74k. The buildup is worse than the pictures show. I hand cleaned the majority of the carbon using picks and carb cleaner. I followed up by walnut blasting using a modified blast gun with a brass tube nozzle and a 3D printed vacuum adapter I picked up on ebay. The walnut blasting worked amazingly well and I'm extremely happy with how clean the intake runners are.

Full Flickr album here.

Valves before and after:




Here's the blast gun and vacuum adapter setup I used. I ended up cutting the nozzle down to about 6" to allow for more maneuverability. The nozzle is 5/16" x .014 brass tube (K&S #8133). I tried various nozzle diameters until I found one that would work effectively. Even the smallest diameter change made a huge difference here. I epoxied the nozzle into a brass barbed hose fitting that fit into the gun perfectly.The process was very clean despite shooting about 10lbs of walnut shells.






Intake and injectors removed from car.






I had these silicon plugs laying around that I use for powder coating. They worked perfectly to plug the injector holes.




Transferring fuel rail, sensors, throttle body, etc to new manifold:




Fuel injectors ready for new teflon seals. I borrowed the seal install tool from a local forum member. Thanks again Mark!




The only thing that really tripped me up is the new breather hose that comes with the updated manifold. The vacuum line attaches to the back of the valve that controls the runner actuator (right side of manifold) and the other end of the line bolts to the cylinder head between cylinders 2 and 3.

As for results, there was a noticeable difference as soon as I started up the car. Idle is much smoother, the car revs more easily and smoothly, and I probably picked up some power and gas mileage. I'm very satisfied with the results and will be doing this again in 50k miles.
 
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Tony48

Go Kart Champion
The horn noise when locking the car has always slightly bothered me. It's a little too loud and obnoxious but I like having an audible confirmation so I kept it turned on. I found an old thread about replacing the siren with a soft chirp version so I purchased a DEI 514LN soft chirp siren for about $15. I got to work fitting it up above the passenger fender liner as a direct replacement to the OEM siren.

I spent entirely too long making this wiring harness with a waterproof 2-pin connector. I think I'm addicted to braided sleeving and heat shrink. I then depinned the OEM connector, crimped on pins for a new connector to match my harness, and welded up a quick bracket to hold the siren in the OEM location.


This siren is a tight squeeze since it's larger than the OEM siren which is shaped like a pancake. I managed to get the new siren mounted up and I'm happy with the result. The chirp is soft and not annoying yet still provides some audible feedback that the car is locked. There is a wire loop you can cut which will make the siren 6dB louder.

https://flic.kr/p/2ihBEkV
Last thing I tackled over the weekend was replacing my fog light resistors which had burned up and caused a bulb out error on the dash. I also threw some yellow lamin-x on the fog lenses which you can see in the horn video.
 
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GolNat

Autocross Champion
That sounds perfect!! Did you remove the bumper to get to the siren? I have that same DEI siren sitting in the garage I just haven’t added it yet. I also like to hear a confirmation but the horn that is in there is too loud. I hadn’t decided what connector to put on the end but I like that one you have. Looks like a connector from an HID kit. Valves look awesome!!

Also I appreciate your clutch section in this thread. I am in the process of piecing together a clutch kit and it has been very valuable ?.
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
That sounds perfect!! Did you remove the bumper to get to the siren? I have that same DEI siren sitting in the garage I just haven’t added it yet. I also like to hear a confirmation but the horn that is in there is too loud. I hadn’t decided what connector to put on the end but I like that one you have. Looks like a connector from an HID kit. Valves look awesome!!

Also I appreciate your clutch section in this thread. I am in the process of piecing together a clutch kit and it has been very valuable ?.
I had the bumper off for other work. All you have to do to get to the siren is drop the passenger fender liner. The connector I used is a generic waterproof 2 pin connector, something like this, that I had laying around. It's not the greatest quality but works fine for this scenario. There's not a lot of spare wire at that location so I'd recommend getting a connector with a short pigtail and soldering or crimping the pigtail to the existing wires.

I'm glad the clutch section helped you out. When I pieced together the clutch kit the info was well documented but I still struggled sourcing some of the parts for reasonable prices. I figured yet another resource would help someone out.
 

zrickety

The Fixer
Looks great Tony. Where did you get the walnut blasting gun and material, also ebay?
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
Blasting
Looks great Tony. Where did you get the walnut blasting gun and material, also ebay?
I had a blasting kit already but it's very similar to this one that I often see recommended for intake valve cleaning. I removed the nozzle from the gun and replaced it with the brass fitting and tube as shown above.

The walnut shells are also from Harbor Freight, the coarse ones.
 

ce4

Ready to race!
I threw on a MK5 R32 belly pan. Nice OEM+ upgrade and should keep things protected and away from salt over the winter. For anyone interested the part number is 1K0825237P and installation requires three additional screws, part number 1K0825951.




hey this looks great! one question...did you have any issues fitting this? I got one as a gift and cannot get it to fit correctly. When i have the front slots in and the front side screws in, the holes for the subframe mounting points are like 5/8 to 3/4 " off. just curious if you had to loosen anything up to make it work.
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
hey this looks great! one question...did you have any issues fitting this? I got one as a gift and cannot get it to fit correctly. When i have the front slots in and the front side screws in, the holes for the subframe mounting points are like 5/8 to 3/4 " off. just curious if you had to loosen anything up to make it work.
Nope, no issues with mine. Bolted right up.
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
In an attempt to figure out why my car is idling/off throttle hanging out at 30 in-Hg (used to always idle at 22 in-Hg)I replaced the PCV valve. No change in behavior or pressure at the intake manifold ?‍♂️ but it's nice to know the PCV is taken care of. Also replaced the plastic coolant lines at the front of the intake manifold with this silicon hose kit from Spulen. Maneuvering those slippery, coolant soaked hoses and working the spring clips in place was a bitch.









 

torga

Autocross Champion
I put in those Spulen lines back in November. I was getting an incredibly slow leak coming from somewhere in the plastic pipes. I'm convinced I caused a tiny hairline stress crack when I pushed these out of the way to install a new alternator. The Spulen lines got rid of that leak immediately.
Were you able to figure out where the other bracket went? It didn't fit anywhere, so I just assumed it was included for fitment on some of the other vehicles these lines work with. They sure look nice.
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
I put in those Spulen lines back in November. I was getting an incredibly slow leak coming from somewhere in the plastic pipes. I'm convinced I caused a tiny hairline stress crack when I pushed these out of the way to install a new alternator. The Spulen lines got rid of that leak immediately.
Were you able to figure out where the other bracket went? It didn't fit anywhere, so I just assumed it was included for fitment on some of the other vehicles these lines work with. They sure look nice.
I actually had no idea a kit like this existed until I saw you install it! So thanks for making me aware.

I also could not figure out the other bracket and assumed it was for fitment on another vehicle.
 

zrickety

The Fixer
I don't like the plastic pipes. I've had the outlet on the head fall apart and also a leak from the pipe at the water pump.
 
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