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Zombie Build - 2013 GTI DSG

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
Took advantage of a sweet Black Friday deal and picked up some ST coilovers for $600. Too bad I don't have the money right now to get them installed. That will likely have to wait for a few months.

 

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
I keep buying parts don't either haven't had the time or I lack the capability/knowledge/tools to install them. So my parts list just keeps growing larger.

That being said, I finally got around to putting in my deAutoKey interior kit and license plate LEDs. I put them on during the day and it's still day so I figured taking pictures of it and posting them here wouldn't do much good.

Also got around to putting my on Ultra Racing middle lower under brace. I bought it used off of a local guy here who was parting out his TDI before he traded it back in.

I haven't driven the car since I put the brace on, so I can't provide any feedback on the performance. It feels pretty solid compared to those flimsy aluminum pieces that I replaced. I'm excited to go out and drive it to see how it feels. I'm not expecting miracles from this bar and I think there are better options, but for the $50 I paid for it, I think I'll be happy.

Also, I'm happy that is easily clears my resonator I put on with my downpipe.

 

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
I've been traveling for work lately and haven't had time to work on my car (or take it somewhere to be worked on) so I've just been accumulating parts to go on the car.

In addition to the motor/trans mounts and coilovers, here are a few more waiting to go on.

AWE S3 TOP



A bunch of other parts



At this point, I'm debating on waiting until I get a new intercooler to get the rest of these put on. The AWE S3 pipe won't fit on a stock intercooler, so I'm motivated to buy a new one so I can get that TOP on.
 

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
Any happy addition to my long list of parts waiting to be installed. I was able to pick this up for about $335 from ebay. Nothing special, just the Rev9 V2 (I think it's either the Eurojet or APR knockoff). It came in about three days. It was in good condition, just a few bent fins.

I don't necessarily need an intercooler at this point in the build, but getting this now will make a K04/F23T transition easier as this IC should support either no problem.

I've also got an appointment in a few weeks to get all of these parts put on when I get my DSG service and carbon cleaning.



 

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
Had a marathon parts install day yesterday. I've been waiting months to get some of these parts put on.

KW ST coilovers. I think it is currently sitting too low because I can't even get my jack underneath the car without driving up on a block of wood. I also can't drive up on my ramps anymore. So when I get my alignment in a few days, I'll likely raise it up a little. Topped them off with 034 track density strut mounts.





USP stainless steel braided lines



USP Aluminum DSG filter housing (with cooling fins). I think the cooling effect is negligible, but since the plastic housing is prone to cracking when removing it, I decided to upgrade since I was doing my DSG service anyway.





Fumoto drain valve since I was doing an oil change anyway.



034 Motor/Trans street density mounts



Rev9/Godspeed v2 intercooler.

Before:


After:


AWE S3 turbo outlet pipe. The pipe diameter was too small to fit inside the hose of the new intercooler. So I used a small section of the silicone hose that came with the TOP and used that as a step-up fitting to fit inside the intercooler hose tightly.



Carbon cleaning

Before:





After: I didn't take pictures of all of them, but they were all clean.


After the alignment and once I get to my final height, I'll take some pictures.
 
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thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
I also recently found out I have an exhaust leak. I think it's coming from the slip joints I used to install my resonator. I used some exhaust liquid gasket, but I don't think I used enough. It doesn't sound too bad, but one of these days, I'll get back under there and seal it up again. I think breaking the slip joint loose is going to be a pain though.
 

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
Now with all of those extra parts from yesterday, I have initial reflections.

The coilovers aren't nearly as harsh as I was expecting. I was expecting to feel every little bump. And while I certainly feel more, the difference is very slight.

With the new motor/trans/strut mounts, I think my NVH actually went down. I had a little bit of vibration/sound after I put in the 034 dogbone mount and insert. Now that I've paired them with the other mounts, I honestly think the overall NVH went down a bit. I'm quite pleased with that so far.

As for the brake lines, I don't know if those made a huge difference. I haven't really driven it hard yet so I may just need some more time to judge.

Now that I have a bigger intercooler and TOP my car doesn't seem to want to get above 20psi in boost. I've heard that with larger IC and TOP, you now have more volume of a pressurized system that needs to hold in pressure and it's difficult for the stock turbo to meet the same boost levels as before. But I've also heard that even though your overall PSI may have gone down, your WHP will still go up.

I recently bought an e-tune package from Stratified (with crackles of course). I wanted to get an updated tune file that takes advantage of the IC/TOP. I haven't sent them any logs yet because I wanted to wait until my alignment is done before I drive the car too hard too much. But I'm excited to get that tune nailed down soon.
 

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
After getting my post-coilovers alignment and corner balance, the car feels really good. Almost like it's on rails as I go through turns. It feels really great. I'm excited to take it out on some drives.

I also received the first iteration of my Stratified tune. I haven't taken any logs with it yet. It feels strong (but my Freektune did too). I got the crackles, and those are kind of fun. I haven't heard them while driving, but when stationary, they sound pretty cool.

I'll post a video of them later.
 

thewalkingdad

Ready to race!
I did some of this a while back, but haven't gotten around to posting.

I attended the 034 Motorsports Summerfest again. This time I decided to jump on the dyno. It was in the mid-90s when I hoped on. It is their heartbreaker of a Mustang Dyno. Overall, I was pretty happy with the numbers. The pulls were nice and consistent.



I was also able to get $100 off their DSG tune. So I bought that. The normal D mode feels much sportier. It feels like a good mix between stock D and S mode. It feels more how the car should have felt rolling off the line. Perhaps my favorite feature is I can see what gear I'm in while in D or S modes.

That being said, after I had my DSG service (pre-DSG tune), I started to get a weird jerking when going from a dead stop to applying gas. It did it almost every time I let off the gas. Now that I had the DSG tune, it does it maybe a 25% of the time. Not exactly sure what is causing it. It makes me nervous for whenever I want to launch my car.

Also, driving home last night I blew a coil pack. I was doing fairly normal freeway driving and felt a sudden loss of power. The motor got loud and started to vibrate a lot. It felt OK over 40mph. But slowing down and coming from a stop was rough. The engine light flashed and the EPC light turned on. I was about 2 miles from home, so I limped it there and pulled the codes. It said I had a cylinder 3 misfire. Did some research and found other people with the same exact symptoms and their problem was a blown coil pack. Thankfully, with Amazon Prime I was able to get a new one within 12 hours. Swapped out the old one for the new one, reset the lights and now the car is running like a champ. I also bought a full set of four. I'm going to swap out all of the old ones and keep a spare in my car.

Lastly, ever since the coilover install, I've had a pretty nasty subframe clunk that has gotten progressively worse. It isn't horrible, but it's making me want to do some subframe work for me next mod. I just really don't want to redo my alignment since I just did it a few months ago. I hate paying for that. I might also wait and do a FSB since I'll have the subframe off.
 

mikejsmith1985

Go Kart Champion
I did some of this a while back, but haven't gotten around to posting.

I attended the 034 Motorsports Summerfest again. This time I decided to jump on the dyno. It was in the mid-90s when I hoped on. It is their heartbreaker of a Mustang Dyno. Overall, I was pretty happy with the numbers. The pulls were nice and consistent.



I was also able to get $100 off their DSG tune. So I bought that. The normal D mode feels much sportier. It feels like a good mix between stock D and S mode. It feels more how the car should have felt rolling off the line. Perhaps my favorite feature is I can see what gear I'm in while in D or S modes.

That being said, after I had my DSG service (pre-DSG tune), I started to get a weird jerking when going from a dead stop to applying gas. It did it almost every time I let off the gas. Now that I had the DSG tune, it does it maybe a 25% of the time. Not exactly sure what is causing it. It makes me nervous for whenever I want to launch my car.

Also, driving home last night I blew a coil pack. I was doing fairly normal freeway driving and felt a sudden loss of power. The motor got loud and started to vibrate a lot. It felt OK over 40mph. But slowing down and coming from a stop was rough. The engine light flashed and the EPC light turned on. I was about 2 miles from home, so I limped it there and pulled the codes. It said I had a cylinder 3 misfire. Did some research and found other people with the same exact symptoms and their problem was a blown coil pack. Thankfully, with Amazon Prime I was able to get a new one within 12 hours. Swapped out the old one for the new one, reset the lights and now the car is running like a champ. I also bought a full set of four. I'm going to swap out all of the old ones and keep a spare in my car.

Lastly, ever since the coilover install, I've had a pretty nasty subframe clunk that has gotten progressively worse. It isn't horrible, but it's making me want to do some subframe work for me next mod. I just really don't want to redo my alignment since I just did it a few months ago. I hate paying for that. I might also wait and do a FSB since I'll have the subframe off.



Going through some issues as a result of fixing a clunk. Do you know for sure there is no pre-load on your sway bars after the coils settled? That could also lead to a clunk.

I got the clunk assumed it was my subframe, and took the opportunity to install my AL LCAs poly bushings and new solid subframe mounts with a collar kit and the local shop can't get it aligned properly[emoji107] I'm actually dropping it off to a performance alignment shop this afternoon to get it sorted out.

I'm sure that I'm likely the cause of issue here since I do work myself until something goes wrong beyond my ability to correct it lol so just wanted to share in case you hadn't considered the sway bars as the clunk you're hearing. Before you tear into a subframe job that could turn into a bigger job than you anticipate. Of course like most people you may do it and have no issues :)


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