BluR: 2017 Lapiz Blue Golf R DSG

I've spent the 14 years driving primarily Evos (Five different ones), but also had a mk6 GTI and a 335i during that time as well. All of those cars had one thing in common that this one does not: They were manual transmission. I opted for the DSG this time around, because my prior experience with stock VW clutches was an unhappy one, and the DSG has substantially higher performance potential.

I'm a dork with a mk7 only Golf garage now, we got my wife a GTI DSG SE back in March. I started a thread here, but got lazy too maintain it when Photobucket screwed the world over and began preventing external site viewing of images this past spring.

I've had my R for four weeks today, and at this point, it's still stock.
That's probably a record for me, and I intend to fix the problem fairly soon.

The first thing I thought I would do is compare my R to my wife's stage 1 GTI, which has a Cobb AP with a tune from Jon at 5150. I've known Jon for years from Evom, and wanted to go that way because of the quality of his work as well as the ability for custom tuning, which VW platforms have sorely lacked for years.

Right now, the wife's mk7 GTI would easily dust the R in comparative acceleration. I'm waiting for Cobb support for the R, as I went down the canned tune road in my mk6 GTI, and don't care to do that again.

GTI advantages:
-Price: (This is HUGE. Granted, if you option it up to Autobahn levels, the disparity isn't as much, but SE vs. R real world cost is about $11k difference. That's a lot of coin. I realize the big discounts on the GTI are because of cost of a car from Mexico vs. Germany, but it still hurts the wallet.

-PP limited slip: The PP single handedly crushes the mk6. The R brakes are great, but the real magic is that limited slip. I know it's some Haldex diff and not a true helical diff, but it effect on FWD in corners is utterly transformative.

-Weight: Here's the biggest compliment I can give the GTI. It feels like a proper flingy and feisty sport compact, whereas the R feels more like a Grand Tourer. 200 pounds is a lot of weight!


R advantages:
-AWD: Front tire fire sucks, and when we are regularly increasing these cars to 400hp and beyond, FWD becomes a serious detriment. This relegates the GTI to a constant exercise in a traction management for performance driving at best, and a highway roll race machine that has to start in third gear at worst.

-Gearing: In both manual and DSG forms, the R has substantially shorter and more performance oriented gearing.

-Packaging: Beefed up engine internals, IS38 already there, slightly larger intercooler, adjustable suspension, sexy Pretorias stock.

I'm sure there's a couple other differences I'm not thinking of offhand, I'll update later when I remember.


Only a month in, I have a rough idea of what I want to do with this car, but I'm sure it will change. Here's the list:
-5150 custom tuned AP when available
-DSG tune, hopefully Cobb will release this soon as well
-CTS turbo inlet pipe
-Factory location intercooler (Wagner or AMS leading candidates at the moment)
-AWE or Neuspeed code free downpipe
-Vorshlag camber plates (turn in SUCKS on these cars)
-Adjustable rear swaybar
-245w Michelin pilot PS4S if I can fit them without rubbing, otherwise stock size
-Wavetrac (this will probably be the last thing I do and way down the line)
-Maybe an intake. The X34 looks pretty cool, as does the APR intake.

The handling mojo in this platform is sorely lacking coming out of an Evo. I don't need to lower the car or do anything crazy, just some seasoning to get it where it should be. Dialing in another degree and a half of negative camber, a rear bar, and an front limited slip diff will certainly do the trick.


Here's a pic of the car in the garage. While I love the Lapiz Blue, it's clear that this will be the hardest color ever to take care of. It's easily as bad as a black car with showing swirls and scratches.

Thanks for clicking!

Welcome to the dark side friend!
Funny how we both ended up in R just a couple months apart.

Camber plates and -2.5 up front really helps the turn in. Just don't get the I.E.'s mine are clunk monsters even with new Arora bearings. Hopefully the Vorshlags solve that problem without all the clunky clunky over every little bump.

Thought I'd highlight some of the modifications I've done so far.

1) Unitronic stage 1+ ECU and stage 1 DSG with Uniconnect+ cable: I liked the simiplicity of flashing the car in my garage, and the differences were profound.

I wasn't too fond of a choice they made with the TCU tune, though. They don't disable kickdown in second gear, and if you would go WOT past the "button", the car would always drop to first, even if for only 200rpm, even in full manual mode. One could argue that you just never press the throttle too far, but it was a lot of brain de-programming from almost 30 years of driving perfomance Japanese cars that don't have this.

When I asked them through support if this kickdown in second "feature" could be removed, I was told that it could, but they didn't think I would like it. Ok, odd. Even more strange since they do remove it in stage 2 TCU tune. Here's my advice: If you get a Unitronic tune, go straight to stage 2, and leave stage 1 and its quirkiness away from your TCU.

2) Wagner stock location intercooler upgdade: Bit of a painful process to install, but completely worth it. Run to run inconsistencies in warm weather were due to heat soak and completely alleviated by installing this IC.

3) Cobb Tuning downpipe: In preparation for stage 2, I selected this one because it has the GESI cat, which is supposedly decent for not robbing a lot of horsepower, does not stink at all, and most importantly, will not throw a code for catalyst inefficiency.

That last part with the coding is a huge benefit, as I have to pass 100% OBD2 readiness check in the state of Tennessee every year to renew my license tags. Apparently Pennsylvania is the same, and these states are tough.

4) Unitronic Stage 2 engine and DSG tuning: I wanted to pause to say that I was really happy with the responsiveness and customer service of Unitronic. Patryk and John were great and helpful guys. The stage 2 DSG tune was so much better without the goofy second gear kickdown, and performs great. I had a little issue of it wanting to rub the rev limiter sometimes, but John sorted that out for me.

The problem here is that their stage 2 ECU tune disables the back O2 sensor, and that won't pass emissions here. John was willing to create me a map with the sensors turned on, but he is a busy guy, and there would have been a wait time. I don't have emissions for a few more months, but I didn't want to be running around a long time with the back sensor turned off, either.

Power gain between stage 1 and stage 2 is kind of small. I think stage 1 is probably the bang for the buck mod range for these cars.

Back on the downpipe, immediately post install, I could hear a measurable difference between normal and sport modes in the exhaust with the secondary tips opened in the muffler.

I picked up a couple of black friday sales too: The CTS turbo inlet pipe, and the 034 P34 intake. I installed them together, and could definitely feel a small bump with these.

The last thing I've done is what I didn't have the patience to wait for in the first place: A Cobb Accessport and custom tuning through Jon at 5150 Racing.

This is where the tide turned for my car. First of all, no more disabled back O2 sensor. Next, I asked him to code the exhaust flaps open in the accessport, which was great.

We've been working on custom tuning, and his tune makes more power and torque everywhere than the Unitronic Stage 2 tune; the car just rips now.

Once we're finished with finalizing the pump gas tuning, it's on to E30 for an extra 40hp or so! I greatly prefer this to stacking, as JB4 offers no direct control of timing, and you can dial in everything perfectly to your specific can with an Accessport and a competent protuner. No working around an incorrect tune with an interception box this way.

Thanks for reading.

Sold the Prets because I didn't really like cleaning them. Got some slightly lighter OZ Ultraleggeras in 19x8 +45 in Matte Graphite silver. Running stock Continental tires for now.

Stuff going on this weekend:
Eiback ProKit Golf R
034 Dynamic + camber front strut tops
034 rear sway bar

Spacers possibly coming soon depending on how it looks.
Alignment coming soon as well. Excited!

That front spring install SUCKED.
Do yourself a favor, remove the axles before following any wacky BS suggestions that say you don't need to do so.

These are my cheap wheels at stock height
They are Rays 57Xtreme knock offs that I got at Tire Rack. 19x8.5 +45 with 245/35/19 Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s.


This is post lowering with Eibach springs, 034 Dynamic + camber mounts, and RSB.


Here's my OZ Ultraleggeras before lowering the car.
These are 19x8+45 with the OEM Golf R Continental rubber.

These actually sit in almost 7mm from the other wheels, so they look a little sunk post lowering. I have 10mm spacers on the way for all four corners, and will post up.

I'll also post up wheel alignment specs here in the next day or two after I get the car on the rack.

Nice ride sir!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Thanks buddy!

Alignment sheet as promised.

Post lowering, Ultraleggeras with spacers.

Car looks great on OZ's

Any particular reason why you went with 19" instead of 18"? Big brake upgrade soon?

Derushi said:

Car looks great on OZ's

Any particular reason why you went with 19" instead of 18"? Big brake upgrade soon?

Click to expand...

Thank you. To answer your question,
Overall wheel and tire weight balance out vs. 18”.
Ability to reuse OEM tires so as not to have to buy new ones.
I think 19s look so much better on an R.

I totally get that in the long run, an 18 inch wheel and tire package would cost a lot less. But I just think they look too small.