Hotfart
Ready to race!
- Location
- LFK Kansas
So I've had the Revo lower torque mount (dogbone puck) installed on my '17 Sport with manual transmission for the last month, and have had some time to gather my thoughts about it. Full disclosure, a Revo rep noticed on the Facebook group that I was having issues with another brand of dogbone mount (another story which I won't go into detail here, other than they definitely took care of me and ended up issuing me a refund), so Revo graciously offered to send me a puck to review for no charge. I will be as objective as possible taking into consideration it was a freebie.
My power mods are as follows: 1) AFE dry air filter with snowguard delete, 2) Golf R intercooler, and 3) Cobb Accessport with a 5150 Racing E40 custom tune. I also have a Sachs SRE clutch installed, along with stock sized Firestone Firehawk summer tires. I have yet to put it on the dyno, but would estimate 300whp or more with the E40 tune.
For some hard numbers, last week I went to the track for the first time in this car. It was a warmer night, around 85 degrees, with about a 15 mph headwind. My best of the night was 13.569 @ 106.27. Everyone was running quite slow, and as a comparison, a new Focus RS that I ran against multiple times would beat me by .1 to .2 seconds, but my trap speeds were always about 5 mph faster.
Installation was quite easy and took me around an hour taking my sweet time. There are a few tutorials here and on Youtube, so I won't go into great detail about that. Basically, raise the car, unbolt the dogbone puck bolt, pull or cut out the old mount, and toss in the new mount (important: make sure it's oriented correctly when pressing in the new puck!).
The new mount can be a little tight fitting, so to get it in, I lubed it up with dish soap (do not use petroleum-based grease as it can degrade the urethane), and pushed it in by hand as far as I could (which was about 75% of the way in). Here is where you have a couple options to finish seating it. I went the route of using a "press", by way of using a small trolley jack with a hockey puck sized piece of rubber between the puck and the jackpad. With this method, it goes in the rest of the way with little effort. In place of the "hockey puck" buffer, an appropriately sized flat piece of wood should work fine. Another option could be to use a rubber mallet to punch it in, but with the car only on ramps, there was little room for me to get any good swings in.
Once the puck is seated, you will want to start threading the new bolt (supplied by Revo). Do this by hand at first to make sure it's not cross-threading. If you are unable to get the bolt to start threading, the engine can easily be moved by grabbing the transmission and moving it around by hand until it starts threading. You should then be able to use a ratchet to get it the rest of the way and torqued to 100nm, which translates to roughly 74 ft-lbs.
So far, the puck has held up fine. I will post an update if there are any issues with it ripping or otherwise failing.
NVH: This is very subjective for all of us. Some of us actually like and/or can tolerate a bit more NVH, but I don't consider myself in that camp. I am a few years older now, and am very much not fond of additonal NVH! Initially after the install, I was concerned because NVH went up quite noticeably. It would vibrate the steering wheel and pedals slightly. Also, the little idle hiccups which most of us have were exaggerated and much more pronounced. It was not so bad as to rattle the dash as some mounts can do, but it was certainly uncomfortable in my opinion.
I know from past experience that mounts like these generally settle in and the NVH subsides. Fortunately, this turned out to be the case as after a couple weeks and a few hundred miles, the NVH went down considerably. Don't get me wrong, it's not at stock levels of NVH, but the vibrations are minimal, and it is very livable for this picky old man. Now and again you will feel a little vibration through the steering wheel or through the seat, and you may feel the idle hiccups now and again, but it's not constant like after the initial installation.
I had previously increased my idle by 50 RPM (the limit of adjustments via OBD11 or VCDS), which does lower NVH some. I'm hoping Cobb eventually enables the option to increase idle speed so I can be rid of nearly all NVH.
Performance: While wheelhop is not eliminated, it is drastically reduced. Compared to the stock piece, it no longer feels like the front end is being blasted by a .50 caliber machine gun when giving it the beans through first gear. What wheelhop remains is mild, and is now more easily controlled with your right foot, or with either the stock or Cobb-enabled traction control. The power is MUCH more efficiently put to the ground. Another benefit is the shifts are noticeably crisper and more positive. From my experience, I can say the Revo mount noticeably outperforms the metal dogbone insert that I used on my old MK7 GTI, and performs similarly to the dogbone puck & pendulum arm kit that I previously had on my current GTI.
Value: DAP has these listed for $66, but are unfortunately backordered. From what I've seen, these are currently backordered at many places in the states (correct me if you're noticing otherwise). In any case, according to Revo this is temporary and more are already on the way and should begin showing up within the next couple weeks. At $66 (if this price holds once back in stock), the Revo puck is a much better choice over inserts as it performs much better for only about $25 more. Also worthy of note is that at this price, it is more than 4x cheaper compared to the other offerings which replace the pendulum arm, yet you get very similar performance.
To sum up, I am impressed with this mounts performance, and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for an upgrade over the stock piece. If it wasn't provided to me for free, I would definitely be happy to pay for it out of my own pocket!
My power mods are as follows: 1) AFE dry air filter with snowguard delete, 2) Golf R intercooler, and 3) Cobb Accessport with a 5150 Racing E40 custom tune. I also have a Sachs SRE clutch installed, along with stock sized Firestone Firehawk summer tires. I have yet to put it on the dyno, but would estimate 300whp or more with the E40 tune.
For some hard numbers, last week I went to the track for the first time in this car. It was a warmer night, around 85 degrees, with about a 15 mph headwind. My best of the night was 13.569 @ 106.27. Everyone was running quite slow, and as a comparison, a new Focus RS that I ran against multiple times would beat me by .1 to .2 seconds, but my trap speeds were always about 5 mph faster.
Installation was quite easy and took me around an hour taking my sweet time. There are a few tutorials here and on Youtube, so I won't go into great detail about that. Basically, raise the car, unbolt the dogbone puck bolt, pull or cut out the old mount, and toss in the new mount (important: make sure it's oriented correctly when pressing in the new puck!).
The new mount can be a little tight fitting, so to get it in, I lubed it up with dish soap (do not use petroleum-based grease as it can degrade the urethane), and pushed it in by hand as far as I could (which was about 75% of the way in). Here is where you have a couple options to finish seating it. I went the route of using a "press", by way of using a small trolley jack with a hockey puck sized piece of rubber between the puck and the jackpad. With this method, it goes in the rest of the way with little effort. In place of the "hockey puck" buffer, an appropriately sized flat piece of wood should work fine. Another option could be to use a rubber mallet to punch it in, but with the car only on ramps, there was little room for me to get any good swings in.
Once the puck is seated, you will want to start threading the new bolt (supplied by Revo). Do this by hand at first to make sure it's not cross-threading. If you are unable to get the bolt to start threading, the engine can easily be moved by grabbing the transmission and moving it around by hand until it starts threading. You should then be able to use a ratchet to get it the rest of the way and torqued to 100nm, which translates to roughly 74 ft-lbs.
So far, the puck has held up fine. I will post an update if there are any issues with it ripping or otherwise failing.
NVH: This is very subjective for all of us. Some of us actually like and/or can tolerate a bit more NVH, but I don't consider myself in that camp. I am a few years older now, and am very much not fond of additonal NVH! Initially after the install, I was concerned because NVH went up quite noticeably. It would vibrate the steering wheel and pedals slightly. Also, the little idle hiccups which most of us have were exaggerated and much more pronounced. It was not so bad as to rattle the dash as some mounts can do, but it was certainly uncomfortable in my opinion.
I know from past experience that mounts like these generally settle in and the NVH subsides. Fortunately, this turned out to be the case as after a couple weeks and a few hundred miles, the NVH went down considerably. Don't get me wrong, it's not at stock levels of NVH, but the vibrations are minimal, and it is very livable for this picky old man. Now and again you will feel a little vibration through the steering wheel or through the seat, and you may feel the idle hiccups now and again, but it's not constant like after the initial installation.
I had previously increased my idle by 50 RPM (the limit of adjustments via OBD11 or VCDS), which does lower NVH some. I'm hoping Cobb eventually enables the option to increase idle speed so I can be rid of nearly all NVH.
Performance: While wheelhop is not eliminated, it is drastically reduced. Compared to the stock piece, it no longer feels like the front end is being blasted by a .50 caliber machine gun when giving it the beans through first gear. What wheelhop remains is mild, and is now more easily controlled with your right foot, or with either the stock or Cobb-enabled traction control. The power is MUCH more efficiently put to the ground. Another benefit is the shifts are noticeably crisper and more positive. From my experience, I can say the Revo mount noticeably outperforms the metal dogbone insert that I used on my old MK7 GTI, and performs similarly to the dogbone puck & pendulum arm kit that I previously had on my current GTI.
Value: DAP has these listed for $66, but are unfortunately backordered. From what I've seen, these are currently backordered at many places in the states (correct me if you're noticing otherwise). In any case, according to Revo this is temporary and more are already on the way and should begin showing up within the next couple weeks. At $66 (if this price holds once back in stock), the Revo puck is a much better choice over inserts as it performs much better for only about $25 more. Also worthy of note is that at this price, it is more than 4x cheaper compared to the other offerings which replace the pendulum arm, yet you get very similar performance.
To sum up, I am impressed with this mounts performance, and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for an upgrade over the stock piece. If it wasn't provided to me for free, I would definitely be happy to pay for it out of my own pocket!
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