Boosting on a Budget- 19birel's MK7.5 Build

[19birel]

A couple quick shots with my real camera. I'm starting to think perhaps a 5mm spacer at the rear could be the icing on the cake stance wise. I have some in a box somewhere, wrong centerbore but they'll work for a quick mock up. Until then, enjoy!

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[Daks]

Looks great.

 

[19birel]

So I got the car aligned Sunday afternoon and took it for its first spirited drive since the suspension install. Wow, what a difference! Turn-in feels very sharp and has a sense of urgency not present before and mid-corner it loads up and grips nicely. Characteristics I attribute to the 034 Camster plates. The Konis iron out road imperfections well at speed and the stiffer springs have a notable impact on reducing weight transfer. Over larger compressions in the road you definetly notice the extra spring stiffness as there's far less vertical travel, but the car still remains composed. That said, at the track I suspect I'll need to watch my curb usage a bit. Overall I'm chuffed with the result!

I also decided to test fit some 5mm spacers I had laying around; wrong centerbore but enough for a static mockup

Before left After right


After left Before right
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I think I'm going to order a set that actually fits because I dig the look, along with a wheel stud kit. Not a huge fan of studs, but I don't want to have to carry and extra set of bolts in the event I need to remove the spacers at the track.

Lastly, I order an eBay lip kit that showed up today. The kit consisted of a splitter, side splitters, and rear diffuser spats all for just $70. I figured they'd be pretty cheap but maybe with some work they could look nice....yeah I played myself. The skirts were too long, the rear spats not even remotely close to fitting, and the front lip appeared to be the only thing that could potentially attach to the car. Fine except it still didn't look too hot

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The picture actually make it look a little better believe it or not, but the lip is a write-off too. Looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet on a Maxton or Aerofab kit, I just hate to spend that much for non-functional bits of plastic

 

[19birel]

Was going to wait until I had nice pics of the car for this post, but oh well. I finally got the windows re-tinted, went with Xpel Nanoceramic 30% which seems pretty close to what the car originally had in terms of darkness. If you're in the PGH area, Blackout Tinting does great work!

Apparently I made it in the shop's weekly vlog too haha


Some eye candy they had in their showroom


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One note, I left the original tint on the rear window because I was concerned about destroying my defroster. Blackout told me that even if they removed it, I would still likely lose the defroster. Since there was nothing wrong with the tint on the rear window I left it alone.

Thrilled with how the car looks now. Needs a lip and skirts still, probably going to buy a sheet of ABS and make my own. Then I need to go back and put the finishing touches on the tune before making my next steps on the power front.

 

[PowerDemon]

Looks good. I love those wheels

 

[19birel]

Looks good. I love those wheels

Thanks man! Everyone and their mother seems to have them, but I suppose it's for good reason haha

Got the car realigned this weekend, the first time they didn't the wheel was a little crooked and I finally had the chance to take it back. I also installed a windshield banner, was unsure if I should've gotten a plain black one instead but was going to run it for a while and decide

But the banner apparently had other plans as it left the chat pretty quickly



I should've given it a day or two to really dry out and adhere, I thought it was fine after an hour or so, clearly not lol​

Going to try and get some logging/tuning in this week, weather pending, and I have another splitter on the way. It's for an entirely different car but based on the limited info I could find there's a good chance I can make it work

 

[19birel]

So the splitter, I was playing Need For Speed Heat the other night (bare with me lol) and one of the generic "Need For Speed" brand splitter styles you can put on every car caught my eye. I quickly recognized is as being an interpretation of the Rocket Bunny V1.0 splitter for the Scion FRS/GT86, and some quick research on a Toyota forum suggested that the FRS bumper was slightly wider than that of the GTI meaning there was a chance that it might fit. I hopped back on Need For Speed and put the splitter on a GTI in-game and liked the look so I went for it.

Cheap $100 Polyurethane rocket bunny v1.0 from "Magic Drift" on ebay arrived beautifully packaged




Now I quickly discovered that the guy on the Toyota forum doesn't know how to use a tape measure because the the splitter was too narrow for the GTI bumper. Nothing that an angle grinder and some well placed relief cuts can't fix.


Like a Glove


Paint matched it to White Silver Metallic


Installed!

Kinda funny, I installed the splitter with the car on ramps but with the splitter it's now too low for said ramps. I had to grab the jack and pull the ramps out from underneath the car, I appear to have pulled one of the screws out so I'll fix that tonight, but overall I'm amped. Might grab some ABS this weekend and do some side splitters to finish off the exterior.

Also, while the bumper was off I relocated my ambient temp sensor. At the track I was getting really implausible readings from it (was maybe 80degrees and the car was indicating 100+) because the new intercooler relocates the sensor completely out of the path of any air flow. The car started acting funny too, unfortunately I didn't log it, but I had a suspicion this may have contributed to that issue.

location with twintercooler


Relocated onto the original bracket with was bent out of the way to accommodate the fmic. Not getting direct airflow but I think this is plenty adequate now
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[19birel]

Washed the car last night and took some pics before work today! I've already scraped a few times, not used to being lip low haha

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[19birel]

Ahhh I had no idea how troublesome this darn splitter would be. So in the above pics it's attached with some self tappers, and the fitment left some to be desired and the ones on the driverside would only hold on for a few days at a time. Solution? Real nuts and bolts, but one drive in and out of the city (did a bit of highway) and the nuts ripped through the oem valence.

I didn't remember scraping it on anything, but figured it was my dumb fault for not using washers, so I added washers.



Then on my way to work over ~75mph I hear a violent flapping noise, I'm thinking how tf did it rip off again? I get to work and it didn't. Apparently the splitter is attempting to generate downforce and the bumper isn't rigid enough to handle it causing the whole bumper to flop around now at speed now that the splitter is 100% secure. One thing to note is that my lower grill piece is broken and has been since I got the car.


I figured that with this broken that's where I'm losing the rigidity, so to test this theory before ordering an new bumper grill I pulled the bumper off, drilled a hole though the already busted piece and bolted a piece of wood in place.




I figure if that fixes the problem I just need to order a new grill and job done. Well I went out for a test run, and 75mph was fine, so since the DA was low and I had my Dragy I decided to log a 60-130 and at about 110 the violent shaking returned. I pulled over to find this
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So now I'm a little bit at a loss, because I'll be pissed if I put in a new lower grill only for the splitter to break it. Granted my test with the wood had one singular mounting point, distributing the force across more of that section should have yielded a better result. I think I'll have one more go with two mounting points this time with the wood, and if it fails I'll get a new lower grill and ditch the splitter. Shame because I love how it looks, but I've had the bumper off 3 times this week and I'm losing patience

Side bar- was so close on finally wrapping up a deal on a low mileage Littco L500 this week, but when the seller sent me some extra pics I requested I quickly determined that while it was an IS38 hybrid of some sort, it wasn't an L500. My guess is that it's some no name ebay/aliexpress turbo based on the lack of branding. Should probably make a move on something soon though while it's still nice enough to wrench outside.

EDIT: I just took the damn thing off- its made the past couple weeks with this car a royal pain, and the bumper is starting to deform so for now i'm done with it. Maybe I'll revisit at another point...or just get an Aerofab. Gonna order a new grill monday so she's looking right

 

[19birel]

So today I ordered a new lower bumper grill, should be here wednesday and eliminate the small amount of deformation caused by my splitter experiment.

I ALSO FINALLY ORDERED A TURBO! Now after researching for over a year since even before I bought the car I felt pretty confident that for me, the best bet was the APR DTR6054. Now before you start booing and throwing beer cans, allow me to explain my thought process which was a mix of cost and performance goals (on 93 octane).

So in the end I was between 3 turbos, OE IS38+, APR DTR, and EQT Vortex Standard. Long story short I determined that 400whp was enough to make this thing feel properly fast. An Is38 needs E85 to get there, and while it would still be fast ~360whp or so on 93octane, a ride in a stage 2 Golf R left a little to be desired for me in terms of how fast it felt. Maybe it was DSG & 4mo making things no drama, but I was afraid to go that route and be disappointed with no route to go. The Vortex is obviously great, but it was looking like it would cost me about $1k more than the DTR to get started (hpfp is required with that turbo according to EQT) which was a hard pill to swallow when, for the same cost as the OE IS38, the DTR could make the power I wanted with room on the table for fueling upgrades and a dp if I decided I wanted a little more juice down the road. Keep in mind, I don't want to build an engine so much past 450whp wouldn't be in the cards for me irrespective of turbo. Also I was able to purchase the DTR through FCP Euro, so lifetime warranty!

Excited to finally take a big step toward making some power!

And for those wondering how this setup is going to do on track with temps, I plan to run a lower boost map to try and manage that the best I can. My track map will probably make a decent bit less power, but hopefully run much cooler.

 

[19birel]

Came home to find this on my doorstep


Lets goooo




Now to find some time to toss this thing in!​

 

[19birel]

By now i was hoping to have the turbo installed, but I've been trying to adult and that has gotten in the way lately between home renovations and making a career pivot. Luckily the fruits of the latter mean I no longer work weekends, so more time for track days next season! Anyways here is the little bit that I have been able to get done.

First, the bumper grill


Installed, no more looking like it had a pouty lower lip haha


Then I rectified an issue created by the tint shop, It looked like they pryed the top of my door cards back to tuck the tint, and didn't correction reinstall, so I had gaps between the panel and the door and the red LED for the alarm had fallen into the door. I'm sure they would've rectified this had I brought it up, but I noticed a few weeks later and wasn't willing to drive 50minutes each way and wait around in their showroom for them to mess with it. Easy fix, and now I know it's right. Just had to pop the door cards off and reseat

I have no good pics of that so here's a pic of my new OEM Audi 12volt socket plug lmao


I'm off this week before starting my new gig, so the plan is a quick jaunt to Vermont tomorrow (taking the Audi for this trip) and then when I return later this week tackle the turbo install over a couple days.

 

[19birel]

So got the GTI inspected, and naturally it failed to tyres so I swapped the Pretorias back on as they'll be receiving the new rubber for winter. Going with either Firehawk Indy 500s or Michelin PS4- since I won't be driving it in the snow these can double as my wet weather track tyre next year and allow me to put something more aggressive on the Apexes.

Thankful for nice OEM wheels haha


Not thankful for weak fitment though


Anyways, the update that you really wanted to hear about is that I started on the turbo install this weekend. I followed APR's PDF which kinda sucks, it leaves out a few steps, some small like removing the turbo inlet elbow some bigger like disconnecting the downpipe. Not a huge deal but it's annoying when you're thinking "surely that needs to come off now" and then you see it's already removed in the pictures and they just failed to mention it lol

Obligatory coolant spill haha


Didn't really get to work on it yesterday, but I'm hung up on the infamous oil feed. My M8 socket is too big to fit under the turbo to pull it off, someone suggested using a T40 bit and I was able to get that seated on the bolt using a modified slim ratchet. However, it didn't feel like it was seated firmly enough to break it loose and I didn't want to risk stripping it so waiting for some triple square bits to arrive tomorrow to have another go. Once I get that off the is20 will come right out!

 

[Diggs24]

Why wouldn't you follow meltedsolids turbo swap writeup? It's fantastic.

 

[19birel]

Why wouldn't you follow meltedsolids turbo swap writeup? It's fantastic.

I hadn't stumbled across that in my google/youtubing, but I'll check it out!