Building Otto

[Ezekiel81923]

Got the Boomba short shifter installed today too. Throw is now short. Very short.

Not super sold on the fitment, but it's screwed down tight. When it came packaged from Boomba the bottom and top plates were screwed together and they fit tight/flush. In the same orientation on the car (around the stock shifter arm) they do not end up tight/flush. There is a finger nail gap between the two which you can kinda see in the photo. It only goes on one way, and like it I said, it's tight, but I feel like the back plate should be routed differently so that they screw down flush to each other.

Rowed the gears a few times and suddenly Neutral is tough to find! It just slips from gear to gear effortlessly.

When I take the air box out again to do my intake in a month or two I'll double check the screws to make sure they have stayed tight.

EDIT: Took it for a spin, feels real good. Just need to get used to how short it is now haha

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Purchased an OBDEleven NextGen Pro and a Cobb AP

 

[Ezekiel81923]

OBDEleven and AP have been in for a while. Been mostly fiddling with the OBDEleven and making some changes with that (see OP).

Been also doing more reading. I think my power goal is going to be to stretch the is20 as much as I can and probably leave it at that. It's not my only car but it will be responsible for 95% of the driving I do and a daily 93 tune with either an E30 or full E85 tune (with requisite hpfp upgrade) should land me in the 330-50whp range and around 400wtq which seems like a good stopping point for a stock block that I would prefer lasted me a while. That should be plenty of fun for a car I don't plan to track or race legitimately. I MIGHT upgrade to a hybrid down the road but I don't want the headache or expense of all the fueling upgrades required to crest 400whp so that'd merely be to run a turbo that isn't breathing fire at WOT.

The AP mount I purchased came in yesterday, I'm going to find it a home and wire up the AP in a clean, semi-permanent fashion and then do some baseline datalogging. Signed up for datazap so I can drop some charts and graphs in here so we can see the whole progression of things.

IE open intake isn't due to ship until 11/9, I'll probably get a FMIC and probably even my DP on order by then so we'll have all sorts of things to install in about a month.

Guess I'm in this build thread for the long haul.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Not ready to flash yet, but she's mounted. Like the spot, hope the suction cup lasts. Sorry for the lightint, garage lights were on but my windows are really dark.

ECS should be delivering my tommy bar and replacement bolts for the rear trans mount soon. If they come by the weekend we'll get the Powerflex hybrid installed and I'll get the 10mm (front) and 15mm (rear) spacers I inherited mounted and see how the stock wheels look pushed out a bit.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Threw on some ECS spacers to see how good we could make the stock wheels look.

I inherited these from a friend. I'm not sure if they were from his S3 or his brothers A4 but they are 10mm in the front and 17.5mm in the rear. Not quite the same as the GTI flush kit but pretty close. They look a lot better. Definitely need to get it lowered now.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Been a while...

Parts are piling up and I have not been doing anything. So I fixed some of that tonight.

Got my Integrated Engineering turbo inlet pipe and V2 open intake installed. Took longer than expected and it was not without it's hiccups but she's in there.

Disassembly and removal of the old hardware was pretty straightforward and uneventful until it came time to remove the stock turbo inlet and breather hose. The directions want you to pull the coil pack harness, coil pack 1 and basically completely remove the breather hose but I've read that the breather hose can be disconnected from the TIP once the TIP is removed, so I went that route. Well, that breather is on there tight and I managed to break the plastic arm off the stock TIP and the notch in the breather hose connection my pick was in. Nothing to fret about I suppose but not ideal for some people. The damage to the breather hose connection was minimal and it connected and sealed perfectly fine to the new TIP.

Fitment of the intake was fine. Have read some people who didn't think it was perfect and I think that might just boil down to getting all of the silicone hoses and the long metal elbow all lined up right. They're hard to adjust and it's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle but with some patience you can get it lined up fine. And that proves to be rather important because the hard elbow will rub a hard line if not aligned properly. I snapped a picture of how much clearance you should have. Earlier on in the process it was rubbing (note the scratches). The heat shield installs in place of the stock air dam, behind the grille. It only uses one of the two stock mounting points though, the far side on the passengers side of the car. Would've been nice if it somehow got secured on both ends.

No coolant leaks from the replacement hose, no air leaks from anywhere that I can feel. Lost some tools but they came bouncing out on my test drive so I'll go find those tomorrow in the daylight I guess.

Side note: This was the first time working under the new garage lights since I put them in. They are plenty bright and after 2hrs I wasn't dealing with any headaches or anything which was nice. They were cheap amazon LED lights so I'm impressed.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Quick vid of me short shifting 2nd and 3rd to make some noise.

Window is down but it's still very noticeable with the windows closed.

http://imgur.com/a/Jf2Hyox

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Was bored enough that I decided today, one of the coldest days of the year, would be a good time to roll around on the ground and install my Powerflex Hybrid dogbone puck.

I went with the "Race" model, which is the stiffest hybrid mount they offer at 95 duro. They say it is 80% stiffer than stock.

I really psyched myself out for this one, reading and watching too many how-to's and horror stories, but I found it to be very easy once I got going. I wanted to keep the car fairly level so as to keep everything aligned as best I could. I put all 4 corners up on stands with the front being a little higher than the back so I could fit comfortably underneath. My refusal to move some tools and my jeep out of the way meant this would take a little longer than it should. I was also very anal about stand placement and making sure everything sat flat on the ground.

I guessed I had the "B" rear lower puck based on my car being a 2019, so I purchased the appropriate hybrid puck and then verified once the car was in the air that I had the right one. I also had 3 new bolts for the dogbone.

Breaking the old bolts off was easy enough, then I used a jigsaw to cut two slits in the stock puck and a flathead to pop that small piece out. Once done, the whole thing falls right out with any pressure from the flathead. I made sure the upper pock wasn't harmed or move at all before lubing the shit out of the Powerflex puck before install. I lubed each prong of the upper insert portion all the way around as well as most of the lower puck replacement portion. I had it lined up perfectly and it slipped right in. The last 1/3 took more muscle but I got it seated all the way by hand. The rear bolt through the puck went right in since everything stayed put and I just had to nudge the oil pan a bit by hand to slide the engine towards the rear every so slightly to get the two front bolts to align. No pry bar required. Torqued the rear bolt to 75ft/lb and the front two to 37ft/lb before giving everything a final 1/4 turn with the breaker bar. Once the car was in the air, install took about 25 minutes.

I'm not as averse to NVH as a lot of people methinks, so I wasn't worried about going with a heavier duro mount. Initial start up was noticeably louder with more vibes, but it immediately felt like the car was more solid. Reverse was also pretty loud with the same amount of vibration as I felt at startup. Driving, there is a sort of boomy resonance in the cabin with light to moderate nvh under 2k rpm but above 2k rpm the resonance mostly goes away and the vibrations aren't nearly as noticeable. I didn't notice a huge difference from stock when idling at a stop sign, and I ran the A/C for a minute while stopped and that didn't make a big difference either. Seems like reverse and low rpm's will be what breaks people with this mount. I didn't get the car fully warmed up so I didn't hoon it but the shifts were butter. I have the boomba short shifter and the duo feel great. I'm sure it will break in some after a couple hundred miles (which will take me a month or more to do) so I can report back about any changes later.

I had a solid rear dogbone / mount in my Mazdaspeed3 and this feels very similar. More solid, a little more NVH, but very similar. I love it. Can't wait for my girlfriend to try it out.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

So just a small update to the build plan. Had to be honest with myself and also draw a line somewhere since longevity / reliability is still fairly important to me. I want this car to last at least 6 years.

I think I'm going to stick to stock fueling. No fuel pump / fuel pump internals and no E since it's so sparse around here. I will put that money towards a different DP and I think that will be the catted 4" Trackslag.

I'm also going to go HPA OEM+ is38.

If I max out fueling before I max out the turbo I'll revisit adding an HPA fuel pump. Don't think I'll have to worry about that though.

A new clutch will have to be factored in at some point. I'll go ACT if they are available whenever mine starts to fail.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Made a couple of purchases, all came in this week..

H&R 26mm RSB
Moog Endlinks

Will get installed once the hardware comes in. I purchased all new hardware for the bar and links to cover my bases. That is expected to arrive Saturday but the weather might have something to say about that.

Also picked up wheels and tires from someone on FB marketplace, got them today.

Konig Rennforms 18x8 +45 on Federal 595 RS-R's 235/40/18. Tires were not my first choice but they only have two track events on them so I'm sure I could get at least a summer out of them. Wheels are mint and ceramic coated. For the price I couldn't say no.

Will try to get some Bilstein's and springs installed before mounting the wheels. Need hub rings and different spacers too.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Purchased the Stern rear subframe brace and Eurosport upper stress bar today.

Will get the subframe brace installed whenever it arrives. Eurosport bar will go one when I purchase my B8's and H&R springs and install those, which apparently I'm putting off by purchasing additional suspension/bracing parts.

Plan for the weekend is to get the H&R RSB and Moog endlinks installed and if my brother shows up I'll get my Baun Performance FMIC installed as well. Fingers crossed for lots of pics.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Installed the H&R 26mm RSB and Moog end links today.

My neighbor had a grease gun so I installed the end links to the bar, torqued them down, and greased the end links inside while it warmed up outside. I've never greased anything before, I know grease went in, but one boot started to balloon a good amount when the old / factory grease didn't flow out. It didn't dislodge itself / pop / break / whatever so we went with it. I used less grease on the other link. Oh, and 55nm isn't easy on the living room floor.

It took about 2 hours to get the old bar out and the new bar in using jack stands, which I feel like is longer than it should've been. I dropped the rear of the exhaust to make my life easier but I didn't have the clamps and bushings in the right spots when I first went to install it, I was having a more difficult time than expected getting everything lined up. I pulled it back out, popped the clamps off, re-positioned everything using the old bar as a guide and put it back together. Going in the second time I got the endlinks in place and the bolt through the control arm first, then jimmied the clamps and bar in place to get everything else sured up. The rest was just torquing everything down.

Ran some errands after I got the car on the ground and didn't have any weird clunking or noises so I guess I got it fitted correctly. The rear end is definitely more lively, you can feel it coming around more than before. Steering is definitely more neutral if not even a little oversteer bias now. Definitely a worthwhile mod if you've ever taken a turn quicker than the average driver. No qualms here!

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Figured while I was at it I should install my Rennwagen rear spoiler extension.

Nice and easy, just uses some very adhesive 3M tape. I was not as careful as I could've been so it's slightly off-center but you can't tell from 3 feet away.

 

[PowerDemon]

Glad you see you picked the superior version of the two! What did you think of the build quality? I am hoping to pick one up soon.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Glad you see you picked the superior version of the two! What did you think of the build quality? I am hoping to pick one up soon.

It's great. Install is super easy and it lined up perfect. I didn't personally line it up perfect but when test fitting everything aligned just right. The finish is great too. I would not hesitate to pick one up if I were you.

Looks are subjective I suppose but I think it looks perfect. I was hesitant to drill anything into my OEM spoiler but apprehensive about just relying on adhesive but fewer than 3hrs after installing it I went for a couple of drives and it's still there.