Pieisgood999 MK7 GTI PP

[Pieisgood999]

Hi everyone,
I just joined the forum today after looking at it for months with great interest. I've recently taken delivery of a golf gti, which is quite an upgrade on my old car! It's running in nicely and becoming a little looser slowly but surely so I'm hoping to improve it and personalise it over summer.

I suppose I should start off with what my opinions are after putting some miles on it and having a play with the user electronics.

First, the performance: My last car was a little city car, so this is obviously faster, although heavier too. I would have really liked the R or another car but this was the fastest I could get on my insurance due to my age. I'm planning on improving the performance significantly over time I have the manual car and haven't ever played with a turbo manual before, which took a while to get used to (the lag )

As for setup: I use sport for pretty much everything. The huge owners manual didn't really discuss what the settings did, so I'll share my thoughts on the subject. Having the performance pack, the LSD can be set on sport or normal. I like to go fast but on sport, there is horrible juddering as the wheels struggle for traction, especially when accelerating from rest, so I use the softer setting. The air-con I have set to non-eco because it does exactly the same job except cool/heat the car faster. The steering is sharper and heavier on sport which is fantastic!

The ACC: I love the ACC, although I see some people are having difficulties using it in moderation or finding that the car emergency brakes for no reason. Fortunately I haven't found this yet *touch wood*. On eco mode, the car will barely accelerate, so normal or sport mode is great for me. I really like how the system still works if you change gear.
I saw a post about changing the default settings for the car using VAG-COM: http://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2491.
I will be hoping to change the default distance to the car in front as it's simply too much as well as other tweaks. (I appreciate the designers have to err on the side of caution but come on)
Disclaimer: Not that I condone tailgating or anything!

The sound system: There have been some complaints about the bass of the sound system. I have the nav pro, but not the extra audio stuff (I think) For me, the bass is the only good bit about the audio. Treble and mid come out way too quiet and upping them on the equaliser so that the song sounds right results in the tweeters (or whatever they have for higher frequencies) struggling and crackling. This is both for DAB and my own music, although I am using bluetooth from my phone which I thought *might* impair the sound quality.

The project:
I want to make it faster. Quite a simple one really.
I've never had a car capable of much and I think this platform could allow for a lot of improvement. It feels super detuned and conservative. I want to rectify that!

Insurance permitting, I'm aiming to:

First things first, Improve the intake.
http://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2220&page=2
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?6874710-A-look-at-the-GTI-intake-(WTF-)
Looks simple and effective. Might make my own CAI scoop as the companies selling them seem to be changing £200+ for a glorified funnel!
After trial and error, I found the screws to be a weird Torx T25 screw.

Improve the ecu. (Considering waiting for the port flashes to become publicly available before deciding on port or piggy-back)
Potentially improve the turbo. (No news on a k04 equivalent for mk7s, but soon!)
Improve the exhaust. (Not boy racer, purely for performance and supporting other upgrades! The cost/gain isn't great though.)

I should mention I'm not really interested in the cosmetic side. So I'm not planning on visual changes. Of course I'll upload pics to share how I (tried to) improve the car!
I'm not going to lower it because I live in England UK and the streets are comparable to the craters on the surface on the moon. The handling's fine as it and I wouldn't want it much harsher.
I might change the wheels so I can get some fatter tyres on it if I need to!

To conclude, I'm really excited about this project and sharing it with you

 

[MidKnight7]

Welcome to the forum...looking forward to your upgrades...please post lots of pics

 

[.:KindiGTI]

Welcome to the forum. Enjoy your ride

Always good to see other mk7 GTI projects

 

[Drakon1]

Nice write up, good to hear you are enjoying your new GTI. Welcome aboard!

 

[Pieisgood999]

Update 1: Satnav (Attempt 1)

Hi guys,
I haven't been around the car much, so haven't had the time or money to do anything to it. Now I have all of summer for mods and fun
The first thing I noticed on the forum was that the map people had released an update and I wanted to put this on my car as all the speed limits around me have changed (for the worse unfortunately)
I hopped onto ebay and bought an SD card and downloaded all the data.
Having spent ages downloading 17Gigs of maps, I was looking forward to copying it onto my car. When I did, however, I was greeted with the message
Fantastic. It turns out the memory card was broken/a fake. So I have asked for a refund and will order a proper one from Amazon next week. Not the best start!
Elsewhere on the forum, people have been trying to use custom POIs to display speed camera locations on the map. I downloaded all the free databases I could find, and managed to get them onto my rubbish SD card. The following pics show the process.

If you notice, the screen shows that the map is a 2014 version, something I haven't seen anyone else has on the forum. I was wondering if my car already had the newer map on it, which could explain the error messages when trying to update. I highly doubt it though. What software and database numbers do you all have?

As I was about to give up and press the back button (just like when I tried to update the actual map), the system found the apparently missing data! I didn't touch anything, which I found to be extremely weird. I was greeted with , followed by.
Once the system restarted, I looked in the POI list and found my custom POIs .
Look, it works!

 

[Pieisgood999]

Hi guys, just an update: I have had a play with the navigation system, the intake and the soundaktor.
My soundaktor review is here: http://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?p=46328#post46328
Pics to follow

 

[Soulman B]

Pieisgood999, welcome to the forum. Picking my GTD up on the 01st sept and I will defo want the speed cameras programmed into my nav. I may tap you up for more info to the sites you used to obtain them. Great bit of home work done to achieve this info. Good luck with the upgrades but be careful when trying to improve your engine performance. I know of two (Younger lads) who tried to claim against small knocks and the insurance would not pay up ans they considered the car to be modified. I don't want to burst your bubble. Enjoy

 

[Pieisgood999]

I know, but my insurers seem to be ok as long as it's declared. The only issue is that they want to know the bhp post mods, which is pretty mega for stage 1 from apr :S
Especially because the original values are less than real life

 

[Dogger71]

I like the Speed Camera's - do they have that option to install here in the US??

 

[TerryReis]

Pieisgood999, welcome to the forum. Picking my GTD up on the 01st sept and I will defo want the speed cameras programmed into my nav. I may tap you up for more info to the sites you used to obtain them. Great bit of home work done to achieve this info. Enjoy

I have a new GTi coming in October (hopefully) would also be interested where you got these POI's from.

Cheers,

Terry

 

[Pieisgood999]

Hi Terry. Just google free poi speed cameras will get you some databases if you look past the pay per use sites.
POIplaza is a good one.
Dogger (not gonna ask about the name!) They have US ones. I don't know how far the discover pro map loads for (Just europe I guess on mine) but I installed worldwide speed cameras and it's not a problem.
I got hold of a proper sd card and updated the map to the latest version. It hasn't corrected ANY of the errors by me so not too impressed.
As I said on the soundaktor thread, I removed it and the improvement in refinement is huge!
It has been a while since I updated my build thread (mainly because I've done nothing) I took some useless bits of the airbox off and am looking at improving it further before getting a cai (Probably looking at aprs when they next have a sale on!)
This is an interesting read about how the stock intake works and could be improved (or not!)
Also, I'm very excited to get a revo tune tomorrow morning! Will update you all soon Going to play with their vag comm software to change some minor things which annoy me!
Also looking at getting a custom exhaust next month.

 

[TerryReis]

Hi Terry. Just google free poi speed cameras will get you some databases if you look past the pay per use sites.
POIplaza is a good one.

Thanks for the info.

Cheers,

Terry

 

[Pieisgood999]

Update 2: Major changes

So, I got my Revo stage 1 yesterday
The kinda gives away what I think of it!

Analysis: The top lines of each run were the first runs before everything got a bit too hot! The weather was damp and coolish ~ 15C here in the UK. I had the 98 map put on (revo option 2) as that's the fuel I always use.
As you can see, impressive lines for both bhp and torque throughout the rev range. It's interesting that the horsepower doesn't flatten off as the revs go over 5000rpm with the tune.
The standard map has a weird dip at just under 4000 revs, which I hadn't really noticed. I'm putting it down to the surge you get as you go over 3k. The mechanic reckoned it's a sneaky way to improve the emissions recorded from the certification tests, which sounds plausible to me.
The boost pressure in the turbo goes from 1 bar to 1.45 bar, which partially causes the gains, although the timing is brought forward and I'm sure there's other tweaks too. Weirdly, the power delivery is smoother and I feel much less lag with the Revo tune. Feels almost as good as N/A I would recommend getting the Revo tune to anyone running stock, even if you think the standard GTI has enough power. I think drivability is improved, not what I expected at all in all honesty.

While I was at the shop, I had a few vcds tweaks done.
They're all simple to implement and took effect instantly apart from the one changing the amount of indicator blinks when the stalk is flicked up or down. It was changed from 3 to 5 on the ecu, but in order for the car to start flashing 5 times, you have to go: setup, vehicle, factory settings, reset light settings. This then pulls the data from the ecu (where it's been changed) and stores the new value in the location that the indicator references from.

The guy in the workshop said the car will easily pull 300hp+ once the airflow in and out is improved, so that's next on the to-do list
Obviously the downpipe is stupidly restrictive, I think to make the car less peaky for gentle running so that's gotta be fixed!
The intake is a simple fix too. I still haven't cut the slits to allow more airflow from the grille into the intake location, but will show you as and when I get access to the tools to make a proper job of it (mirror the left hand side to keep OEM look), unlike the hacked about bits I've linked to on another forum in a previous post. As well as that, I'll want a new intake system.
APRs one looks awesome but is too much money really for what it is might either wait for their next sale
OR
CTS do an intake and a downpipe. The intake looks a bit homemade and although it's expensive for what is essentially a pod filter and a pipe, both products are reasonably priced because of the $ strength (or lack of!)
The downside of CTS is their shipping costs to uk, their lack of stock atm and the customer service guy I'm directing questions to is a complete idiot. Suppose that's what you get for trying to save money need to decide if it's worth the risk or not!

Please feel free to comment or ask any questions

 

[GoTime1]

Nice power dude. I would love it if someone loaded APR and revo on their cars to compare. Revo power delivery is usually quite linear like your graph shows. I had it on my ST. Enjoyed their tune. Congrats


Sent from my explosive space modulator

 

[Pieisgood999]

Someone on the forum said they were going to do a straight comparison this weekend. Not sure where, but have a root around and you'll find it. I think maybe it was Midnight or Kindi?
Wish they'd say exactly what they do to the cycle to get the extra horses :/
I phoned their HQ at daventry and had a lengthy chap with one of the devs there and he said lots of interesting things about their testing and that there will be more revo parts on the way to compliment their stage 2... I can't wait!