LOL that was my first thought as well. Rogue drivers are the worst!
7
Pineapple's Express 2.0: Dude Where's My Car?
- Thread starter Pineapple
- Start date
LOL that was my first thought as well. Rogue drivers are the worst!
BigLips19
Ready to race!
- Location
- Almost Milford, MA
- Car(s)
- '19 GTI SE 6MT
So sorry for your loss, I took that same exit countless times when I lived in Watertown in off-peak hours and hated every second of it. Love the new ride though, that color and those wheels is
@Pineapple still going to MetroRock? Saw a night blue the other day that I hadn’t seen before.
Pineapple
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Boston, MA
- Car(s)
- 2017 Golf GTI S
Wasn't me
ourlee
Drag Racing Champion
- Location
- 3085 Pampas Streat
- Car(s)
- 17 TT 17 GTI S
Wish you well! Enjoy. Rick
Pineapple
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Boston, MA
- Car(s)
- 2017 Golf GTI S
Merry Christmas everyone, while everybody's digesting and relaxing I figured I'd go write up the thoughts that have been bouncing around my head and notepad.
I've had almost a month of daily-ing and a couple longer trips to assess the state of the car, how I feel about things, and where I want to go with it. I think I've put about 1700 miles on in that time. I'll probably meander a lot here with excessive numbers of paragraphs while I collect my thoughts. Feel free to read along, correct me, suggest to me, or just thumbs up that you were here.
To start, let me sum up the mods that I was told were done:
UM tune, most likely stage 2.
Southbend daily clutch, likely stage 3
Eibach springs, likely pro kit
Flowone f1 wheels, likely 18x9
Magnaflow exhaust, likely catback
I appreciate the tasteful mod list, however the only one that I consider actually getting me ahead on my list is the clutch. Glad that's there, although a part of me wishes a wavetrac or quafe went in at the same time. Previous owner said he got it installed in prep for an is38. I didn't really desire going to stage 2 power on my
old car really. Expected to go stage 1 then jump to stage 3 when I wanted bigger turbo. The exhaust is probably not the choice I would have made, thankfully tasteful in noise level but has significant drone/resonance at 1.8k-2k depending on the day. Which is right around where I cruise, so I hear it a lot. Quiets up above that, until the power gets going at 3k. Stock downpipe so nothing too dramatic, but when/if I go upgraded DP I might consider swapping to something more elegant. I would say it's nice to have, just not 100% my taste.
The UM tune is another nice-to-have, not 100% my taste mods. I assume it's off the shelf stage 2 to match the exhaust. No carryover to new owner, and no accessport so it'll stay as-is till I get started on my own tuning journey. Being handy with coding and so forth, I'm interested in learning the in-and-outs and doing my own tuning. In the meanwhile, I'm happy enough with the tune. It comes with burbles, which was unexpected and kind of a guilty pleasure. Feels artificial in execution, but along with the exhaust makes downshifting a lot more exciting than my old setup.
The lowering springs and wheels combo looks really nice, and while I didn't feel bad about my old car looking very much stock I definitely prefer the new look. I like the wide tires and I've gotten compliments on the fitment from car people. Good enough for me, and I don't intend on changing much there. Although I will probably put on the winter setup once snow season starts (if it happens this year).
So that is the state of the mods in review.
I've had almost a month of daily-ing and a couple longer trips to assess the state of the car, how I feel about things, and where I want to go with it. I think I've put about 1700 miles on in that time. I'll probably meander a lot here with excessive numbers of paragraphs while I collect my thoughts. Feel free to read along, correct me, suggest to me, or just thumbs up that you were here.
To start, let me sum up the mods that I was told were done:
UM tune, most likely stage 2.
Southbend daily clutch, likely stage 3
Eibach springs, likely pro kit
Flowone f1 wheels, likely 18x9
Magnaflow exhaust, likely catback
I appreciate the tasteful mod list, however the only one that I consider actually getting me ahead on my list is the clutch. Glad that's there, although a part of me wishes a wavetrac or quafe went in at the same time. Previous owner said he got it installed in prep for an is38. I didn't really desire going to stage 2 power on my
old car really. Expected to go stage 1 then jump to stage 3 when I wanted bigger turbo. The exhaust is probably not the choice I would have made, thankfully tasteful in noise level but has significant drone/resonance at 1.8k-2k depending on the day. Which is right around where I cruise, so I hear it a lot. Quiets up above that, until the power gets going at 3k. Stock downpipe so nothing too dramatic, but when/if I go upgraded DP I might consider swapping to something more elegant. I would say it's nice to have, just not 100% my taste.
The UM tune is another nice-to-have, not 100% my taste mods. I assume it's off the shelf stage 2 to match the exhaust. No carryover to new owner, and no accessport so it'll stay as-is till I get started on my own tuning journey. Being handy with coding and so forth, I'm interested in learning the in-and-outs and doing my own tuning. In the meanwhile, I'm happy enough with the tune. It comes with burbles, which was unexpected and kind of a guilty pleasure. Feels artificial in execution, but along with the exhaust makes downshifting a lot more exciting than my old setup.
The lowering springs and wheels combo looks really nice, and while I didn't feel bad about my old car looking very much stock I definitely prefer the new look. I like the wide tires and I've gotten compliments on the fitment from car people. Good enough for me, and I don't intend on changing much there. Although I will probably put on the winter setup once snow season starts (if it happens this year).
So that is the state of the mods in review.
Pineapple
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Boston, MA
- Car(s)
- 2017 Golf GTI S
Here's my thoughts on upgrades-to-do
Drivetrain bushings: The one thing that's been actually bothering me, and is my first corrective action, is to address what I call the "rubber-banding". It was the same problem in my old car, and was at the top of my things-to-do list. I believe it's the drivetrain bushings being completely worn out. The symptoms are summed up as excessive forward-back movement under changing forces. Annoying and imprecise weight transfer while shifting, necessitating very slow and smooth movements allowing the car to settle between changes, or fast shifting to prevent the weight from shifting much at all. Also frustrating and hard to mitigate is a ping-ponging effect under light engine loads on a slight grade. The opposing forces can't dominate each other and instead the weight shifts back and forth. Happens every time I leave the work parking lot and the street I live on. Solution is aftermarket bushings, and potentially mounts. The forum wisdom has mentioned Black Forest Industries, so I'm thinking about getting the full kit, bushings mounts and dogbone included. The ~700 price tag is definitely holding me back, although I think it's a quality purchase for stage 2 power needs. I know I could get the bushings and skip the billet mounts, but I believe in doing it right the first time and I'm feeling decision paralysis.
6MT: Similarly, another annoying impreciseness is felt at the shifter. Same problem and feel from my first car, this topic has been discussed at length here in the forums. I'm not really sure what I need to get the feel I want. To be honest I like the stock shifter and throw, I like the full arm extension pushing it into 5th and turning my hand to pull it into 6th. But going into 1st and 2nd generally feels like crap and I really want to feel some precision. Advice appreciated.
Pedals: Speaking of shifting difficulties. Something that I was just starting to feel with my old car is the difficulty of pedal reach for heel-toe. I developed my technique this year on AC, and while it took some learning I feel pretty comfy on my sim. I honed my technique a lot on the sim during the interim car period where I had no outlet for driving engagement in real life. The car feels almost impossible to blip, and not in the way that it felt overwhelming at first with the sim pedals. I'm not sure if it's a seat position thing, but my feet rest too heavily on the floor to get on top of the pedals, and I feel like to be able to have a chance at blipping throttle I'd need brakes at 50% depressed or more. I've seen some pedal extensions, but honestly it feels less like distance between pedals issue and more like pedal depth is the issue. Would very much appreciate advice here.
Those three things feel like must-fix livability issues. Looking forward, my desired mod list focuses on cosmetics/quality of life, reliability, suspension, and lastly power.
Cosmetics: Like I said previously, I was happy with the stock look of my old car and resisted the idea that it wasn't modern enough with its normie wheel gap, stock wheels, and poverty lighting pack. In fact I liked the idea of blending in with the sea of stock golfs, alltracks, and gtis on the Boston area roads. Now that I already have some enhanced looks, I'd like to improve it with some oem+ looks.
My interest mainly lies with headlight/taillight combo upgrades, as well as lip/splitter/skirts/diffusers to enhance the lower lines of the body. To be honest I don't really feel the need for ultrabright headlights, so the output of the poverty lamps doesn't upset me or fill me with envy. In fact I detest late-model Toyotas with their diffuse blinding LEDs. I've read through the threads and while Osrams, expensive as they are, seem like the only good aftermarket headlight upgrade option, the lack of orange side reflectors will probably fail safety inspection around here. The reps that have side reflectors are garbage for light output, I've read. I've gotten dinged for license plate centering, and rear license lights before so I have to expect they'll notice the headlights. Previous owner had reps in but had to remove to pass DE inspection. Please give advice lol
As far as "aero" additions, I'm interested in Rennwagen parts. Seems easy enough to bolt on, good looks.
Additional cosmetic/drivability interests include anti-glare mirrors, aspherical mirrors, and yellow fogs.
Looking to other things, I'm pretty sure the car has a stock intercooler. To be honest I get little opportunities to open the throttle wide, with the amount of police crawling over the city area at all hours. But it feels wrong to be on upgraded power with the stock IC.
I was intending on getting a STH-legal suspension setup, but after reading some in-depth analysis on the stock suspension and the designed understeer, I'm feeling far less inclined to just follow the autocross wisdom on suspension setups. I don't think I'll take this car to a track, nor aim to be competitive in autox, so I'm planning on leaving the car stock until I understand the intricacies of suspension and alignment, and know what I actually will benefit from.
I'm considering going is38, but to be honest power doesn't seem particularly attractive given the limits of shenanigans on local roads. And realistically, given my philosophy of don't half-ass it I'd probably go with upgraded fueling, exhaust, big turbo, enhanced and revised cooling to the logical extreme if I'm bothering to add power. And all that just to flex on v8s on on-ramps doesn't sound that exciting.
Next post will be about maintenance plan, big and small.
Drivetrain bushings: The one thing that's been actually bothering me, and is my first corrective action, is to address what I call the "rubber-banding". It was the same problem in my old car, and was at the top of my things-to-do list. I believe it's the drivetrain bushings being completely worn out. The symptoms are summed up as excessive forward-back movement under changing forces. Annoying and imprecise weight transfer while shifting, necessitating very slow and smooth movements allowing the car to settle between changes, or fast shifting to prevent the weight from shifting much at all. Also frustrating and hard to mitigate is a ping-ponging effect under light engine loads on a slight grade. The opposing forces can't dominate each other and instead the weight shifts back and forth. Happens every time I leave the work parking lot and the street I live on. Solution is aftermarket bushings, and potentially mounts. The forum wisdom has mentioned Black Forest Industries, so I'm thinking about getting the full kit, bushings mounts and dogbone included. The ~700 price tag is definitely holding me back, although I think it's a quality purchase for stage 2 power needs. I know I could get the bushings and skip the billet mounts, but I believe in doing it right the first time and I'm feeling decision paralysis.
6MT: Similarly, another annoying impreciseness is felt at the shifter. Same problem and feel from my first car, this topic has been discussed at length here in the forums. I'm not really sure what I need to get the feel I want. To be honest I like the stock shifter and throw, I like the full arm extension pushing it into 5th and turning my hand to pull it into 6th. But going into 1st and 2nd generally feels like crap and I really want to feel some precision. Advice appreciated.
Pedals: Speaking of shifting difficulties. Something that I was just starting to feel with my old car is the difficulty of pedal reach for heel-toe. I developed my technique this year on AC, and while it took some learning I feel pretty comfy on my sim. I honed my technique a lot on the sim during the interim car period where I had no outlet for driving engagement in real life. The car feels almost impossible to blip, and not in the way that it felt overwhelming at first with the sim pedals. I'm not sure if it's a seat position thing, but my feet rest too heavily on the floor to get on top of the pedals, and I feel like to be able to have a chance at blipping throttle I'd need brakes at 50% depressed or more. I've seen some pedal extensions, but honestly it feels less like distance between pedals issue and more like pedal depth is the issue. Would very much appreciate advice here.
Those three things feel like must-fix livability issues. Looking forward, my desired mod list focuses on cosmetics/quality of life, reliability, suspension, and lastly power.
Cosmetics: Like I said previously, I was happy with the stock look of my old car and resisted the idea that it wasn't modern enough with its normie wheel gap, stock wheels, and poverty lighting pack. In fact I liked the idea of blending in with the sea of stock golfs, alltracks, and gtis on the Boston area roads. Now that I already have some enhanced looks, I'd like to improve it with some oem+ looks.
My interest mainly lies with headlight/taillight combo upgrades, as well as lip/splitter/skirts/diffusers to enhance the lower lines of the body. To be honest I don't really feel the need for ultrabright headlights, so the output of the poverty lamps doesn't upset me or fill me with envy. In fact I detest late-model Toyotas with their diffuse blinding LEDs. I've read through the threads and while Osrams, expensive as they are, seem like the only good aftermarket headlight upgrade option, the lack of orange side reflectors will probably fail safety inspection around here. The reps that have side reflectors are garbage for light output, I've read. I've gotten dinged for license plate centering, and rear license lights before so I have to expect they'll notice the headlights. Previous owner had reps in but had to remove to pass DE inspection. Please give advice lol
As far as "aero" additions, I'm interested in Rennwagen parts. Seems easy enough to bolt on, good looks.
Additional cosmetic/drivability interests include anti-glare mirrors, aspherical mirrors, and yellow fogs.
Looking to other things, I'm pretty sure the car has a stock intercooler. To be honest I get little opportunities to open the throttle wide, with the amount of police crawling over the city area at all hours. But it feels wrong to be on upgraded power with the stock IC.
I was intending on getting a STH-legal suspension setup, but after reading some in-depth analysis on the stock suspension and the designed understeer, I'm feeling far less inclined to just follow the autocross wisdom on suspension setups. I don't think I'll take this car to a track, nor aim to be competitive in autox, so I'm planning on leaving the car stock until I understand the intricacies of suspension and alignment, and know what I actually will benefit from.
I'm considering going is38, but to be honest power doesn't seem particularly attractive given the limits of shenanigans on local roads. And realistically, given my philosophy of don't half-ass it I'd probably go with upgraded fueling, exhaust, big turbo, enhanced and revised cooling to the logical extreme if I'm bothering to add power. And all that just to flex on v8s on on-ramps doesn't sound that exciting.
Next post will be about maintenance plan, big and small.
Last edited:
Regarding the pedal height, there is a spacer that raises the gas pedal around 1/2 an inch.
https://wctperformance.ca/wct-performance-pedal-spacer-for-mk7-7-5-golf-gti-r/
There was also someone on here that was 3d printing something similar, not sure if they are still around.
https://wctperformance.ca/wct-performance-pedal-spacer-for-mk7-7-5-golf-gti-r/
There was also someone on here that was 3d printing something similar, not sure if they are still around.
19birel
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Pittsburgh
- Car(s)
- MK7.5 - MK4 - B8.5
Re-Pedal position: I got a Rennline throttle pedal and Rennline pedal extension and it really helped. I have this paired with the aforementioned WCT pedal spacer and it's perfect for heel toe on street and track. I got the spacer first and on the street it was ok but I didn't do the job on track as it only fixed part of the problem (pedals of course were still to far apart)
Rennline Pedal+Extension
Headlights: My sister has a set of MK7.5 style headlights that we put some LED bulbs in from Amazon and they work pretty well. Not as good as the OEM LEDs in my 7.5 but better than the stock halogens for sure (I'd rate them similar to the xenons in my B8.5 A4). They don't have amber reflectors in them though (she's never had trouble with inspection. but we're in PA) If you were really inclined, you could split the lenses off and insert a small orange reflector and see if that get you through...
Power: I would say that all depends on how you drive the car as to what turbo is best for you. If you don't see much open highway a big turbo might actually be less fun as you're shifting the powerband up and sacrificing some low-end response. At that point, staying stock turbo or going IS38 is probably your best move.
Rennline Pedal+Extension
Headlights: My sister has a set of MK7.5 style headlights that we put some LED bulbs in from Amazon and they work pretty well. Not as good as the OEM LEDs in my 7.5 but better than the stock halogens for sure (I'd rate them similar to the xenons in my B8.5 A4). They don't have amber reflectors in them though (she's never had trouble with inspection. but we're in PA) If you were really inclined, you could split the lenses off and insert a small orange reflector and see if that get you through...
Power: I would say that all depends on how you drive the car as to what turbo is best for you. If you don't see much open highway a big turbo might actually be less fun as you're shifting the powerband up and sacrificing some low-end response. At that point, staying stock turbo or going IS38 is probably your best move.
Pineapple
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Boston, MA
- Car(s)
- 2017 Golf GTI S
I like those pedal options! Now I need to find someone handy with a 3d printer 
Not enthused about paying $150+ for cnc aluminum.
When I think about it, I would be willing to pay as much as $1000 for a quality headlight upgrade. Looks like if I'm willing to message some Dutch or German vendors I could get some Osrams imported for that much. Great performing headlights, just no US reflectors. I haven't studied the install process but I might even be willing to uninstall every year to pass inspection. Any MA folks want to chime in on their experience? I figure most inspection stations are feeling pressure due to the video recording requirements.
Not enthused about paying $150+ for cnc aluminum. When I think about it, I would be willing to pay as much as $1000 for a quality headlight upgrade. Looks like if I'm willing to message some Dutch or German vendors I could get some Osrams imported for that much. Great performing headlights, just no US reflectors. I haven't studied the install process but I might even be willing to uninstall every year to pass inspection. Any MA folks want to chime in on their experience? I figure most inspection stations are feeling pressure due to the video recording requirements.
The biggest PITA is pulling the bumper. If you’re comfortable with doing that, it’s not a hard job. I think, outside of pulling the bumper it took us about 20m to do @dtfd headlight swap.I like those pedal options! Now I need to find someone handy with a 3d printer
When I think about it, I would be willing to pay as much as $1000 for a quality headlight upgrade. Looks like if I'm willing to message some Dutch or German vendors I could get some Osrams imported for that much. Great performing headlights, just no US reflectors. I haven't studied the install process but I might even be willing to uninstall every year to pass inspection. Any MA folks want to chime in on their experience? I figure most inspection stations are feeling pressure due to the video recording requirements.
Pineapple
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Boston, MA
- Car(s)
- 2017 Golf GTI S
Hmm well if the bumper has to come off, maybe I could do an intercooler while I'm in there
dtfd
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Car(s)
- MK7.5 GTI
FMIC is the way.Hmm well if the bumper has to come off, maybe I could do an intercooler while I'm in there
I'll do my first inspection with the new lights in February, but I'm not expecting any issues.
I did the last inspection at stage 2 with a neuspeed downpipe and had no issues. No codes thrown either however.
I'll update you guys with how it goes with the lights.