Should I track my GTI or sell it?

[victorofhavoc]

I’ve also been struggling with water temps on track and have a tune with RS7 plugs. Would you say that returning to stock plugs resolved the water temp issues for you? Also, do you know why they were misfiring?

I tried regapping those plugs several times but the misfires kept happening on track only. They were always around 4500-5300 rpm range. I called up unitronic and they said to absolutely not use the rs7 plugs because they are known for issues. Moving back to the stock plugs the number of times I've had water temp rise has drastically reduced and hasn't been anywhere near as bad. It's manageable at this point, but I think a larger oil cooler core will be needed (currently I have a ten row) and more venting to keep things further under check.

I should also add that my misfires were so bad I was getting cylinders shut off. Since going away from the rs7 plugs I have not had a single cylinder shutoff issue.

 

[GTIfan99]

I was hoping to do an oil cooler, radiator and IC, but Mini7's experience with doing the radiator is pushing me to consider oil cooler and IC only, and getting a custom tune just for track.

 

[victorofhavoc]

I was hoping to do an oil cooler, radiator and IC, but Mini7's experience with doing the radiator is pushing me to consider oil cooler and IC only, and getting a custom tune just for track.

I really believe getting oil down to reasonable temps will keep water running cooler overall. When oil is hot and thin, friction is higher, which leads to more heat, which leads to higher water temps. That's my theory, anyway. We'll see what happens when I go to a 20 row oil cooler. I think getting some hood vents is also inevitable... There's just no air evac from this front end...

Had i had the option of a custom tune when I was looking that's the route I would have gone. Ideally, I'd like to reduce max hp to get the car to fit better into the nasa tt5 class and make it competitive there, but as it stands I'm in tt4 range. The tcr race car fell into tt3 and dominated everyone (including well built m3, cayman, etc). They've since made greater penalties on fwd cars and dsg cars so that the tcr falls into tt2 and that coincidentally hurts the gti in tt4/tt5.

 

[Mini7]

I wish I had better news on the CSF radiator front.

Without getting my hands on a local R, I think there are some detail differences between the GTi and R. I’m thinking it’s in the fan shroud depth. The radiator support is a different number apparently but I do not think that’s where the difference lies. The IC’s are interchangeable as is the AC condenser.

 

[GTIfan99]

I wish I had better news on the CSF radiator front.

Without getting my hands on a local R, I think there are some detail differences between the GTi and R. I’m thinking it’s in the fan shroud depth. The radiator support is a different number apparently but I do not think that’s where the difference lies. The IC’s are interchangeable as is the AC condenser.

How much is an R fan shoud? Maybe a few of us would pitch in to help buy one to test to see if that solves the issue? I'd donate.

 

[GTIfan99]

I really believe getting oil down to reasonable temps will keep water running cooler overall. When oil is hot and thin, friction is higher, which leads to more heat, which leads to higher water temps. That's my theory, anyway. We'll see what happens when I go to a 20 row oil cooler. I think getting some hood vents is also inevitable... There's just no air evac from this front end...

Had i had the option of a custom tune when I was looking that's the route I would have gone. Ideally, I'd like to reduce max hp to get the car to fit better into the nasa tt5 class and make it competitive there, but as it stands I'm in tt4 range. The tcr race car fell into tt3 and dominated everyone (including well built m3, cayman, etc). They've since made greater penalties on fwd cars and dsg cars so that the tcr falls into tt2 and that coincidentally hurts the gti in tt4/tt5.

Yeah, that's nuts, the TCR is a dedicated race car and should be in TT2, but how does that move hurt TT4/5 GTI's?

 

[victorofhavoc]

Yeah, that's nuts, the TCR is a dedicated race car and should be in TT2, but how does that move hurt TT4/5 GTI's?

Fwd used to subtract 1.0 on the weight to hp calculator... Moving forward it will be 0.5...for a 3166 lb car that's a hp difference of about 20, which can bump you up a class if you're near the edge (and the goal is always to be as near the edge as possible). They're also increasing the penalty for dsg, I believe, but I don't think that was totally vetted out yet before the whole Corona thing went nuts.

Basically it all comes down to the power to weight ratio calculator that they use.

 

[bfury5]

How much is an R fan shoud? Maybe a few of us would pitch in to help buy one to test to see if that solves the issue? I'd donate.

I looked into buying the R fans/shroud for the GTI. You can get used take-off assemblies for 275ish, and from all the research I did it was a direct bolt on (for me, the 2017 R and 2017 GTI use same radiator P/N 5Q0121251GN which holds the fan shroud). I wanted to put them on my car for Autox to help cool the radiator stack when my car is sitting in grid between runs, but STH rules don't allow fan changes. A larger intercooler or radiator would increase total thermal capacity of the system, but that really only makes a difference if you are able to get the heat out faster than you're adding it (which is hard when your car is sitting).