My minor modding thread

[<tuffty/>]

my pants went tight when i saw this..!! how much you reakon its cost you so far??

Some money.... tbh I have and I am not keeping count either... there isn't much left that hasn't been modified in some way and if I worked it all out I think I would be quite shocked...

I couldn't have been anywhere near this level without the help of Bill tbh... he has 'helped' me out on more than one occasion now and I owe him more than a few favours...

Eternally grateful to you big man...

<tuffty/>

[Byzan Pics]

[<tuffty/>]

Well.. mixed bag today... got to the unit early to run the car to temp and see what leaks... good news... nothing was leaking... topped up all the fluids and finished the engine bay..


Refitted the drive shaft and drove her up the road... turns out the spring in the TIAL puts actuator pressure at a tad over 0.5bar... humm... not sure thats going to be enough tbh but will roll with it for now..

Parked the car up and went off to get the Badgerwagon started up... Bill sorted a base map running std boost and flashed that in... went out and did a logging run and was getting a bar of boost tailing off a tad at the end...

Logging showed just over 246g/s (307hp) on 14ish psi with no timing pull... not really looked at the logs in full yet but Bill is going to look through them and look to add a bit more boost to the map..

However... on my return to the unit I noticed a bit of oil on the workshop floor where the car was stood from the mornings test drive.... booo... got her back on the ramp and there is oil around the back of the engine... thought it was the oil drain and where we joined the two bits together but Bill noticed it was wet with oil further up... turns out that its the oil feed pipe!!!... not the actual banjo joint (which would have been the obvious place) but where the braided hose screws to the banjo... double boooooo!!! just so you know where this is located its on the top of the turbo cartridge between the manifold and turbo around the back of the engine...



I should be able to get to it by removing the TIP etc and the water pipe to remove it and tighten up but not feeling the love all things considered.. thats the last place I expected a leak and hasn't been moved in all the times I have done work on the car... lesson of course is to check EVERY nut, bolt and connection...

It could have been worse of course but still a pain regardless... gotta love cars!!

Other than that she drives fine

Happy New Year!!

<tuffty/>

[Marcos]

all i can say is woahhh, spent the last 5hours id say reading this from the start, only wanted some tips on the gt28 im fitting, alot of chopping and changing has gone on, but i respect you for how much patience youv had! i would of thrown it out as soon as turbo was hitting on transfer box

[MUSH]

Hope you can get to that mate! Doubt you fancy pulling the head AGAIN!!

Happy new year...

[<tuffty/>]

What a fun day!!! (sarcasm is a free service I offer)....

After a lot of swearing and removing of stuff and contorting myself into various shapes I managed to undo the oil feed from the top of the turbo... I think I can see what the problem is...


Thankfully Bill had a spare on the shelf (he's good like that...)


...but after spending what seemed like forever trying to get the thread started I managed to screw it in only to find the banjo bolt was too long... the old banjo was deeper than the new one and it bottomed out before it sealed so I took it off again

Started modifying the banjo (as it had the reducer in it) and managed to bugger that up royally!! not having a good start to the new year at all.... quick hunt around and found a different type of reducer and fitted that...


Put the car back together and all was good... took her out for a quick test drive and parked her up inside the unit to see if any fluids escape.... there was a little oil puddle!!! FFS!!!

Put the car back on to the ramp and had a look bearing in mind the engine was hot... doesn't appear to be coming from the oil feed at least but looks like the oil drain could be suspect... jeez!!

Left her on the ramp so I can take a look in the morning... cleaned stuff up so hopefully any freshly dropped oil will now be obvious where its from...

Nearly there!!!

<tuffty/>

[jojo]

Happy New Year Paul!

[<tuffty/>]

Happy New Year Paul!

Word....

<tuffty/>

[<tuffty/>]

Found the oil leak....


<tuffty/>

[Lewis583]

Not having much luck with those flexi pipes
Looking forward to the results after mapping, will be a beast.

[pats3poa]

Found the oil leak....


<tuffty/>

Sorry but that doesn't look like oil coming out of there..... Lol

Thats unreal, was that a new pipe?

Pat

[ScottB5]

Found the oil leak....


<tuffty/>

What pipe is that?

Weldone on finding the leak.
I hate leaks!!

[badger5]

fecking, bloody, damned, frigging..... mutha...... of a factory pipe!!! leaking new factory oil drain pipe on the crimp onto the flexi would you believe it?!?!?!?

ffs... cars eh! and duff supplied components... you gotta luv em.. Hmmmm

[badger5]

Sorry but that doesn't look like oil coming out of there..... Lol

Thats unreal, was that a new pipe?

Pat

its a new kind of citrus smelling oil vapour.... lol... coutersy of mr smoke tester

[pats3poa]

its a new kind of citrus smelling oil vapour.... lol... coutersy of mr smoke tester

Lol I didn't read citrus first off bill!!

Pat

[<tuffty/>]

Yet another 'fun' day... keyhole surgery should be a doddle after working on my car lol...

Found the oil leak.... it was the oil drain but not where we thought!!



Access to remove it was as usual very tight!! had to remove the drive shaft (again!), transfer box bracket and inner cv heatshield... access to the two bolts holding the drain on is better than on the previous turbo configuration but still a PITA!!


Once off we smoke tested it and as you can from the video it was pouring smoke out not from the welded join but the OEM join!! tbh I think I must have crushed it at some point when having the head assembly on and off the engine while sorting clearances and stuff which of course is yet another lesson learned but in fairness I at least didn't have to take the head off this time to do it LOL..

Bill welded the new oil drain (its part of a K03 oil drain with part of my K04 oil drain welded to it)... smoke tested that and all was good..


Fitting it back to the turbo was of course more 'fun'... but... I got it on there, filled up with oil again and ran the car up the road...

Apart from a moment where I thought it was leaking again (turned out to be an old stain from yesterday I hadn't cleaned up) all was good... got her back on the ramp and she was dry... Phew!!!

Drove her home tonight and all is well so far... will spend the week running her in then on the dyno next weekend :D

<tuffty/>

[Powelly]

Well its taken me three late nights to read all through every bit of this but it was worth it, You've had plenty of ups and downs and head on head off's but it looks like your finally getting there, Learnt a hell of a lot from this thread too! I'm moving back to the UK in May so may have to visit Bill for some work when i work out what i want lol, Not gonna be anywhere near what you've done in the slightest though lol, Inspired me all the same, Good work mate!

[Welly]

Leaks mate, are not for the win. That makes me glad I has those hoses made new when I did the PE :-).

Nearly there now mate.

[<tuffty/>]

Ok... got onto the dyno today...

Started off with a few baseline runs to see where we were... worked out at 14ish psi she was putting out 280hp... not that it felt like that on the road... BT has the advantage of pulling to the redline of course over say a K04 that kinda runs out so feels must faster to drive as peak power was at pretty much redline not between 5 and 6k as is the case of a normal K04..

Anyhoo... as it turns out it would appear there is yet more work to do!! the mapping is not finished yet.. Bill is looking to smooth the boost out and get it all started sooner (if possible)... I plan to do a bit of logging with my MBC fitted and see where she starts coming on boost as a baseline for tweaking the N75 requests...

Upshot of all this is I didn't hit 400hp like I was hoping for however on reviewing previous runs of my car with its previous states of hardware and tune, its actually progress...

When I was running the same turbo as Lee and Andy123 is using I was struggling to get to 340hp... they both got just over 370hp but both cars have after market inlet manifolds, better designed exhaust manifolds than mine and are now running WMI...

I was using a std small port inlet, small port head and std TB

I then rebuilt the turbo using the full size GT3071r turbine wheel but on the same internally gated hotside... changed to the R32 TB and I was getting 350hp as a one off best run but 345hp more consistently...

Trial fitted an SEM inlet with my R32 TB and a couple of tweaks to the map got 374hp (similar power to Lee and Andy)

Current setup is back on the std small port inlet, std 60mm TB but with the external wastegate and better flowing hotside... this netted me 384hp...

What does this mean in reality and looking at the previous graphs...




First results are the baseline... std small port inlet, R32 TB, full size GT3071r, T25 internally gated
Second results... SEM large port inlet, R32 TB, full size GT3071r, T25 internally gated
Third results... std small port inlet, std 60mm TB, full size GT3071r, T3 externally gated

Based on these kind of results fitting an SEM would get me the 400hp I am looking for it would appear...

As I said though... mapping is not finished, once done it should see the spool getting started a little earlier and torque holding a bit longer while tweaking the top end power a bit too...

To put a bit more perspective on this... here are some graphs comparing mine to the Ibiza we built a little while back.. the Ibiza did make a bit more power than the graph I am using but it had everything turned up to 11 so this one is a bit more realistic as a comparison...




The spec of the Ibiza was a bit better than mine... 83mm overbore, ported small port head (larger exhaust ports than mine), SEM and tubular exhaust manifold...

As you can see though it makes better use of the boost top end which has to be the SEM helping top end flow... low end torque etc could well be just mapping and I have some work to do there but it at least shows that mine is not too far away and where my current limitations are...

A little more to do then... was initially cheesed off not to hit 400hp but when I had thought it through and compared to other cars we have done then I am a lot happier..

Fact of the matter is the way she drives is so much more different to what I remember... power delivery is smooth and the way she pulls in third is actual scary...

I have a few other odds and sods to try... I still have WMI to fit at some point too...

This pretty much concludes this round of modifications but I will of course update the thread once we have sorted the mapping out and of course if there any further developments such as inlet manifolds etc...

<tuffty/>

[Byzan Pics]

Good work as always

[Westy]

I wish I knew what half of that long post above means but I am impressed

I'm sure you'll reach 400 with the way you're going at it mate. Great determination.

[s3 Hoggy]

Awesome tuffty! Well done pal!

[superkarl]

Nice results.

This mapping business really is time consuming isnt it.

Do you think youl make an inlet mani like andrews using agu runners?

[<tuffty/>]

Nice results.

This mapping business really is time consuming isnt it.

Do you think youl make an inlet mani like andrews using agu runners?

Mapping can be yes... plus I am planning to do a bit myself too as I want to find the right balance between off boost economy and on boost performance...

I do plan to make an inlet like Andrews... I have already bought an AEB inlet (large port like the AGU and I think Andrew used AEB runners on his) and will look to sort the rest out once I have got over this lot

<tuffty/>

[Andrew@A.L.D]

Mine was a AEB cut to the same length as the S3 manifold then added length to the runner using a thick backing plate and using the Jenvey trumpets so it adds 40mm to the runners over the standard inlet

With the inlet fitted it does want to rev a lot more than it did and have see 20+ Bhp on the liquid

[<tuffty/>]

Casual weekend (I say casual... there was of course some Ibiza dynoing to do ... nothing to report on that yet though as she is still being run in)

After driving the car for a couple of weeks now she is feeling much better than before and nearly due an oil change to proper stuff which I might do next weekend if I get 5 mins..

Anyhoo... have always had a bit of a hesitancy issue which I believed to be DV related... so decided to take it apart for a clean and service... while I was at it I also relocated it back to the cold side as this is where I had originally fitted it... I moved it a while back to try and fix a cold start issue but since fitting the 60mm TB back on its never been an issue... I also put the white spring back in (was using the red one for a while)... seems much better on part throttle and seems to hold boost a bit better... maybe placebo but certainly feels more urgent now...


Then I cracked on with the earthing mods (as detailed here Waks Wide Web)

Bought the bits from eBay for about a tenner...


Decided all I was going to do was run an earth from the battery then take one to the cam cover earth and one to the throttle body (for no particular reason)

Worth noting that pretty much all the sensors on the engine have their own earth which is common in the loom and runs to underneath the battery tray to an earthing point fed from the battery so earthing the crap out of the engine is a little pointless but its certainly worth doing the cam cover one as I have seem quite a bit of volts drop to the coil packs on some cars...

Cut the cable to length and crimped the terminals using heatshrink to insulate


Used 7mm I/D convoluted trunking to prevent chafing


Main earth coming from the battery..


Attached them to where the engine hoist bracket used to be... in Waks guide you bolt them to the bracket itself but the AEB head I bought didn't have it and I have no real need to fit one back on as yet so I used an M6 bolt to bolt through one of the M8 holes for fixing the bracket too... ran one lead from there to the lower TB fixing bolt...


Ran another lead to the cam cover and bolted it to the existing earth point (keeping the original lead there too)


As for what difference it makes? not sure tbh... not driven the car enough to see but... the car arguably feels smoother part throttle which is good...

Given the theory behind this and providing you buy the parts cheap enough from eBay or somewhere then its a worthwhile thing to do IMO... I certainly would be paying the £40-£60 an 'earthing' kit costs though... the most worthwhile run you can do is one straight from the battery to the cam cover if you do any at all... the rest would give negligible improvements I think... I will have a look at a wiring diagram sometime to check the throttle body one... pretty sure its got its own earths and that its not earthed through the case but if it is earthed back through the case too then the TB earth strap has some merit...

Next on the agenda will be finishing off the mapping once I have changed the oil as I don't fancy doing any more dyno runs with the stuff thats in there really... and of course try and find an AEB inlet manifold from a more trustworthy source

<tuffty/>

[pats3poa]

Great stuff as always.

On the right hand side of the rocker you have something unplugged, what is it? VVT?

Pat

[<tuffty/>]

Great stuff as always.

On the right hand side of the rocker you have something unplugged, what is it? VVT?

Pat

Yarp... only unplugged while I was routing the cables... plugged back in now

<tuffty/>

[pats3poa]

anyway get a move on as I'm waiting to see the out come of all your hard work!

Pat

[superkarl]

Think il give earthing the cam cover ago if yiu say theres been voltage drop.

What oil do you use once you've rebuilt an engine?

[<tuffty/>]

Think il give earthing the cam cover ago if yiu say theres been voltage drop.

What oil do you use once you've rebuilt an engine?

Quantum Platinum 5w40 fully synth

<tuffty/>

[superkarl]

Running in oil I mean?

That's what i have my car on normally, am i running on running in oil?! Haha

[Lee172]

Im sure your aware tuffty , i bodged the hell out of my engine earths. I think i will move it up on my todo list. ;-)

[<tuffty/>]

Running in oil I mean?

That's what i have my car on normally, am i running on running in oil?! Haha

Ah... that'll teach me to skim read... currently 10w40 semi synth although mineral oil is normally what gets used... all I had to hand and does the job tbh...

<tuffty/>

[<tuffty/>]

Im sure your aware tuffty , i bodged the hell out of my engine earths. I think i will move it up on my todo list. ;-)

lol... get it done

<tuffty/>

[aragorn]

I ran mine in on 15w40 mineral oil from Wilkos.

Changed at 30miles, 200miles, 500miles then went over to synthetic around 800miles.

[Buzzer]

Tuffty, my wife hates you!
Iv been reading this post for ages tonight and she had to do all the cooking , cleaning, and putting the kids to bed, getting uniforms sorted etc
So, Tuffty , at least I love you.(cant stand those chores)
Great read and bless you patience.

[Andrew@A.L.D]

Tuffty, my wife hates you!
Iv been reading this post for ages tonight and she had to do all the cooking , cleaning, and putting the kids to bed, getting uniforms sorted etc
So, Tuffty , at least I love you.(cant stand those chores)
Great read and bless you patience.

Some real man love there

[<tuffty/>]

LOL... you guys....

<tuffty/>

[<tuffty/>]

Minor update... had the front tracking checked this morning as I noticed my low mileage front tyres had worn badly on the outside edge... was toeing in a bit so thats now sorted...

Grabbed a bit of time during lunch to fit my TFSI coil packs... (07K 905 715 F)

They are longer than 20v coils with a slightly thicker top too...


I re-gapped the plugs to 0.85mm... 0.5mm more than std and 0.15mm more than the 0.7mm I normally do for remapped engines... everywhere I read suggest using a gap of 1mm... I haven't for a couple of reasons... 1).. I wasn't running the car on the dyno to see what worked and what didn't and 2)... I need to put the std packs back in for when I take the car over to get them changed under the recent recall... so I played it safe until I have got my new packs and get the car back on the dyno...

Anyhoo... you can see the difference in height between the TFSI and 20v coils here...


...and all fitted...


Now I know the more eagle eyed ones of you will have noticed I am not using adaptors... a couple of reasons for this... they aren't ready yet... and I noticed when fitting mine that the coil leans over towards the back of the engine...


Not sure why but they all do it... it may be because of the position of the cam cover... i.e. there could be some movement on the studs and I have it too far forward or something... I don't know but they are in pretty solid... not having seen a set of adaptors from A N Other manufacturer in the flesh then I don't know how loose a fit they are as you can see clearly that the rubber seal is in the cam cover hole so is holding the coil in but the little tangs either side (20v coils have a single one) are proud of the hole so the coil 'could' rotate... what this is like on the other variations of TFSI coil pack I don't know but I think I will see what can be done to counter this issue with the adaptors Bill is looking into..

So... seeing as I haven't run the car on the dyno I can't give any info on any power improvements (if there are indeed any to be had) but I can say that the engine certainly feels smoother on idle and part throttle feel is improved... I have also done a couple of stabs at full throttle and no misfires...

I would say that this and the earth mods I have done have certainly improved the feel of the engine on idle and general drivability under no load conditions... how much of an affect it has had in terms of power I don't know... I will of course try and sort some comparisons out when I get a chance but I still have some tweaks to do to the mapping (as neither of us have had time to do anything more with it) and I still have a coolant leak to find/fix...

This mod is also supposed to improve fuel economy too... will see how that goes but not promising anything LOL!!....

One last update... after the agro I have had with some prize tw@t on eBay over the AEB manifold I bought before Christmas I ended up buying another from eBay and it arrived this week... w00t!


...so at some point I will be looking at making an inlet manifold...

Next on the cards will be relocating the battery to the boot, fitting the WMI (finally) and reworking the charge pipes as I am not happy with them currently... not sure exactly what I am going to do but once the battery is out the way I will decide then...

I also plan to replace the coil pack wiring loom too... this can be bought quite cheaply and seeing as most of my plugs are broken and I 'repaired' the cracked loom a couple of years ago it makes sense to do...

<tuffty/>

[Westy]

Very interesting stuff mate. I've got 4 TFSI coils in the garage waititng for adapters but I might try them without like you have.

I'll be keeping an eye on your battery relocation when you get round to it. Oh and your inlet mani as I have an AEB mani sitting in the garage too

[<tuffty/>]

Very interesting stuff mate. I've got 4 TFSI coils in the garage waititng for adapters but I might try them without like you have.

I'll be keeping an eye on your battery relocation when you get round to it. Oh and your inlet mani as I have an AEB mani sitting in the garage too

Why are you after a push down cam cover when you already have one mate? yours is a BAM isn't it?

I think I would prefer to use adapters in the long term as I think it will hold them nice and securely...

<tuffty/>

[Westy]

Why are you after a push down cam cover when you already have one mate? yours is a BAM isn't it?

I think I would prefer to use adapters in the long term as I think it will hold them nice and securely...

<tuffty/>

I'm after one to paint up in prep for my engine build so that I don't have to waste time re painting the one currently on my BAM head.

[<tuffty/>]

Plan++

<tuffty/>

[Gops]

Looks good mate!! Im looking for a BAM cover so i can get these coils. I was looking on the tfsi coil thread and some people on another forum did say the 07k tfsi coils wernt as good as the 06E ones..? Cant seem to find a BAM cover anywhere!

But great info here, really helps people like me who want to do this but had second thoughts just incase I mess it up!

[Andrew@A.L.D]

I have set my plug gap at 1mm and its runs fine

[badger5]

I have set my plug gap at 1mm and its runs fine

what boost/power are you running currently Andrew?
relative to the gaps you are running... being my question.

more load.. higher cyl pressure.. better judgement.

running them on mine also.. so i will see shortly

[Andrew@A.L.D]

On base map with N75 unplugged, boost at about 12 ish psi, power less than 300 bhp right now

[<tuffty/>]

On base map with N75 unplugged, boost at about 12 ish psi, power less than 300 bhp right now

Not gonna tax the gap at that tbh... std TFSI gap is 0.85/0.9mm IIRC...

Bill has been playing with my map today and tweaked the boost delivery and peak boost... I have my winters on at the moment so couldn't be bothered to swap them over plus Bill was running in the Ibiza and we did some interesting testing this afternoon...

I ran the car up the road and once warm put the boot in while in third... needle swung to just over 2bar and I had to look down to check I wasn't in second gear lol...

On the 20v coils when I was having boost control issues, anywhere close to 2bar would bring on misfires all over the place... the TFSI's held solid... this was nice to know but obviously the 2bar wasn't... even managed to break traction on the winters in third which was a little shock

Boost has been turned down now and all is good... not checked properly yet on the way back from the unit but I haven't seen 2 bar again and on the odd occasion I glanced over the boost gauge was sat around 1.6 bar and still pulling like a train... and wheelspinning everywhere...


<tuffty/>

[Westy]

Interesting stuff. So it appears that the TFSI coils may have some performance qualities after all