B7 Cabrio - mods start next week!

My car is booked into Awesome GTI in Manchester on 1st August to have a Milltek exhaust system fitted. The guy I spoke to at Awesome (Andy) was really helpful, and having spoken to Milltek, although it has not been done by them before, they are confident that the saloon version of the 2.0TFSI 2WD system will fit the cabrio, even with the extra cross-bracing in place.

Milltek cannot provide the quad tips I wanted unfortunately, but the standard ones just clamp on. Awesome know of a place locally that will be able to fabricate some bespoke tips to fit the system, so it should be an easy job to swap them over. I'll be getting this done as soon as the S4 diffuser/valance is delivered.

The R8 alloys are being sprayed next week in a specially mixed matt version of Vauxhall's "Technical Grey" (complete with flattening agent and matt lacquer).

I'm also going to get the bodyshop to spray a pair of mirror covers the same colour. I have genuine S4 matt alu mirrors on the car at the moment, so I'll be having the original 'brilliant black' mirrors sprayed the same as the wheels - hope it looks OK, otherwise I'll stick with the S4 versions!

Finally I'll be lowering the car (only slightly), hopefully at the same time the exhaust is fitted, as on the 19" alloys it looks a bit too high at the moment, even though it is an S-Line. Probably just going for Eibach springs at the moment - may go for full coil-over setup at a later date...

So the car should soon look exactly as I want it!

Wheels now painted, and Milltek fitted (no quad tips yet though!). Coilovers should be fitted next month!

Thanks for the comments - I think I will leave the exhaust tips as they are for now - they're growing on me!

The exhaust is great...nothing too flashy, and not too noisy either...just a bit of a deeper 'rumble' at tickover, and then a lovely smooth, almost V6-like note under acceleration. Very, very pleased!

I decided not to paint the mirrors in the end. The colour of the wheels is Vauxhall "Technical Grey", with an added flattening agent and satin lacquer. This is quite dark, and although the mirrors would look great on a light coloured car, I don't think they'd look that good on a black car. Therefore I'm going to stick with the S4 mirrors.

I got the 19" R8 wheels for Wheelbase in Manchester (http://audi.wheel-base.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=M91R8.). They are a great outfit, and let you try any wheel up against your car so that you know what they'll look like. Quality seems very good, so I have no complaints! I have to admit I was a bit weary about buying replicas, but I'd heard so many good stories about Wheelbase that it had to be worth a go - they're less than £900 including tryes!

As for painting - it cost me £50 per wheel, but that was a preferential rate as I have a business connection with the bodyshop. I would say that you'd get them done to a top-quality standard for £70 per wheel quite easily.

I'll get some better pics of the wheels in the next day or so.