Frenchmans TT Clubsport build.

Hi eveyone,

I thought I'd start a thread to follow the progress on my new TT225.
I know it's not an 8L car but the TT section on the forum is weak and I have some history with A3's and this is basically an S3 underneath

First a little background on some of my previous cars and how I ended up in a tin turtle.

First off I started with a couple of A3 1.8T's.

First being an early facelift one which was lightly modified as a daily.
Coilovers, ARB's, Wheels, 312 discs, Carbon bonnet, exhaust etc. A pretty cool car at 19 and I loved it.









This was whilst being at university. Eventually I saw sense and sold it to a friend. It was replaced by a Skoda Fabia. Several people from the forum have owned this one and now I think it's a complete shed.

I then went travelling to Australia an ended up landing a job in the mines. I was making pretty good money and ended up buying a car for my return to the UK off Prawn whilst drunk in a bar in Manly.

A3 number 2!

This one was a facelift model and was a higher spec car than the old one to start with.
Coilovers, ARB's, Porche 996 brakes, Liquid gauge, R-Tech remap, exhaust and some lovely S4 wheels.







I spent a fair bit on this, improving the brakes and geometry and the did a few Action Days at Castle Combe. After doing these and quite frankly fearing for my car due to the poor level of driving and incompetency I decided to steer towards proper trackdays only.










I then sold the car to Lewis (Vag Slag) who is doing it proud, got a Passat daily and bought a more dedicated track car. Buying a Volvo S40 T4 off a friend (Andy P) who had done most of the hard work for me.
This was caged, had sorted suspension geometry, proper brakes, water methanol and much much more.



















This car was fantastic, and unique. At this point I bought a house with my partner. The car was loud and uncomfortable and being based in Plymouth, trackdays were quite a way away and travelling was not fun. The car wasn't getting much use and to progress it any further would have required a lot of work an money.

I enjoyed driving our Z4 more than the Volvo.



The time came and the Volvo and Z4 were both sold. I loved the BMW but parts were more expensive and it was the right time for it to go.

The replacement was to be a really nice fun, sporty car for the weekends which wasn't too expensive to run and had a decent forum as a support network. This would eventually evolve into a more track orientated car for the 3-4 trackdays I'll probably do a year until the house is finished.
I decided on a MINI cooper S. Zoe used to have a diesel one so she was keen too and on my side. I went to look at one locally and hated it. Exterior was a nice design, it had enough power for the time being, upgraded parts were available but god the interior was terrible. I didn't like the seating position, visibility or feel of the car.

That evening we were talking and I very nearly suggested looking at A3's again. This evolved into Seat Leon Cupra R's which we both decided was not the way to go. Next up S3's but too similar to the A3 and then it hit us. A TT!!
Why I never considered one I don't know.
VAG which I know inside out, reasonable parts, lots of support and good forums. I went to look at one the next day. A Silver one with blue leather from a dealer.

It was a shed. Rusty, flat tyres and the interior. OMG! Revolting :S I took it for a test drive anyway to see what I thought and It went into limp mode straight away. Not a good example but a good exercise. We definitely wanted a TT.

After an evening of looking, we found one near Reading. An early 225 in Raven Black with some modifications. I wasn't looking for a modified one but I kept on coming back to it.
After asking the chap a lot of questions I found out it has a folder of service history like I've never seen. Had a new dashpod from Audi so like new. Had a V6 front bumper and rear insert. QS wheels (replicas) and a chavvy dump valve.

The interior needed some attention, the leather was very tired. The exterior had some dents and scratches but all in all it seemed like an honest car.

I travelled up by train to view it and Prawn kindly came along.

It was good, I liked it, better than I expected and I bought it, drove to Prawns for the night and parked it infront of his track car.











There is much more to share with you guys now that I've had the car a few weeks but this post is ****** long!! I best break it up a bit.

Thanks for reading,
Pierre

Thanks buddy,
TT is pretty tidy. Needs a bit of work to make it right. Lots of plans but just focussing on the little details first. First up is to remove the K&N filter and Forge Split R. Foul thing!
General N249 delete, Sai removal and a proper service along with bushes and geometry before any major work is done.

Thank you for the kind words guys.

I've had the car about 3 weeks now and have had a good poke around it. I was thrown a curveball a week into ownership.

Get ready for it.....



I went to let my electrician in and was greeted with this!!!



How I didn't blow my top, I will never know. :evil:

The one night I leave the car out of my garage (garage was full of rubble to take to the tip) and some bright spark decides to go all Picasso on it!
Thankfully they painted 4 other cars in the street and peoples front doors and houses. I didn't feel quite so targeted.

Now I'm fairly clued up with bodywork and detailing so I wasn't as phased as other people in the street.
A quick trip to the paint merchants to double check I wasn't missing a trick and that my idea of using cellulose thinners wasn't completely bonkers and I set out to remove the unwanted customisation.

One pass with cellulose thinners was straight away washed down by Zoe with hot soapy water. All in all it took about an hour to do the bodywork, windows and rubbers and after a quick pass over with the machine polisher it was looking better.



The wheels were left for the next day and unfortunately the underlying paint isn't so robust. In removing the paint, the wheel finish has gone hazy and I didn't want to go too mental on the tyres. Luckily they are only ditch finder pros!

I've booked the wheels in to be refurbished at the end of the month and at the same time I will be fitting some new tyres.
I'm favouring Continental Sport Contact 5's at the moment as an allrounder. Does anyone have any input?
For trackdays I'll have a second set of wheels.

More updates this evening.

If only I'd have caught them....
I'm looking into fitting CCTV now. That, or moving to America where guns are usually a suitable deterrent.

Tyre wise, I will probably go for either Federal 595RSR or Nankang NS2R. I had the Federals on the Volvo and they were pretty impressive. After doing 3 Full days on them they wore down about 1.7mm. I have no idea on the wear rate of the Nankangs but they seem highly rated.
It's a little way off though, still have a kitchen to build :s

Thanks guys, onwards and upwards.

I was hoping to to not have to do the wheels until the winter but I've simply brought that forward.
I didn't want to have to go through insurance to fix it, especially if I can sort it myself.

It is just a shame that my first few weeks of ownership were tarnished. I bought stuff to make myself feel better though

First up, some pressed plates.



I had a poke around the underside of the car an found that it already had some KW tie bars. I'll strip these down and make sure they're ok.



I noticed it had some spacers on the rear and after some investigation they were the bolt on KW alloy type. I really dislike these as they are alloy threads. My point proven when I noticed some of the bolts weren't very tight.



These were replaced with bolt through type spacers.

A trip to TPS to get some service items along with a new oil pickup pipe and proper sump sealant.





I've also bought a stainless bolt kit for the engine bay as some were missing and an original airbox to get rid of the K&N filter.
It's a daily at the moment and coupled with a Forge Split-r it's a bit annoying. When I get round to tuning it I will put a cone type filter on but for the time being my priority is in making sure the car is 100% healthy. Split-r will be going and replaced with an OEM recirc too.



I also now have an airbag light on. I've ordered a VAG-COM cable and 14.10 to sort this. I'm pretty sure its the standard VAG intermittent connection under the seat. I stuck a mate in the back the other day and had to crank the seat right forward. He didn't exactly fit