Joey's Totally Predictable DD

[SlimKlim]

You guys are a bunch of pussies. We're talking about removing a timing cover, not building a thermonuclear reactor.

[Kaan]

why so many zip ties? is the point of everything that is zipped tied... to keep it in place all the time? that looks a lot like the K series timing side... except honda put in a little pannel that you can just take two 10mm bolts out and then replace the tensioner

[SlimKlim]

He's just using the ties to hold the chain in place while he removes the old tensioner, then you can just pop the new one on, pull the pin out and snip the zip ties.

And yeah. A little access panel would definitely make things easier, but then I'd be driving a Honda. :wink:

[xvxax]

2.

Hopefully you're lucky with that thing. With 19k miles on the clock and my warranty just about to expire, it's already been in the shop for a total of about two weeks and at a cost of (guesstimate) $2-3k out of VW's pockets.

Well, color me surprised.

Congrats on the new whip, I have also noticed the weird shift brap in traffic. That timing chain setup looks bonkers. Reminds me of the Audi timing chain setup which also looks like a maze of chains.

[SlimKlim]

I've heard the old A6 Bi-turbos are about the worst car ever to change a timing chain on, among other things.

Ok, first "mod,"



JDM AF Yo!

I technically ordered these before I bought the car, but shipping from China takes a while. I don't like the shift paddles mounted on the steering wheel as much as on the column, because taking a right or left turn from a stoplight moves the upshift paddle to somewhere it doesn't belong. Sure it makes more sense on a racetrack, but unfortunately I don't drive to work on a race track.

They have a name brand of these little extensions available in pretty much any color or pattern, but I wasn't about to spend $150 for two little pieces of flat black plastic and a couple pieces of double-sided tape. Instead I found these for $35 shipped on eBay and chose the least obnoxious version, which was unfortunately this high gloss faux carbon fiber.

Not sure how I like em. It does give you more reach for up or downshifting at lower speeds, but it also makes the paddle a lot thicker and there's less room for your fingers back there. I'll leave em stuck on for a while and see if they grow on me, if not I'll peel em off and sell them to someone else.

[Mike]

Mike is the only issue you've had so far with the clutch? Shouldn't that kind of stuff be covered for another 40k miles? I hope this thing is good to me. I'm accepting that I might have to do the timing tensioner update or some other projects on it, and I've got the warranty on the trans which would be the most expensive thing to repair, so hopefully I'll be fine.

That's the only serious issue. A couple of little nags too. The abysmal service I receive makes me a bit more whiney than I probably should be.

Oh nice... didn't know drivetrain was 5/60. I guess I'll be keeping this another two years! Thanks for having me look that up!

[BLINGMW]

:lol: OMG those chains! Is that 4 of them? I like mine:

[SlimKlim]

Mike is the only issue you've had so far with the clutch? Shouldn't that kind of stuff be covered for another 40k miles? I hope this thing is good to me. I'm accepting that I might have to do the timing tensioner update or some other projects on it, and I've got the warranty on the trans which would be the most expensive thing to repair, so hopefully I'll be fine.

That's the only serious issue. A couple of little nags too. The abysmal service I receive makes me a bit more whiney than I probably should be.

Oh nice... didn't know drivetrain was 5/60. I guess I'll be keeping this another two years! Thanks for having me look that up!

No problemo.

I ripped the ghetto paddles off. They're ugly and my thumb doesn't fit around the wheel with them installed, not sure if I wanna sell them or break out the dremel and get creative. :twisted:

[Jeff]

Nice looking car man. I dig it.

[SlimKlim]

Three week status report.

I took the car into the dealer to have that buzzing noise at startup checked out. As you'd expect, the experience was completely miserable, pointless and expensive. First they told me it was because the oil level was low, topped it up, charged me $125 for "diagnosing" the "issue" and sent me home. Of course the issue was still there, so I brought it back the next morning bullshit mad. Two techs and one service advisor stood there for 20 minutes pretending not to hear the noise, so I made them start a lower mileage MKVI for me for comparison purposes. They pretended it sounded the same, which it didn't, but I did hear the tiniest little flutter on the second start that was similar to the noise mine is/was making. The only tiny scrap of helpful information I got was that this car's engine code is not included in the factory TSB for the timing tensioner issue. Not sure what that's worth, better than being in the bulletin I guess. Also, since topping up the oil level the noise has gotten softer/more intermittent.

I decided to take matters back into my own hands. The theory is the timing tensioner has a screen on it that can get clogged up from using shitty oil or changing it on the wrong intervals, so I dumped 1/2 a bottle of seafoam into the crankcase yesterday morning. I've put ~50 miles on it and the past four starts have been buttery smooth. The oil is blacker than the devil's soul since I added it too, which is good. I'm going to drive it to work tomorrow to put another 30 miles on it and then change it. Also, apparently these motors are extremely bad about carbon build up, so I did two seafoam treatments through the manifold. Both times It produced enough smoke to completely whiteout behind the car when I hit the gas. I've heard some owners do the manifold treatment every oil change to avoid having to pull the manifold and manually clean them later on, I wonder if it wouldn't be a bad idea to just toss some into the crank before each change as well to stave off any timing chain tensioner issues.

Saturday afternoon I threw a new set of rear brakes on it, which wouldn't have been a bad job at all if I wasn't a little wussy girly man. The caliper carrier bolts were seized on and I just straight up wasn't strong enough to break them free. It took me an hour and a half to figure out the right combination of ghetto ratchet extensions and leverage to break them free. Aside from that it was smooth sailing, the anti-rattle clips are a hell of a lot easier to install than the BMW ones too, and having the tool to compress the ratcheting caliper was a lot easier than using a pipe wrench to compress the piston style BMW ones. I also changed the air filter and replaced the spark plugs.

The cigarette smoke smell was still there when the car sat in the sun for a while, so I decided to go full nuclear on it this morning. I vacuumed the interior and shampooed the front seats again, then hit all the plastics, vents and crevices with a degreaser solution and a detailing brush to get all the crud out that could be holding smells. Then I took a bottle of Odo-Ban and absolutely drenched every fabric surface in the car, headliner, door panels, seats, carpets, etc. I let it air out for a couple hours, changed the cabin air filter, then drove it around the block, and hit it with a heavy dose of Ozium when I parked it and I'll let that cure overnight. Considering the smell was pretty faint in the first place, I'm pretty sure it won't be coming back now. It was satisfying to get all the soda spills, hair, glitter, and god knows what else cleaned up from the teenybopper previous owner too.

This week it's getting 4 new tires and an alignment, an oil change, hopefully my touchup paint wil show up so I can clean up a few little nicks, and if I have time on Friday night I'll give it a bath and throw another coat of sealant on so its all purdyful for the show (in its totally stock, utterly boring glory). :thumbup:

[premiershine9]

Glad to hear the smell has lessened a bit!

[SlimKlim]

Changed the oil last night and the starts have stayed pretty smooth. Maybe a bit of that fluttering sound but much quieter and less frequent than when I first got the car. Maybe I'll seafoam the oil again before the next change.

Smoke smell is gone, I've parked it out in the sun all of yesterday and today, which is helping zap out the smell of the Odo-Ban as well, maybe in another day or two it'll just smell like a car.

Just picked it up from the shop with a brandy new set of shoes and an alignment. I got yet another set of Kuhmo 4Xs, they were $109 in a 225/40.18. I bought a set of them for the BMW last year when I installed the CSL reps and liked them so much I got a set for the E39. Saw no reason to deviate at this point so I just kept up the trend. It never ceases to amaze me how much of a difference brand new tires make, you don't realize just how bad it was until you get the new set on there. The ride is much smoother and whisper quiet compared to the miserably cupped pieces of crap that were on there.

That's it! It's all caught up on its maintenance, and cleaned up. All I have left to do is touch up a couple nicks and throw another coat of sealant on it.

I'll bring it down to the show on Saturday. Not like anyone cares about a stock, automatic GTI, but the bimmer doesn't currently have an inspection sticker...

[premiershine9]

Like

[*insertusernamehere*]

Nice car man! My mom has an 08 Rabbit 5spd, so I have a toned down idea of what its like in the GTI. The rabbit is fun, so I can only imagine what yours is like :thumbup:

I recommend a roof rack! If you're into those.. it fits the 4 door Rabbit really well imo.

[.RJ]

really wanted to shoot for a 2008.5+ with the updated TSI motor, which is supposedly far more reliable than the outgoing FSI, uses a timing chain instead of a belt, and doesn't have the cam follower or HPFP issues of the FSI.

Any other differences? Power, tuning, etc?

[SlimKlim]

really wanted to shoot for a 2008.5+ with the updated TSI motor, which is supposedly far more reliable than the outgoing FSI, uses a timing chain instead of a belt, and doesn't have the cam follower or HPFP issues of the FSI.

Any other differences? Power, tuning, etc?

The TSI is supposedly produces more power when you tune it than the FSI, and I think it might make a smidge more from the factory. both of them are rated at 200hp/207ft-lbs but when people actually dyno them they come in a bit higher. APR measures stock power levels as 222hp/222ft-lbs at the crank on the TSI.

Other than that... the FSI cover is gigantic and the TSI cover is closer to the size of the valve cover and doesn't cover the oil filter... that's about it. My cover was missing one of the clips when I got it, and I somehow managed to lose another one during all my fiddling, so now its hanging on my garage wall. :thumbup:

[SlimKlim]

I've put about 1100 miles on it so far. Mileage has been fantastic since the tune up. I've been averaging ~26-27mpg on my commute and I was able to get ~32 on the way home from the car show on Saturday afternoon. I never bothered to clean off the greasy looking MAF sensor when I pulled it out to seafoam the manifold, I should probably do that to see if it helps any.

Seafoaming the oil seemed to resolve that noise on startup. It still sounds a bit grumpy every once in a while, but it is a VW afterall, the TSI is not a smooth sounding engine in the slightest. I think I'll probably pour another 1/2 can in before the next oil change at 65k just for good measure. There's also a sender gasket on the turbo that's starting to seep a little bit, so I'll replace it on that change too.

The shittacular factory iPod dock decided to fritz out on me the morning of the car show, and after a week of fiddling I couldn't bring it back to life. Last night I diassembled the cradle and pulled out the PC board so I could inspect it and make sure I was getting a good connection. Nothing on on the board or in the connector looked out of place. I tried it this morning and the phone didn't even recognize it and start charging like it had been, but the board did start getting hot.

Judging from some of the sludge I cleaned off the side of the center console, my teeny bopper PO probably poured a soda in there or something. VW didn't have a cable to replace the dock so I just ordered an aftermarket unit that'll do all the same stuff but more of it and better. Should be here in a few days so I don't have to suffer through the FM morning shows on my way to work.

I'm loving driving the thing. The DSG trans has really grown on me, especially since its "learned" my driving style and stopped shifting into 6th gear at 35mph. For my commute I've just been leaving it in Drive since its just a straight shot down 50 and 28, and intervening with the paddles when I want to merge so I don't have to wait for it to downshift.

At first my back wasn't happy about the transition from the super adjustable E46 seats in the BMW to these simple little cloth seats, but I was totally fine after being in them for 4 hours on Saturday. My back got a little tight but the BMW is far, far more exhausting to roadtrip in with good seats, than the silent, cushy little 'dub with kinda sucky ones.

[SlimKlim]

As discussed in the Tablet thread, I'm cobbling together a bunch of crap to turn an old Android phone into an endlessly configureable set of Aux gauges for this little car. A bunch of people have expressed interest in doing this for themselves, so I thought I'd write up the process and hopefully end up with an easy to follow DIY. So, first things first, the parts:

One Android Phone, I use an iPhone so I can't do this with my regular phone, but even if I could, I still think I'd rather get my hands on a second device to just get it set up and leave it in there permanently. My buddy is sending me his old Droid Incredible for $20.

Then this shit:


The BAFX OBD2 Plug gets the best reviews out of any of the ~$20 options, and the next step up after that brings you to $90-100. I'll take my chances.

Then you just need some sort of mount to hold it in place. The one I chose sort of alludes to the ability to stick to textured dash surfaces without coming right out and saying it, but there were a bunch of customer photos of it stuck on dashboards. There was another model Evan showed me that sounded like a safe bet, but it has bright red rubber grips which looks dumb.

You don't really need all the right angle adapters but for a few extra buck its worth it to tuck away the cords and make it look nice.

Then you just need to buy the Torque app from the Play store for $4.95. Grand total: ~$85. Or $15 less than the cheapest analog boost gauge available.

The plan:

I plan on sticking the mount on the dashboard to the left of the instrument cluster, and sneaking the power cable down the side of the dashboard at the base of the A-pillar, under the column, and into the cig lighter in the dash cubby. I'll probably drill a small hole in the side of the dash cubby so I can run the cord into that area and keep the door to the dash cubby closed, which is why I got that goofy 90* USB connector.

Then its just a matter of setting up the software. I'd like to use something like Apex Launcher (https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...cher&hl=en) to make the phone behave exactly the way I want, but I won't know if what I'm imagining is possible until I have the phone to fiddle with. What I envision is having the phone automatically wake up when it gets the power signal from the car and display a custom screen like a VW logo or something, then switch over to the Torque app after 3-4 seconds, then when I turn the car off, have it go back to the VW logo, then put itself to sleep.

I don't know if that is the right app for that, and I think the MKV cig lighters are switched with the ignition, but if not I'll have to fuck around with that too.

Then I'll get the Torque app configured for my environment, download the MKV gauge skin, and pick the parameters I want to display. The choices are endless, boost, oil pressure, oil temp, water pressure, horsepower, torque, 0-60 times, G forces, air intake temperature, MAF rates, transmission temperature, etc. You can also set up thresholds to chime at you if a certain parameter exceeds a certain range. Could be really handy to monitor water and oil temps in an OBD-2 track car. It also doubles as a built in CEL scanner and clearer, which, lets be honest, will probably come in handy more than once on my little VW.

Simple as that!

My buddy said he'd try to ship the phone tomorrow AM so I just might have it by the weekend to install, but he has a newborn baby girl so I'm not holding him to anything. I'm excited to get started though, this is going to be a fun project.

[WRXtranceformed]

I'm pretty sure that bafx module is the same one I bought for my brothers S4. It works great.

[davej]

always a fan of modding a car with tech.
been dreaming of doing an in-dash with a nexus 7 ever since they came out, although way more time consuming.
pretty good writeup here of one guy's project <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2459432">http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthr ... ?t=2459432</a><!-- m -->