Rrrr you not entertained?

Wheels look good. Definitely makes the car look even stealthier. I had similar experiences with my MK7 GTI's HVAC, at full blast the heat becomes uncomfortable very quickly, but defrosting isn't the most effective. I'm guessing it has something to do with the rake of the windscreen, since the top of the glass is a good distance from the vents. Also I found the A/C struggled on the warmer days, needing to be left on max in order to stay comfortable. I had an SE so it didn't come with the automatic climate control, but I remember that the 1 o'clock position was as far as I would go for comfortable sustained temperatures.  

In reply to MTechnically :

The AC in mine kicks serious booty.  Even on 95+ degree days it could get uncomfortably cold inside the car.

Amazon delivered my new hubcentric rings just now.  I'll install the missing one tomorrow and have 3 spares.  I also got my magnetic phone mount, so some quick, easy projects to do.

I was able to take advantage of the weather and sell my extra set of snow tires.  So that more than paid for having the winter wheels refinished and took some $$ off the purchase price of the Neuspeed wheels/Pilot Sports.  Also nice not having a spare set of tires taking up space in my garage.

Got the hubcentric ring installed, also installed the magnetic phone mount, which works great!

I scored a nice electronic APR vent boost gauge with boost tap off the book of Faces marketplace today.  $100 delivered the gauge and boost tap, which were $350 new.  Nice.  A few days ago my knock off Oettinger rear wing showed up too, so today I focused on installing both.

First up the boost gauge, as typical when buying used parts I needed to supply a few knick knacks wiring wise to do the install and I followed the ECS Tuning boost gauge install instructions, which I didn't really need except to know which wires to tap for power, ground, etc.

Here's the gauge as I bought it, only fit Mk7-7.5, it fits in the drivers left vent.

First I installed the boost tap, which gets sandwiched between the manifold pressure sensor and the intake manifold.

Then I ran a longer vacuum line from the boost tap to the gauges electronic controller, which I mounted on the firewall above the master cylinder.  It came with a bracket, which handily fit in the spot, I reused the factory speed nut.

Pulled the battery out and used went thru a grommet to the right side of the battery to snake the wires into the cabin.  Then I popped out the headlight switch, surround and the vent itself.  You need to take the vent apart and mount the gauge in it.

Ok, now pop that back into the vent and do some wiring.  The gauges white wire does to the red with white stripe, black goes to brown and red goes to black with yellow stripe.  You're tapping the harness that gets plugged into the headlight switch btw. 

After a little head scratching and redoing my taps so they actually made contact, I had a working gauge.  Sweet!

Next up is the rear wing.  I mocked it into place first, fitment is pretty good for a knock off.  I swapped out the crappy double sided tape that was on it with good 3M double sided body tape.

Ok, lets clean up that grime left from the snow we got this past Wednesday night.  Soapy water on a microfiber towel.  Then I test fit the wing again, marked where it hits the car with tape and cleaned those spots with wax and grease remover.

Ok, lets take it off and stick it in place.  This was kinda hard to do as it wants to slot into place and the tape kept grabbing the car before I had it where I wanted it.  A few careful pops up and stick it back down got it to a place I'm pretty happy with.  I pushed down on it hard and taped it into place.  I'm auto-xing the 911 tomorrow so it'll have a full 24+ hours to set before I drive the car.

I think it looks killer!  Very OEM+ and with it being satin black it matches the trim the car already has.

Wing came out great!!

Time to play with the intake some.  I scored an ECS Tuning turbo muffler delete and a CTS turbo inlet pipe used for a decent price.  The turbo inlet pipe is supposed to add around 10awhp, the turbo muffler delete just lets the car make all the awesome turbo noises we juveniles want to hear.

Install is pretty easy.  Start out here...

Remove the air box and stock air inlet pipe.

Ok, now loosen the T30 torx holding the turbo inlet in place and pull off the PCV hose.  My PCV hose was on there really tight, I took off the turbo inlet pipe first so I could get a better grip on the hose to pull it off.  You have to rotate the inlet pipe towards the firewall for it to come off.  Compared to the CTS piece there's a large difference in size...

Install is easy, line up the tabs, rotate it towards the front of the car and then tighten down the T30 torx.  Snap the PCV hose onto the CTS pipe.

Now the turbo muffler delete.  First loosen the T30 torx holding the boost pipe in place.  Now loosen the hose clamp holding the coupler onto the boost pipe.  VW clocks the clamp really poorly, they jam it up against the vacuum pump so you can only fit a 7mm wrench on it.  Pull the pipe loose. 

Now take the coupler off the stock turbo muffler, a 7mm rachet/socket do fit here.

Now remove the stock turbo muffler.  It's held in place with 3 5mm allens.  Really hard to get a good pic of it, just trust me.  Not much torque on them, so once I cracked them loose I was able to easily remove them.  The stock piece literally just falls right out then.

Here's the ECS part vs stock.  See the slits in the stock piece?  They do a great job of killing the noise from the turbo.

Ok, put the new part in using the 5mm allens.  Put the coupler back on making sure to clock the clamps into a much more accessible position.  Airbox back in, stock intake pipe back on.  The stock intake pipe doesn't fit particularly well with the larger CTS inlet pipe.  You really have to jam it in place.  Luckily I found an ECS Tuning silicone inlet pipe used, I should have that in a few days.  It'll fit better and get rid of the accordion stock part.

Took the car for a drive today and it does seem to pull just a bit harder.  That said, I mostly did this to get juvenile turbo noises and in that respect it's a solid win!  Can really hear the turbo spooling up and the psshhh when you let off.  Awesome!

Next project for this car is installing the Integrated Engineering intercooler.

Well discovered that the stock airbox inlet hose doesn't like to stay put on the CTS turbo inlet pipe, which is larger in diameter than stock.

Another book of face marketplace find scored me an ECS Tuning silicone inlet pipe, which fits perfectly.  Car does feel more strong and you can hear the turbo a bit more but its still fairly subtle.

Next up, finding a day to install the Integrated Engineering intercooler.  That may have to wait until spring, just in case I run into issues.  That way I can drive the 911 if something happens....

Love the R, it's like an actual cool version of my TDI!

Nice work

In reply to Georges1991 :

Thanks! 

Last night I used the oil extractor and did an oil change since I turned just over 5000 miles.  Love that thing, hook it up to my air compressor and it sucks out all the old.  Since the oil filter canister is in the engine bay I don't need to get underneath the car.  New MANN oil filter and VW spec 502.00-505.00 oil and all done.

Might as well do a little review since I've had it about 6 months now.  Lovely car to live with, easy controls that are intuitive, supportive, comfy seats and good tech.  I really like the head unit, Apple CarPlay, digital dash.  It holds a surprising amount of stuff with the seats folded down.  It fit the two enormous boxes that held 3 sets of 997.2 GT2RS intercoolers and it also hauled home my Teq Equipment rollbar for my 996 Turbo.

Easy to park, handles really well and is quite zippy.  The only thing I'm surprised about is the fuel economy.  I'm matching the EPA quoted 24mpg mixed but I thought it'd be higher.  My previous Audi Quattro's all banged out 30mpg+ on the freeway easily, this one takes awhile to get close to that, like high 28-29mpg. 

Fun little OEM+ mod done last night.  The Skoda's come with this cool funnel cap for the windshield washer reservoir.  $14 shipped later from Latvia off eBay and I have a brand new one sitting in my hand.

Pull off the old stock one.  Pull off the strainer basket below the cap.

Put the new cap on and put in the strainer basket.  Here it is closed...

And the money shot, here it is open.  Taa-daaa!

In reply to docwyte :

It's those little things. Like that's genius. Makes me want to try a euro. Never had one.  They scare me. 

I'm impressed with the amount of crossover OEM+ stuff out there for this car.  For instance there are power folding side mirrors and cool dynamic tail lights I could do, but I don't want them enough to justify the price tag.

The Golf alltrack comes with a really nice skid plate/bellypan that I will add at some point tho and it's a direct bolt on.

That washer cap is pretty cool.  It looks like it might fit a lot of vehicles.  Your original one looks identical to the cap on my Grand Caravan.

Let's channel our inner Suby!  I don't wear flat brimmed hats, I don't vape and I don't call people "bro".  So now that I've got that out of the way, let's install some Rally Armor mud flaps on the R! 

Why?  Well, new car, live in Colorado, don't want the fender all scarred up.  Picked these up lightly used.  They come with decent instructions, no cutting/drilling necessary.

Super easy, bend the brackets to fit, attach brackets to the mud flaps, take out two T25 torx from the fenders, install mud flaps, dink around with getting the aligned the way you want, done!  I did remove the rear wheels, there just isn't enough room to work otherwise.  On the fronts you can just turn the wheels and get the space you need. 

Onto the pics!

Here's what we're putting on the car, held on by two screws that go into the factory spots

Here's the front installed and a great shot of my Hakkapellita R2 snow tires...

Rear wheel off, getting the rear flap on...

Lining up the rear mud flap...

Wheels back on, torqued down, finished pic

I'm kinda curious to see how these last, seems like Rally Armor should've figured out a way to attach them to the car on the inside bottom part...

Well, I've been noticing that my APR Boost gauge is lit up all the time.  I wasn't sure if it was because when I have the key in my pocket the car "sees" me coming and that I have the boost gauge hooked up to a wire that's gets power then or not.

So this am I walk by the car with no key in my pocket and the gauge is still lit up.  Nope, I've got it wired incorrectly, have the illumination wire tapping 12v constant.  Let's fix that.  Luckily on one of my book of Face Golf R groups someone had posted this same issue and one of the APR guys had posted their wiring diagram of the boost gauge I have.  So I copied and printed it out.

Read the instructions and I noticed that they want the boost solenoid vacuum port to point straight down, otherwise it can read inaccurately.  Hmmm, I can't remember how I clocked mine, let's double check that.  Nope, mine isn't pointing straight down and I don't have room where I currently have it mounted to do that.  So I move it over a bit to another stud, luckily I have the slack in the wiring harness and vacuum line to do that.  Looks cleaner over there too, away from the master cylinder reservoir etc. 

OK, let's pop out the headlight switch and pull off the side panel to get at the wiring.  The white wire is the illumination wire on the APR boost gauge.  They want it on a +12v switched source that comes on with the dash lights.  The ECS Tuning gauge install instructions say that's a all gray wire on the headlight switch harness.  I use my test light to confirm that's the case and it is.

So I just move the wire tap over, so now I have the white wire from the APR boost gauge on the all gray wire on the headlight switch harness.  Quick check, yep, light now pops on when I have the headlights on, result!  Quick drive confirms the gauge still works, hard to know if it's reading more accurately or not but at least I've got it setup the way APR wants.

Got some new parts yesterday.  Decided to swap over to wheel studs for both convenience and to let me run the 10mm spacers I've had for years from my old Audi allroad.

Here's pics of the front/rear wheel offset now.  They're fairly inboard in the wheel wells, give a sunken look I don't like.

Hilariously the studs and nuts come individually wrapped!  For what reason I have no idea...

Let's take a wheel off...

Stud installation is easy.  These have an allen key in the end of them and are bull nosed so the nuts don't cross thread as easily.  I put a bit of red loctite on them, thread them in by hand, then tighten them with the allen key socket in my 3/8" rachet.  Here they are installed with my 10mm H&R spacer

I got the studs a little long, in case I want to run a larger spacer in the future.  So they do poke out a bit but not past the wheel...

And here's the offset with the spacers installed.  Front is about perfect, I think the rear could come out a bit more, but these spacers were free! 

Tomorrow I'll install my coolant line reroute for the intake for a much cleaner look and delete the clutch delay valve.  I also should be getting my new vag-com cable, my 15yr old one wouldn't work on the 19 R.  I tried OBD11 but just couldn't get used to using it...

So I wanted to get the coolant reroute line for my intake.  Clean up the look as the stock coolant over flow line goes over the intake.

i called ecs and they said their line fit, so I ordered it.  Got stuck in some sort of inventory loop, so they suggested the apr coolant line, said it would fit.

i got it and mocked it up, looked like it would fit.  The stock coolant line has a check valve in it, the apr one doesn't.  They want you to remove said small plastic check valve from the stock hose and install it in theirs.

i manage to remove it without breaking it but the stock hose didn't do well.  Despite all my efforts and care the check valve broke when I tried to install it in the apr hose.  Dammit!

so I install the apr hose and then install the intake, only to find that it doesn't actually clear my intake after all.  Argh!  Call ecs, they're apologetic and order me the correct hose but it's back ordered.

wait two weeks when it's supposed to ship, ship date pushed back.  This happens two more times.  I call them and they refund my money for the apr hose.  

i decide to just order the new integrated engineering intake instead.  Sold the old intake and basically equal it out.

new intake makes cool noises but doesn't look oem+ like my old one

In reply to docwyte :

I can just feel the frustration. Never a fun time when stuff like that happens on your daily driver.

Stories like this make me understand the distrust for ECS, but I've been fortunate enough not to experience it first hand. Glad you got it sorted in the end.

I like how your car is coming along. It looks really good.  Even though I couldn't afford a Golf R, I bought the Korean version; Elantra N-Line.  like your Golf the rear wing leaves a lot to be desired, especially when the front looks mean.  It's a bit of a let down.  Going to see if I can find a wing like you did.  Off to Ebay I go!

In reply to MTechnically :

I've ordered from ECS for years.  I dealt with them over 20 years ago when they were just a regular shop and I've never had an issue.  I can't really complain, they took care of this issue quickly.  It's frustrating when the part you need is on intergalactic back order and you've jankified your DD so you can drive it.  After it got delayed twice I was just afraid that'd keep happening, so I kinda hit the nuclear button.

I'll probably order from them again but make sure it's in stock first.  The way this happened wasn't ideal because their reps told me something would fit when it didn't and I couldn't back my way out of it once I started.

I like the new intake but wish they'd made the heat shield have a wall up against the battery so it was more sealed.  Don't think it really matters all that much and I have an upgraded intercooler I'll be installing in the spring anyways.

Mike924, I actually got my wing off AliExpress, so check there too

docwyte said:

Fun little OEM+ mod done last night.  The Skoda's come with this cool funnel cap for the windshield washer reservoir.  $14 shipped later from Latvia off eBay and I have a brand new one sitting in my hand.

Pull off the old stock one.  Pull off the strainer basket below the cap.

Put the new cap on and put in the strainer basket.  Here it is closed...

And the money shot, here it is open.  Taa-daaa!

It kind of looks like the stand up john in the men's restroom haha. But it probably makes the washer reservoir easier to fill and you're not spilling washer fluid all over the damned place. 

So in Europe my car comes with all sorts of cool stuff that we don't get here.  What a surprise, right?  Anyways, I thought the dynamic signals were cool but I'm not willing to spend the $1000+ a set of tail lights costs.  However I can get the dynamic turn signals for my mirror housings.  They're super cheap at $21 shipped from Ali Express, so might as well try them out.

First thing is to pull off your mirror, very carefully!  I have all the blind spot monitoring stuff so the mirror glass is obscenely expensive.  Tilt the mirror all the way up, sneak your fingers underneath it and gently pull it off.  I left all my connections on, no need to remove them. 

Ok, now time to pop off the back of the mirror housing.  It's held on my two clips.  Release the clips while gently pushing back on the housing.  Do not break those clips, as the housing won't lock back into place.

Here's the housing off, I about had a heart attack on the drivers side as the whole thing popped off suddenly when I levered off the first clip

Ok, now there are two T10 torx screws to remove.  One's kinda hidden but its there.  I put some sticky stuff on my driver (which was included in the kit, along with an interior trim tool!) so the screw wouldn't drop into the housing

Ok, now remove the wiring harness connection.  Squeeze on the plug on the closest part to the window glass, that'll release the clip and pull it off towards the back of the car.

Now pop the stock turn signal out.  It takes a decent amount of force to do it.  Put the new turn signal in, I kinda rotated it into place and made sure the bolts holes lined up.

I got the smoked ones, so they disappear into the housings.  As they say, installation is the opposite...

Here's what they look like, pretty cool!

And the requisite blood sacrifice to the German car god...

There must be a blood sacrifice before it will work...

Decided to put swap out my CTS turbo inlet pipe for the Integrated Engineering one.  It's larger and might as well match up to their intake too. 

Easy install, sold the CTS one on the book of Face.  Scored a lightly used Neuspeed rear swaybar for the R from there too.  Might have scored an APR exhaust system as well, looking into shipping costs of it...

Big difference between the CTS and IE inlet's, and the CTS one is much larger than stock...

Well, the Golf R groups on the book of face have either been very kind or very costly to me lately.   

First I scored a very lightly used Neuspeed 25mm rear swaybar for a great deal, like under 1/2 price of new.  Then about a day later a very lightly used APR cat back exhaust popped up. 

I've been looking for an exhaust for awhile but since my car is a Mk7.5 most of the used ones don't fit as they're for the earlier Mk7.  Apparently VW changed the rear valence on the newer cars and the exhaust tips are further apart so the early exhausts don't fit.  Luckily this exhaust is for a Mk7.5 and is the model I want, with a resonator, mufflers and valve control. 

I agonized over it for a few hours before deciding to just buy the damn thing.  I figure my labor is free and if I don't like it or need to sell it I'll definitely recoup all my money on it as I got it for half price.  Half price is kinda my rule of thumb on buying used speed parts, unless they're really rare...

The APR exhaust will match perfectly with the APR downpipe I have sitting in my basement too, making a full 3" turbo back exhaust whenever I decide to install the downpipe...