Dave's MK7 GTI
 

I've been lucky enough to lease a few VW products and this one is my favorite. It is a 2016 GTI two door with the performance pack. It is the SE trim with a manual transmission and I love it. No options other than the performance pack, but the car comes well equipped.

My plans for it are to flash it with an APR tune which will make it almost as quick as the Porsche. Then I'll look at the headlights and suspension since it doesn't have the lighting package or DCC suspension.

Will post pictures after work!

Heres some pictures. Sometimes I'm not sure which car is more fun to drive on the roads around here to be honest.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1442/...34d98b95_c.jpg

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I'll have to take better photos in daylight this weekend.

I've got my parts list ready, now just waiting on paperwork to go through (it'll take 3-4 weeks) so that I can purchase the car off of the lease program. Then I can start the modding.

In the meantime, I drive it pretty much everywhere to keep miles off of the Porsche. It averages a steady 26mpg with a lot of traffic driving and costs about $24 to fill the tank at current gas prices.

The best part about it has to be the performance pack. The front limited slip dif gets rid of a lot of understeer when you're pulling out of a turn, and really keeps the car going straight with a launch too. There is definitely a large difference in traction and speed with that dif vs. the regular VAQ dif.

Still waiting on the paperwork to get the car transferred out of the company lease and into a personal loan so that I can own the car.

Looking to do the BEC headlights and the lighting package grill on the car...the factory halogens are pretty good for what they are, but the car misses something without the lighting package that i would like to try to get back from an exterior look perspective.

The other package that I'm looking at doing is the REVO lowering springs and rear swaybar. I like packages designed to work together and I like that the rear swaybar isn't a lot bigger than factory. Just enough of a rate increase to give the chassis a touch more out back.

Now just sit and wait....

Paperwork transferred and now the car is officially mine.

I have been dealing with the extremely light clutch in the GTI vs. the 911's heavier clutch and the difference in shifter feel is also obvious. To go between the cars is like a night and day experience in feel. The GTI shifter can be quite rubbery and notchy at times, unlike the rifle bolt precision of the Porsche shifter. I don't expect Porsche-level gearbox feel in a Golf, but it could use some tightening up.

Ordered some shifter bushings for the GTI to try to remedy this since it's my daily driver. $30 to see if it helps this condition of the factory shifter. Interestingly, the Golf R shifter does indeed feel better than the GTI shifter. Someday I may look into why.

In the meantime, I'm averaging between 24-26 mpg in the traffic of the DC Metro area. Hard to complain about that.

Some photos:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1666/...faa8c666_c.jpg

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1704/...681b458a_c.jpg

MIB2 Apple Car Play equipped Fender Stereo

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Performance Pack gets the Golf R front brakes:

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Family shot (They both need a detail):

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1652/...506096ba_c.jpg

Shifter bushings came in the mail yesterday, but I decided to hold off on the install and also purchase the European short shifter kit for the car. OEM VW part and its pretty damn cheap. It reminds me of how on the E46 M3, a common shifter upgrade was to use the shift lever from the 5 series diesel.

https://deutscheautoparts.com/oem-eu...j0711046e.html

This should arrive tomorrow or Monday, at which point I'll install it. Hopefully this will help cure some of the notchiness and vagueness of the factory shift lever and get it closer to how the Golf R manual feels.

Shifter arrived! Now I have a nice 30 minute project for the GTI.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1653/...eebea2ca_c.jpg

With the shifter addressed, my next plan will be to tie up the suspension a little tighter through the use of Bilstein PSS coilovers. These will be the height adjustable model, not the damping adjustable since I have full faith in what a Bilstein kit feels like. It'll allow me to fix some of the fender gap and really tighten the car up for light HPDE, Autocross work this summer.

Oh and an APR stage 1 tune to get the car near 300 bhp...

Mod plan:
Bilstein PSS
22-24mm RSB
APR Stage 1
SS brake lines
Lightweight Rotors
Ferodo DS2500 pads or StopTech Street Performance. Will depend on MOT.
Michelin PSS tires

Great news came out yesterday for VW fans....Cobb will be releasing the Accessport for the MK6 and MK7 GTI/R models!

Will be heading to Area1320 for the Protune once it's all done. Will post before/after dynos

Now just need to start looking at clutch replacements....

Awesome- I picked up my first VW (mk7 GTI) about a year ago. Only did two mods, S2T shifter paddles and a stage 1 APR tune. The tune transforms the car! The jump from stock to Stage 1 is much larger than Stage 1 to 2. Thus the reason I've been content.

I've been so happy with the GTI I pulled the trigger on an S3 this Saturday. I'll be doing more modding to this car as it can actually put down power. The GTI spins so easily.

The MQB is a fantastic platform!

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/...psfzbmo4va.jpg

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/...psvyabueiu.jpg

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/...s6ir0cpuj.jpeg

Perfect!

The S3 is a helluva platform, enjoy!

Does a K&N air filter count as a mod?

If so, installed one of those on the car today.

Instead of simple pop-clips like...pretty much every car i've ever worked on....the GTI uses Torx screws to hold the airbox lid on. Same as my Porsche.

No clips.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1603/...eb1077b3_z.jpg

T25 Torx bit will take apart most VAG products:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1545/...1c3c2c1a_z.jpg

Pop off this hose:

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Before/After:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1622/...ded5bbf7_z.jpg

Factory airbox is quite good and will be fine up to Stage 1 power level (300 hp). I don't expect any power gain from this, but it'll allow me to save down the road on air filter changes.

THMotorsports is running a sale today on the ST hollow 25mm rear sway bar. $157 shipped.

Ordered. :)

In process of installing the Torque Solutions shifter bushings. I'm going to separate the shifter install just to see what difference each part makes. So far, the front-to-back shifter bushing has been put in. It's fairly easy to do. The side-to-side bushing has been a bit harder and it looks like I will need to destroy the factory bushing carefully so as to not ruin the plastic mount in the arm. In that mount, I'll be placing the new bushing.

Just from testing the front-to-back bushing out, these are extremely effective at tightening up the sloppy shifter. I've measured a 30 degree reduction in deflection between the bushings on the front-to-back arm. Pretty incredible what such a cheap and simple mod can do.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1481/...b30255b4_z.jpg


After destroying the factory rubber mount carefully with a blade, the install of the second bushing for side-to-side movement took me roughly 30 seconds. The change in feel is pretty dramatic. The box feels much more sturdy and mechanical now. This is how the car should have come from the factory. Next up will be the S3 short shifter, but I'm going to drive on just the bushings for this week to enjoy this simple, low cost mod.

This change addresses one of my Top 2 complaints about the stock car. The sloppy gearbox. Next up will be the way too light clutch so that I can get the car tuned.

Rear swaybar shipped and gets here tomorrow. Ordered superpro upgraded endlinks to go with it.

May have something else to report by May....

Subbed, but nothing to add. Silly VW products :)

:lol:

Not as sexy a build journal as the 911, but still a fun DD.

looking forward to a mini project this weekend on this car. Now that I've gotten used to the feel of the upgraded shifter bushings, I plan on installing the short throw shifter.

While I'm in there, I plan on addressing one of the weak points of the driving experience in this car: the clutch delay valve.

When pushing the GTI and shifting quickly, the clutch pedal does not keep up with my feet due to this delay valve. After each shift, the pedal will hang before returning to its normal position. This may make the car easier to drive for novice manual transmission drivers, but it causes the car to delay putting the power down after a quick shift and bogs the engine a little bit as the clutch gets sacrificed.

I was wondering why I smelled clutch whenever I drove the car hard. This is why (to a large extent).

Pictures and observations to come. I think with the shifter and clutch addressed, my chief complaints of the car will go away.

Then I can install the rear swaybar and endlinks to give the rear end a little tighter response.

The clutch delay valve things are silly :( How hard is it to delete the valve?

Completely agree! My M3 had one and I think the Evo had one as well. Neither were as intrusive as the one in the GTI. VW is really trying to protect the manual transmission. (For a reason, but I don't think the aftermarket has caught up yet.)

Shouldn't be too difficult. Need to remove the bleeder block and pop out a plastic ring. Then reattach the lines and bleed out some air. Hopefully I don't screw it up haha.

Here's a better look of the two parts.

The silver piece with the MQ stamped on it is the shifter lever that's getting replaced for a short throw (damn cable transmissions)

The black line directly in front of it with the T section is the actual part needing to be removed for the bleeder valve mod.

Easy to access both of these once the airbox is removed.

https://flic.kr/p/Gv42Sh