Daily Polo GTI 1.8T 2-seater

[Henri__]

Hi to all

I have had my polo just over a year now and i thought i should make a post about what i have done for her this far.

Firstly when i bought the polo it had around 130k (km) on the clock. The car was at a dealer witch was around 200km from where i live. At the pictures everything seemed to be in order, but when i arrived at the dealer there was couple of surprises that they did not mention on the ad. Firstly when i took the car for a testdrive i noticed that the blower fan was not working. This was taken care of the dealer, so no big fuzz. That was the downside.

Bigger surprise came when i get to invest the summer tires/wheel (car was on winter tires at that time). They have OZ Superturismos with almost brand new rubber on them and nobody at the dealer was bothered to mention this in their online advert!? That set when new is after all almost two grand. On the other hand i they had mention this in the ad somebody else would probably got there and bought the car before me, so luck was on my side

Options list on this polo:
-Climatronic-ac
-ESP
-Tyre pressure monitoring
Everything else i believe is standard on a polo. Weirdly this polo was not speced with cruise control.

Now to the mods i have done to the car this far:
Sound deadening the whole car. When i drove home from the dealer on motorway at 120km/h i could not hear my phone ringing which was something like meter away on the dash. I previously owned an Audi A6, so the difference between the cars was almost undescribable. Every panel got at least one layer of STP Black Gold, which is 1,6mm aluminium/ butyl film + depending on the place 15mm or 35mm waffle type Silent Coat Sound Absorber. after the treatment i tested my work against BMW 320i 2013 and the noise level had one decibel difference in favour of the Polo, so im happy with that

Second mod was to replace all the polo's standard audio equipment. I had lying around Pioneer DEH 8600BT from my previous project cars, but everything else i had to buy. So the amplifier came down to Audisons 5-channel AV 5.1K. Front woofers are Audison AV6.5 and the tweeters are Audison AV1.1. RCA-cables are from a brand called Connection, no recall about the specific model. In the trunk there is a JL Audio 6W3V3 subwoofer with closed cabin with something like 4-5L box. I did calculate the size when i build it, but can't find any documents what it was.

Third was making the Polo 2-seater. I know from the beginning that the Polo would need this conversion, because i have to carry lots of stuff due to my current work. So the rear seats were removed and the boot was then made out of different thicknesses of MDB or plywood. Pictures tell more about this than i could write about, so look below how it turned out. Car is registered and completely legal, but modified so that when i want to sell a car i could reinstall the rear seats without any evidence that they were ever removed. So no added holes or anything like that.

Besides those larger mods there have been some upgrades/ maintenance issues
-Brembo brakes and pads (if you don't use copper paste with these they squeal like a pig!)
-All front suspension components/bushings/track rod inner and outer ends etc. (still clonks time to time, but i just put it on design)
-Small modifications to the exhaust to make it sound more like a GTI and less like a 1.4.
-Cruise control retrofit.
- Some refurbishing of paint/ interior parts.

At the moment the car is quite stock but there are some plans to change that.

Firstly i have been looking to some Koni FSD shocks and maybe new original springs with them. This is the lowest i want this boat to sail, so no intensions to lower it (at least at the moment )

- New head unit with apple car play. If someone has one lying around i am interested!

-Maybe do the whole interior with alcantara. Current one is just too plastic for my taste.

-Reupholster the top cover of the trunk. Measured a bit wrong first time and did not have any extra to cover the underside.

-Finalize tweeter installation. At the moment they are on test phase, so still moving them around.

without further ado, here are some pictures:

[Henri__]

Yesterday i picked up couple wheel liners to put on top of the stock plastic ones at the rear. Those fabric ones came off from a 2000 Ford Focus. Haven't tested them yet, but will post an update after i know the effect they have. And no, these are not even close to a straight fit. Lots of cutting and heating were involved.

Update: Yesterday i took a couple hour drive on a motorway, and those liner did not appear to do that much of a difference. Still a small change towards a quieter car is always welcome.

Next step is to figure out how to get sound absorber inside the door sills. Those things sound really hollow and let some tire noise inside the cabin. Any ideas would be welcome.

[Henri__]

Yesterday i got some time to clean the seats and change the shot front rear bushes to Seat Cupra TDI bushes.

Seats were surprisingly dirty, after the first seat the scruff pad turned from white to dark grey, but so did the colour of the seats change as picture shows



The old bushes were about year old and worn so bad that slightest groove or unevenness on the road and the car would make sudden direction changes. Also on acceleration and braking you really have to keep your hand on the steering wheel or you end up on the wrong side on the road

These bushes are not the easiest to change mainly because of the space and that you have to have exactly right size tools, otherwise you would damage the bushes / housing. Time wise they took about 5 hours all together. Mainly time went to sourcing right size tools

The end result though. The car does not do sudden hops on the road anymore and on the acceleration and braking the car feels to be on a tracks, not on a icy lake Also on corners you have much more feel whats under the wheels and what it happening all the time. No more sloppines and wondering about

Only downside of the bushes are, that there is small amount of vibration if i compared them to the old ones. But if you gain something you have to lose something on other ares. Although i have to say that car is still perfectly daily drivable and on a highway you really have to concentrate to spot the difference. Right up to the moment you turn the steering wheel. It is like a go-kart on licensplates

[Henri__]

Week has past and many things has taken changes.

Polished my headlight because the started to look a bit tired after 170k on the clock.


Some haziness on the upper picture lens. On the bottom picture lens has been wet sanded with 1200 and 2000 grit + polished.

Biggest upgrade was that i finally get ym car to run on e85 At the moment the power is stock but maybe someday i will get proper dyno tune, not just a box that increases the injection timing and quantities. That said, the box works like a dream. Great cold start (tested on -2) and no lagging or juddering. Also looked my lambda numbers and they were great, so nothing to complain with this setup The price difference at the pump is noticeable: 98 octane 1,58€/L and e85 0,99€/L. Consumption wise i have not seen any real changes. Did a 700km trip and the average was 9,1L/100km with two passengers and boot full of luggages. Before with 98 i could not get under 8,5 even by myself. Noted that 250km of this journey is motorway, so thats why the high consumption.



Also on wednesday i have to switch back to my winter tires because it started snowing again


Latest upgrade is new stereo head unit. Picked Alpine CDE-W296BT because i wanted working handsfree and also an unit which is more focused on music/sound quality and less gadget side. This unit has DSP and 24Bit D/A converter and on my demands pretty decent tuning options. More pictures of this later.

Edit: I realised that i had written in my first post that i want a unit which has Apple CarPlay. This opinion changed after i got in a new octavia to test the system. After spending couple of days with it i realised that there was nothing i really needed. It surely looks nice, but i can perfectly live my life at the moment without it and spend my money improving the car on other areas.

Tell me what you would do to the car? For my liking it is starting to get there, but new ideas are always welcome

[keza]

Now to the mods i have done to the car this far:
Sound deadening the whole car. When i drove home from the dealer on motorway at 120km/h i could not hear my phone ringing which was something like meter away on the dash. I previously owned an Audi A6, so the difference between the cars was almost undescribable. Every panel got at least one layer of STP Black Gold, which is 1,6mm aluminium/ butyl film + depending on the place 15mm or 35mm waffle type Silent Coat Sound Absorber. after the treatment i tested my work against BMW 320i 2013 and the noise level had one decibel difference in favour of the Polo, so im happy with that

Hi, did you put sound deadening only in the doors or somewhere else to? And how difficult was it to install cruise control?