Tom's TDI
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:45 pm
Hi my name is Tom. Im mostly a lurker when it comes to forums etc and don’t post often, but im currently distracting myself from doing uni work and would rather talk about my car lol. Apologies for the forthcoming rant, ive never written about this before and will try and remember everything! The following is what happened over 2 years.
I bought a Polo Sport TDI 130 2 years ago after my 206 hdi decided to blow up on the motorway…literally. As most people know on here, its hard enough trying to find a 130, non GT, let alone a 3 door, in a colour you want! 2 years ago it was even worse.
So here it is in “granny spec”, in official Winter Berry Red don’t you know lol (see what I mean about colour choice?), bought from a VW dealer as the second owner, with whopping 15inch alloys.
Within the first week I had a Revo remap installed and it was great, a real flyer! They reckon about 170bhp and 280lbft.
I ran it like this for about a year then decided I wanted some more fun bits and pieces. I wanted to uprate the handling as it was fairly shocking as standard. The 288mm front brakes had good bite but suffered from fade quickly. For 312mm I needed bigger alloys, a set of Monty 2 ‘s would do nicely. A trip to Awesome GTi and I had 35mm H and R springs a Whiteline ARB and Cupra bushes etc all round. The car could finally go round a corner at least a bit! Since then I have also fitted the Forge front and rear strut braces too.
Visiting Darkside Developments to pick up my 312’s I was taken for a spin in the Jetta. This was when it was running about 320bhp. A pretty interesting machine that revved and sounded like no diesel I had been in before.
Over the coming year I flitted between the idea of a Hybrid 150 or big turbo. I decided to start doing all the supporting mods before hand and started clicking :/
Milltek cat back exhaust and chop the cat out sounded like a plan. According to Milltek they don’t do an exhaust for the Polo tdi. I ordered a non resonated 9n3 Gti one instead. Fitment was perfect. Not a fan of the chrome tips, like the standard look so I had the ends chopped off and some down turned tips welded on instead.
Intercooler next, went for a SEAT sport job and pipework.
Hybrids regularly seem to put out a fair 370ish lbft of torque, so it needed a clutch and flywheel setup that could take the pain. I opted to go for the well thought of Southbend Stage 2 daily clutch and SMF. Good for about 400lbft, I reckoned it could hack it! It is pretty quiet but not silent, better than any other SMF I have heard tho.
I wanted the car to be an all round daily driver, I didn’t want to be struggling to keep it on the road every time it came on boost or saw a corner. I had a Peloquin ATB installed when the clutch was out.
Got fed up of the ride of the H and R springs so swapped them out for some Weitec Hicon GT coilovers. Sits at an acceptable height for me and the ride/handling is much improved.
Saw a few pics of 9n2/3’s with TT comps, and sourced a set nearby. They came with budget tyres with little tread. Order a set of Toyo T1-R’s as they have a good name on other forums.
Finally came the turbo, I opted for the baby big turbo. The GTB1756. Keeping with the daily driver theme, it came on boost earlier than a hybrid and would be capable of maxing out the standard injectors.
DD fitted and mapped it all extremely well. The saying goes “no smoke no poke” but there really is no smoke but a fair bit of poke lol.. It drives like standard, boosting nice and low so youre not caught out in the wrong gear very often.
I took it to Dynodaze (next door to R-tech – a very nice bunch of chaps) to see what power it was running. It made 224 bhp and 360lbft with NO smoke.
Until recently it was an absolute nightmare trying to keep the engine cool. The coolant kept boiling over after a spirited drive and it would need replacing often. I had the waterpump changed and cambelt while it was apart. Still cooked itself. Then had the cooling tank and all the pipework replaced, checked for headgasket failure, radiator leaks - nothing. I noticed the radiator fan wouldnt ever come on despite the heat. Wired up the sidelights to the fans so now they come on together (cool mod i really like).. This has solved the problem completely and it works a treat now and im really happy with it.
Comments are welcome! im not offended easily
Sorry for the lengthy write up :/ I wish I could do it with uni work!
I bought a Polo Sport TDI 130 2 years ago after my 206 hdi decided to blow up on the motorway…literally. As most people know on here, its hard enough trying to find a 130, non GT, let alone a 3 door, in a colour you want! 2 years ago it was even worse.
So here it is in “granny spec”, in official Winter Berry Red don’t you know lol (see what I mean about colour choice?), bought from a VW dealer as the second owner, with whopping 15inch alloys.
Within the first week I had a Revo remap installed and it was great, a real flyer! They reckon about 170bhp and 280lbft.
I ran it like this for about a year then decided I wanted some more fun bits and pieces. I wanted to uprate the handling as it was fairly shocking as standard. The 288mm front brakes had good bite but suffered from fade quickly. For 312mm I needed bigger alloys, a set of Monty 2 ‘s would do nicely. A trip to Awesome GTi and I had 35mm H and R springs a Whiteline ARB and Cupra bushes etc all round. The car could finally go round a corner at least a bit! Since then I have also fitted the Forge front and rear strut braces too.
Visiting Darkside Developments to pick up my 312’s I was taken for a spin in the Jetta. This was when it was running about 320bhp. A pretty interesting machine that revved and sounded like no diesel I had been in before.
Over the coming year I flitted between the idea of a Hybrid 150 or big turbo. I decided to start doing all the supporting mods before hand and started clicking :/
Milltek cat back exhaust and chop the cat out sounded like a plan. According to Milltek they don’t do an exhaust for the Polo tdi. I ordered a non resonated 9n3 Gti one instead. Fitment was perfect. Not a fan of the chrome tips, like the standard look so I had the ends chopped off and some down turned tips welded on instead.
Intercooler next, went for a SEAT sport job and pipework.
Hybrids regularly seem to put out a fair 370ish lbft of torque, so it needed a clutch and flywheel setup that could take the pain. I opted to go for the well thought of Southbend Stage 2 daily clutch and SMF. Good for about 400lbft, I reckoned it could hack it! It is pretty quiet but not silent, better than any other SMF I have heard tho.
I wanted the car to be an all round daily driver, I didn’t want to be struggling to keep it on the road every time it came on boost or saw a corner. I had a Peloquin ATB installed when the clutch was out.
Got fed up of the ride of the H and R springs so swapped them out for some Weitec Hicon GT coilovers. Sits at an acceptable height for me and the ride/handling is much improved.
Saw a few pics of 9n2/3’s with TT comps, and sourced a set nearby. They came with budget tyres with little tread. Order a set of Toyo T1-R’s as they have a good name on other forums.
Finally came the turbo, I opted for the baby big turbo. The GTB1756. Keeping with the daily driver theme, it came on boost earlier than a hybrid and would be capable of maxing out the standard injectors.
DD fitted and mapped it all extremely well. The saying goes “no smoke no poke” but there really is no smoke but a fair bit of poke lol.. It drives like standard, boosting nice and low so youre not caught out in the wrong gear very often.
I took it to Dynodaze (next door to R-tech – a very nice bunch of chaps) to see what power it was running. It made 224 bhp and 360lbft with NO smoke.
Until recently it was an absolute nightmare trying to keep the engine cool. The coolant kept boiling over after a spirited drive and it would need replacing often. I had the waterpump changed and cambelt while it was apart. Still cooked itself. Then had the cooling tank and all the pipework replaced, checked for headgasket failure, radiator leaks - nothing. I noticed the radiator fan wouldnt ever come on despite the heat. Wired up the sidelights to the fans so now they come on together (cool mod i really like).. This has solved the problem completely and it works a treat now and im really happy with it.
Comments are welcome! im not offended easily
Sorry for the lengthy write up :/ I wish I could do it with uni work!