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Model specific boards => Golf mk3 => Topic started by: AdamBeevers on 19 September 2010, 11:01
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Hi there people , i will soon be the owner of a mk3 16v, and was wandering what the cheapish easy power gains are? iv heard with not too much money you can squeeze about 170 bhp out of these no problem , so was wandering what the best mods were? things like chip, air filter etc, and what are the best makes? cheers. Adam.
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Please try a search, i've lost count of how many of these threads there are already :lipsrsealed:
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1. Go to a powerflow dealer get a custom made stainless exhaust done and fitted from catback this will set you back £320-£400 depending on which dealer you go to. (You can fit as many silencers as you want, I got 3 on mine and its still nice n loud when I floor it)
2. Get an after market air filter. Cheapest thing for you to do, is drill your current airbox and have a fresh filter on it. (Cost you approx £20) However, what ive done is, got a K&N Air Filter, made a direct air feed straight to it, from the grille at the bottom and then fitted a stainless heat shield over it to absorb engine heat, while the air feed provides cold air. Approx cost £80-100
3. Get 10mm Spark Leads, I bought mine from FuelCat ... Google the brand, the website doesn't look that great and they don't stock them on the site, but you can contact the guy directly. This cost me £60-70 and have lasted 2 years already with no problems.
4. Change your dizzy/rotor arm (£15-25), and get new spark plugs (£10-20 set of 4), doesnt have to be anything fancy like Denso Iridiums just something decent brand, i.e. NGK, Bosch.
5. Oil, filter change.
6. Lower the car on Springs/Uprated Shocks ... or Coilovers, up to you. Any brand thats German should suffice.
Thats all i'd do really, and you will notice a BIG change from standard. I know its a bit naughty for me to say this, but my mechanic friend, he has a stock 16v and both of us went for a test down a empty dual carriageway, and floored it to about 135-140 and I was ahead of him by 4-5 car lengths with all those mods.
Don't forget the mods look good cosmetically aswell. A lowered car with polished stainless pipes looks good!
Then you can get a pair of nice wheels at the right price when your bothered.
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All those things will net you a lot of noise and only 2-3 BHP...at best.
There are no mythical gains to be had from the 16v...no quick '+10BHP' tweaks....if you really want to tune it, perpare to did deep.
If you want 170 BHP it's going to cost you...165ish fairly easily (£1000)
170-175 another £1000-1500 on top...
190ish another £1000 on top...
200+ another £2000 on top again...
210+ another £2000 on top again.
How far do you want to go?
Or, you can lighten the flywheel for a couple of hundered quid fitted and have the car feel like you've added 20+ BHP
Change the gearing at the same time...and it'll feel like you've added 40 BHP...and work out FAR cheaper than actually adding 40 BHP.
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All those things will net you a lot of noise and only 2-3 BHP...at best.
There are no mythical gains to be had from the 16v...no quick '+10BHP' tweaks....if you really want to tune it, perpare to did deep.
If you want 170 BHP it's going to cost you...165ish fairly easily (£1000)
170-175 another £1000-1500 on top...
190ish another £1000 on top...
200+ another £2000 on top again...
210+ another £2000 on top again.
How far do you want to go?
Or, you can lighten the flywheel for a couple of hundered quid fitted and have the car feel like you've added 20+ BHP
Change the gearing at the same time...and it'll feel like you've added 40 BHP...and work out FAR cheaper than actually adding 40 BHP.
Ess_Three I know you specialise in 16v's, but do you know if a lightened flywheel will make an 8v feel much quicker? Also how light can you go?
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Ess_Three I know you specialise in 16v's, but do you know if a lightened flywheel will make an 8v feel much quicker? Also how light can you go?
It always helps...8v uses the O2O which is lighter than the 16v/VR6 flywheel anyway, and can go much lighter.
I'm not sure how light...but approx half the weight it is now, I'd say. I can't give you weights though, sorry.
It'll feel like adding 15-20 BHP!
The other option for the 8v is to find a closer spaced or lower geared gearbox, as IIRC my old 8v was long of gear.
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Your best first bet will be to get the car running right, a good service and sort out any issues.
As Ess Three says it will cost you a lot of cash to get serious real gains so unless your in for the long term it will be very expensive.
Sort out the handling and the brakes and you will get from A to B quicker than by just adding horsepower without the handling.
A lightened flywheel makes a huge differance to the acceleration and pick up as does lightening the car. Lightweight wheels also improve the acceleration and handling, one or two kgs off of each wheel make a serious differance.
Paul
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Ess_Three I know you specialise in 16v's, but do you know if a lightened flywheel will make an 8v feel much quicker? Also how light can you go?
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Standard 020 flywheel weight is 5.5 kgs and you can go down to about 3.2 kgs safely.
Just over 2kgs off the rotational mass will make a noticeable differance.
Paul
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CAM!/s :laugh:
How much top end will you use in the realworld? Asbeen said above if you do mods to make a to b quicker you'll enjoy driving it more anyway
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Ess_Three I know you specialise in 16v's, but do you know if a lightened flywheel will make an 8v feel much quicker? Also how light can you go?
Standard 020 flywheel weight is 5.5 kgs and you can go down to about 3.2 kgs safely.
Just over 2kgs off the rotational mass will make a noticeable differance.
Paul
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Cheers :afro:
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If you're gunna lighten the flywheel prepare to lose intertia and you'll have to be much betetr with choise of gears/rpm matching
Also if you lighten the flywheel you will need to re-balance the crankshaft and flywheel assembly, so you might as well knife edge the crank while you're at it ;)
Or you could just leave it alone and enjoy what is a pretty decent car.
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If you're gunna lighten the flywheel prepare to lose intertia and you'll have to be much betetr with choise of gears/rpm matching
Also if you lighten the flywheel you will need to re-balance the crankshaft and flywheel assembly, so you might as well knife edge the crank while you're at it ;)
Or you could just leave it alone and enjoy what is a pretty decent car.
Wow, and I was just thinking, thats what i'd DEFINITELY do if my clutch ever decided to die on me.
So is it a completely different drive? need to shift much quicker? and get used to a completely different style?
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If you're gunna lighten the flywheel prepare to lose intertia and you'll have to be much betetr with choise of gears/rpm matching
And?
Changing gears is no different...you just loose more revs between them as the engine slows quicker...you may stall more easily when pulling away from a standstill...that's the main drawback. There is still a flywheel there, so you retain some flywheel effect.
Also if you lighten the flywheel you will need to re-balance the crankshaft and flywheel assembly, so you might as well knife edge the crank while you're at it ;)
Utter rubbish.
The crank is balanced to some degree independantly from the rest...so is the flywheel.
You can lighten the flywheel, re-balance it and re-fit it without touching the bottom end in any way.
It's been done for years...no issues.
VW engines are not dynamically balanced as matching sets at the factory...so you aren't upsetting anything.
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Wow, and I was just thinking, thats what i'd DEFINITELY do if my clutch ever decided to die on me.
So is it a completely different drive? need to shift much quicker? and get used to a completely different style?
No, no and no.
It'll be more likely to stall if you don't give it enough revs when pulling away, it'll drop speed more quickly between gears so you'll not want to take an ice age to change gears...and it'll pull harder through the gears...takes all of 5 minutes to get used to it.
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Of course you CAN do it without doing the crank, but I'm from school of if you're doing it, do it properly.
I'm a professionally trained engine builder and have spent a lot of time balancing cranks, you'd be massively surprised how much a modified flywheel throws a crank out of balance and a properly balanced rotating assembly makes a huge difference to the general 'happiness' of the engine, bearings live longer and friction is reduced, everything opperates more smoothly and quietly.
It's up to you, but I'd always do the full package if I was going to mess about with engines.
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Of course you CAN do it without doing the crank, but I'm from school of if you're doing it, do it properly.
I'm a professionally trained engine builder and have spent a lot of time balancing cranks, you'd be massively surprised how much a modified flywheel throws a crank out of balance and a properly balanced rotating assembly makes a huge difference to the general 'happiness' of the engine, bearings live longer and friction is reduced, everything opperates more smoothly and quietly.
It's up to you, but I'd always do the full package if I was going to mess about with engines.
Lightening and balancing a crank is a LOT more work that doing the flywheel...and gives less gains (VW cranks aren't *that* bad as standard).
Ripping the bottom end to bits is a whole different job to removing 6 bolts and changing a flywheel.
You can buy a flywheel and fit any suitable flywheel to any engine...so they aren't a matched set...lightening a balanced flywheel only reduced the effectiveness of the flywheel.
Can you explain how a non-matched crank/flywheel pair can be thrown out of balance by lightening one of the two bits, assuming the bit that's been lightened is re-balanced independantly afterwards)?
That's like saying if I lighten my crank, my flywheel will be out of baslance.
I don't get it?
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Personally I can't understand how a properly lightened and balanced engine component such as a flywheel could ever be detrimental to it's running seeing as you'd reducing the amount of off axis inertia energy which would obviously cause issues and increased wear.
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I'm with Ess 3 here as I cant see how balancing a flywheel with thorw the crank out of balance, assuming it was "in balance/normal tolerance" before!
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Couldn't agree more Ess-Three
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As been said there is no need to lighten and balance the crank as well. I had over 3kg's taken off of my flywheel and have had no problems with it. Hotgolf who lightened and balanced my flywheel said he hasn't found a standard one that is anywhere near balanced yet.
Differant makes of clutch pack all weigh differant so on that basis you should get the whole lot balanced every time you change your clutch :grin:
I have not had any problems with stalling or pulling away yet and as previously said it takes all of 5 minutes to get used to the change. The idle characteristics change slightly with a lightened flywheel and if you have aircon it will idle slightly higher than before with the aircon on.
As far as changing gear goes you will find no problems with everyday driving or driving on the track, it picks up so much quicker that the slight drop in revs between gear changes is outweighed by the quicker pickup.
Paul
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I've been wanting to lighten my flywheel for a while now. When clutch needs replacing (touch wood it doesn't in the next year or two) I'll lighten it.
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I've been wanting to lighten my flywheel for a while now. When clutch needs replacing (touch wood it doesn't in the next year or two) I'll lighten it.
Turbo it and run Nitro Meth
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easy way to go faster would be to loose some weight, get on a diet if your a fat tw4t :laugh:
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From what ive heard all the cool German kids have resorted to cutting off a limb or two for the ultimate in weight saving and extra go-go scene points...saws to ready people!
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easy way to go faster would be to loose some weight, get on a diet if your a fat tw4t :laugh:
What about a full fuel tank? :rolleyes: