£350 to spend under bonnet wot to do????

[chrissywood]

i just brought a 2.0 16v mk3 gti it has got a supersprint cat back exhaust and a k&n iv got about £350 to spend under the bonnet to gain some power because to b honest its my first golf iv always had civics or other japcrap and i was a bit disapointed with the power and torque can any of you guys suggest where to spend the money will spend more just not loaded??

[chrissywood]

you would of thought on a golf gti forum sum1 would no a little abot em?

[DazVR6]

Next thing would be a remap i'd say....although if you have abit more to spend then maybe think about cams and a new p&p head.

Do a search for a member called Ess Three, he has a mk3 16v with 196bhp, sure some of his threads or answers will help.

[VR6-Joe]

£350 should be enough to find yourself a fairly good VR6 engine

Only 24bhp more than the Valver but that engine noise 

[Paul86S2]

Give it a good service first, clean out the throttle body and then see how it goes.

You say it has a K&n. Is that a panel filter or the induction kit. If its the induction kit try putting a cold feed to it. If its the panel filter give it a clean and do the airbox mods. All free. Should be worth a couple of bhp.

De ramp the throttle body search throttle body porting, again free. Another couple of bhp.

For £350 you aren't going to get much in the way of real performance gains, most of the cheap bolt on stuff doesn't really get you any gains if any at all.

Polished and ported head is gonna cost you more than your budget, same for cams. A lightened flywheel will probably make the most differance but your gonna need to remove the gearbox and clutch to fit it. Cost about £70.

A rolling road remap will cost you about £250, the gains will depend on many factors.

As previously said search for Ess threes thread to see what he has done.

Paul

[Wayne]

I would save the money, any gain will be small and not worth the money.

[VR6-Joe]

I would personally focus on sorting the handling out

Decent set of coilovers, decent ARBs and Powerflex bushes. Maybe a decent set of tyres.

It's all good making the car fast but you want it to handle good aswell

[Ess_Three]

£350 should be enough to find yourself a fairly good VR6 engine

Only 24bhp more than the Valver but that engine noise 

Great noise!
But with all that extra weight... 

[Ess_Three]

Buy a Dremell, first of all. £50 or so with tools.

Buy a subwoofer port for the airbox and Modify the airbox using the Dremell, add the K&N filter - a couple of BHP gained for the cost of about £50 (K&N Filter, Araldite and the cost of a Sub Port).

Modify the TB as previously suggested, using your shiny new Dremell - free.

Pick up a cheapo eBay chip for it...maybe £50 or so?
That lot should net you 5-8 BHP genuine.

£150 so far...


Get your self a spare flywheel from a breakers/classified ad for about £30.
Get it lightened at a cost of around £70.

That leaves around £100 to get the lightened flywheel fitted - that will feel like you've added 30 BHP right there.

[Ess_Three]

I would personally focus on sorting the handling out

Decent set of coilovers, decent ARBs and Powerflex bushes. Maybe a decent set of tyres.

It's all good making the car fast but you want it to handle good aswell

Sadly, £350 will barely make a dent in that list...
You may ge the Poly bushing done for £350...
Or the ARBs...
But you sure as hell won't get springs/dampers or coilovers woth having for £350...and to properly sort the Mk3's handling woes out, you are looking at the thick end of £1500, to do a proper job....mind you, you'll have a pretty impressive handling Mk3 for your money.

Then there's the tyres on top...